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Buchanan is joining the battle over the meaning of conservatism in the 1990s. Will conservatives have an agenda for minorities or merely the back of their hand? Will they support free trade or protectionism? Will America come first, or not? Said an influential conservative: "It's not that Pat has made a lot of converts among conservative elites. But he has heightened the need to give definition to a conservatism that is neither Bush status-quoism nor the nativist regressive approach of the 1950s." Not everybody wants to have that debate in the middle of a closer than expected Bush re-election campaign. The National Review, which earlier advised its New Hampshire readers to lodge a protest vote on Buchanan's behalf, calls in its current issue for Buchanan to get out after Michigan to preserve his status as "one of several leaders of a united conservative movement."
Buchanan softened his anti-Bush line last week, promising not to "rule or ruin" the party. But Republican National Committee chairman Richard Bond may have unintentionally goaded Buchanan to remain in the race when he likened him to David Duke "in a jacket and tie." Buchanan responded by calling for Bond's dismissal and added, "We've been driving the debate, so why quit when we are winning the argument?"
Buchanan's lingering presence in the race continues to scramble the already complicated picture for 1996, when a battle royal will take place over the Bush succession. Conservatives such as William Bennett, Pete du Pont and Jack Kemp, urged by supporters to run this year as a warm-up for 1996, are surely kicking themselves for leaving the field open to Buchanan. Worse, they must now contend with him as a 1996 front runner. "Every day Buchanan stays in, Bennett, Kemp and Du Pont have to work a little harder," says the Heritage Foundation's Pines.
One unexpected beneficiary of all this may be Dan Quayle. The Vice President has spent more time on the road, in bigger media markets, than he would have if Buchanan had not mounted a challenge. Buchanan's ascendance to the first tier will make Quayle less of a lonely target in the pre-season maneuvering. And by remaining magnanimous in the current debate, Quayle has attempted, said an aide, to "remind the establishment G.O.P. that there is a conservatism they can live with."
Quayle now thinks that Buchanan will stay in the race through the California primary, where a host of local races and widespread dissatisfaction with moderate Governor Pete Wilson promises a large conservative turnout. Buchanan has already compiled what his rival admits is probably the best direct-mail list of the decade; by remaining through California, Buchanan could as much as double his 25,000-name list and create a postconvention PAC capable of raising more than half a million dollars a year -- enough to keep him on the road ) after November, laying the groundwork for a '96 run.