Word: buchananism
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...recently, thanks to the hoopla surrounding presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan's threatened defection from the GOP, the Reform Party has made it back into the limelight. But he's not the only one who might seek the Reform Party nomination. Party members are openly wooing other illustrious pseudo-celebrities include former Connecticut governor and political maverick Lowell P. Weicker Jr. and real estate mogul Donald "The Donald" Trump. Led by Minnesota governor and former pro-wrestler Jesse "The Body" Ventura the House that Ross Built might be making some headway after...
...problem, however, is that neither Buchanan nor any of the other circus-show candidates are quick solutions to the party's deeper woes...
...Buchanan, however, could do little to help the Reform Party accomplish these goals. His strong anti-abortion and anti-homosexual views not only violate the party's pledge to remain silent on social issues, but would substantially change the party's constituency. Any party that nominates a candidate with such volatile and xenophobic views--Buchanan has said he would support building a wall on the Mexican border--seriously risks banishment to the fringes of American politics...
...variety of possible candidates makes it difficult for the party to establish a coherent platform. There is even uncertainty in the party on budget policy and paying down the national debt, previously one of the party's most central platforms. Buchanan, for one, wants a tax cut that exceeds the already-irresponsible Republican proposal vetoed by President Clinton last week...
Along with isolationism, Buchanan dredges up another dark American political tradition: old-fashioned, immigrant-bashing nativism. While George W. Bush and other Republicans are courting the Hispanic vote, Buchanan warns that too many black- and brown-skinned people are entering the U.S. ("No nation has ever undergone so radical a demographic alteration and survived"). He lashes out at Jews as too influential (using the kind of rhetoric that led fellow Catholic conservative William Buckley to conclude, in a 1991 National Review article, that Buchanan was an anti-Semite). But he also argues that Greek-Americans, African-Americans and other "hyphenates...