Pat Buchanan: How Far Can He Go In Politics?

I can see a remote possibility of him winning the Republicsn nomination in 1996. h He would lose the general election in landslide.
 
I can see a remote possibility of him winning the Republicsn nomination in 1996. h He would lose the general election in landslide.

Possibly. He may not be the gaffe machine that OTL's 2012 Romney has turned out to be, but I think the racism would turn a lot of moderates off.
 
I can see a remote possibility of him winning the Republicsn nomination in 1996. h He would lose the general election in landslide.

Have him get the nomination, then have a credible rape charge (or some similar level scandal come out against Clinton).

And his anti-Israel sentiments that I've heard are less harsh than Carter's (Post presidency) or any number I've heard from supposedly mainstream liberals on political sites.
 
Buchanan's limited mostly by how open he is about his views. If he were more reserved, than I could see him winning a seat in Congress in the 1990s (perhaps in 1994). His views are not so different than some paleo-conservatives currently in Congress, especially when it comes to immigration and other social issues. I could also see him becoming Governor of a state like Virginia in the mid-'90s if he were more subdued. Then again, much of his appeal stems from his "shoot-from-the-hip" mentality.

Assuming that Buchanan lays off the anti-semitism and more extreme rhetoric, I could see him becoming a much stronger Presidential candidate. His brand of conservative populism was already popular enough to give him several victories in the '96 primaries. That being said, I see no way that Buchanan actually wins the White House without some extensive PODs. Clinton's going to win reelection in 1996 no matter who he faces as long as the outside circumstances remain pretty much the same. 2000 would be a better year for Buchanan, but he would have to go through more mainstream Republicans and President Bush to get there. Overall, his chances of becoming President are pretty much slim-to-none.
 
It is not hard to imagine Pat Buchanan running under the GOP banner in Virginia for, say, a U.S. Senate seat in the late 1980s or 1990s...perhaps against Senator Chuck Robb in 1994 or for the open seat in 2000 if he decided to forgo a run as the Reform Party presidential candidate.
 
Buchanan's limited mostly by how open he is about his views. If he were more reserved, than I could see him winning a seat in Congress in the 1990s (perhaps in 1994). His views are not so different than some paleo-conservatives currently in Congress, especially when it comes to immigration and other social issues. I could also see him becoming Governor of a state like Virginia in the mid-'90s if he were more subdued. Then again, much of his appeal stems from his "shoot-from-the-hip" mentality.

Assuming that Buchanan lays off the anti-semitism and more extreme rhetoric, I could see him becoming a much stronger Presidential candidate. His brand of conservative populism was already popular enough to give him several victories in the '96 primaries. That being said, I see no way that Buchanan actually wins the White House without some extensive PODs. Clinton's going to win reelection in 1996 no matter who he faces as long as the outside circumstances remain pretty much the same. 2000 would be a better year for Buchanan, but he would have to go through more mainstream Republicans and President Bush to get there. Overall, his chances of becoming President are pretty much slim-to-none.

Would have been interesting if the Buchanan managed to get the debate focused on his non-interventionalism.
 
Now I'm wondering about another version of Chaos: The Presidential Election of 1996, in which instead of it being Clinton vs. Dole vs. Powell, it's Buchanan vs. Clinton vs. Powell. Now wouldn't that be an absolute mess?
 
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