IN THE SPACE OF 10 DAYS AROUND NEW YEAR’S, one Republican presidential candidate was treated to cover stories in insider Washington magazines the $ INew Republic and National Journal as well as a frontpage profile in the New York Times. But the subject wasn’t front-runner Bob Dole or insurgent supply-sider Steve Forbes. Instead, it was Patrick Buchanan, who is stuck in single digits in the polls and actually is getting less popular with voters, not more. The flurry of coverage of Buchanan is evidence that he is on the verge of becoming the Bruce Babbitt of 1996 — a presidential candidate more loved by the media (see Babbitt in 1988) than the masses.
Were Buchanan showing signs of knocking off Dole, the attention might be justified. But an early January CNN/USA Today poll has him mired at 6 percent, down from 9 percent in mid-December. This should annoy someone like Forbes, whose surge (he’s running second in most polls now and leads in Arizona) has forced a new emphasis on flee-market economics and the flat tax into the GOP’s once-dour debate. While he was recently the beneficiary of a $ IVanity Fair profile, Forbes has yet to receive the amount of coverage devoted to the sinking Buchanan, who in addition to the pieces already mentioned, has scored a profile in GQ, a November cover story in Time, a 10,000-word write-up in the Village Voice, a June profile in the Nation, and short pieces in Newsweek and the Economist.
One theme that runs through many of these pieces is that Buchanan’s views are “dr iving the GOP race” (as the January 15 Newsweek puts it). Yet there’s no evidence that Buchanan is having any influence on Dole or any other candidate with regard to major issues. On trade, Buchanan is the lone protectionist. On immigration, he’s the only one who wants to close the borders (for five years). And on foreign policy, he’s the most ardent isolationist in the field. Buchanan’s opposition to deploying American troops to Bosnia is shared by other candidates but not by Dole.
The absence of a “Buchanan factor” was evident when six Republican candidates debated in Columbia, South Carolina, on January 6. The main issues discussed were the budget, Bill Clinton, taxes, welfare, and foreign policy. There was only one candidate — Buchanan — thundering against the Mexico bailout and NAFTA. Similarly, Buchanan’s negative emphasis on the “New World Order” and his attacks on the Republican Congress for Medicare reform haven’t found any takers among GOP candidates. “I don’t think he’s changed the ideological debate one iota,” says pollster Frank Luntz, who worked on the Buchanan campaign four years ago.
As remarkable as the quantity of Buchanan’s press coverage is the tone. His positions on hot-button issues such as abortion, homosexuality, and race make him anathema to most reporters. But reading excerpts from some of the Buchanan profiles, you get the impression you’re rereading swoon pieces written about Bill Clinton in 1992: “Buchanan is the closest thing to a genuine populist in the 1996 race so far” (the populist-friendly Nation); “He has perfected a cathartic language that taps voters” economic frustrations but deflects their attention away from painful solutions” (Time); “His ability to bond with the economically distressed people he meets on the campaign trail is unmistakable” (New Republic); “He may be the best pure campaigner in the Republican field. . . . He also has a unique — and coherent — message” ($ INewsweek). After Tom Carson of the left-wing Village Voice tagged along with Buchanan in Iowa, he told the candidate, “I’ve been waiting my whole life for someone running for president to talk about the Fortune 500 as the enemy, and when I finally get my wish, it turns out to be you.”
Media sympathy for Buchanan would undoubtedly taper off were he ever to mount a serious challenge. In the meantime, Buchanan’s unorthodox economic nationalism appeals to many reporters who don’t support the GOP’s free- enterprise agenda. “He’s a populist and that resonates with a lot of the press, ” says Tom Edsall, a national political reporter for the Washington Post who has covered Buchanan. The admirably honest Carson even writes, “To a progressive’s ear, a great deal of Buchanan’s conglomerate-bashing populist rhetoric has a familiar, disconcertingly alluring ring — the kind that is capable of bringing out the old socialist firehouse-dog slumbering in many of us, and that no contemporary Democrat this side of Jesse Jackson ever feels at liberty to indulge in.” Proof of this came in a January 8 New York Times op-ed by an economist with AFSCME, the major public-employ- ees union, $ Ipraising Buchanan for putting “the interests of workers first” and criticizing Bill Clinton for “showing little concern for the anxiety workers feel.”
Yet Buchananomics alone doesn’t explain the candidate’s success with the press. Even when he was running against George Bush four years ago, Buchanan received 48 percent positive coverage from the three networks, according to an analysis by the Washington-based Center for Media and Public Affairs (Bush’s was only 16 percent positive). Other factors at work are Buchanan’s talent for soundbites (he says the Japanese target American industries “as well as they targeted Pearl Harbor;” Bob Dole is “our Walter Mondale”) and the fact that he caters to a constituency that is red meat for journalists. Edsall also sees similarities of outlook between the candidate and the scribes. Buchanan’s “a king killer,” Edsall says. “Reporters are king killers. There’s a commonality of interest.” Finally, Buchanan stands out as a free spirit in a field dominated by programmed candidates. He is “enjoyable to be around,” writes John Judis in GQ, adding, “Unlike many politicians, he doesn’t have a profane or cynical side that comes to the fore once the camaera’s glare recedes.”
One sinister theory interprets the Buchanan boomlet as a way for the media to undercut viable Republican candidates to benefit Bill Clinton (Newsweek’s$ N decision four years ago to put Buchanan on the cover is cited in support of this scenario). That may or may not be true, but there’s a problem in focusing so much attention on a bit player: It presents a highly distorted picture of the GOP primaries.
Buchanan has supporters, and they include some real loons (as GQ and the Village Voice report), but the bigger story is that the same national poll clocking him at 6 percent put Dole at 49 pe rcent. The solid performance of a conventional front-runner may not be exciting, but boredom with Dole is hardly a reason to boost a candidate with no chance of winning the Republican nomination — -especially one with so little influence on the debate.
by Matthew Rees
