Buchanan Sees California as Battle After War’s End

Patrick J. Buchanan, conceding Friday that he expects to lose the race for the Republican presidential nomination to President Bush, vowed nevertheless to make California “the mother of all primaries in 1992.”

“We are going to make this a battleground for the Republican Party and for the future of the Republican Party,” he said at a Los Angeles press conference before kicking off the early part of his California campaign.

Buchanan conceded that by the time the state’s June 2 primary comes along, Bush will have secured enough delegates to ensure his nomination at the Republican Party convention later in the year.

“By the time California comes around, the race for the (Republican) delegates will have been decided. Although I have gotten roughly one-third of the votes, I have only gotten one in 15 of the delegates because of the way the Republican Party voting system is structured.”

But, he said, he will only give up his campaign “when the primaries are over.”

Until then, he said, he will continue to try to influence the thinking of Bush and the Republican Party by attacking what he thinks Bush is doing wrong.

Buchanan, an unabashedly right-wing Republican, also is going after California’s Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, whom he considers a liberal.

“I’m offering my campaign as a way for voters of California to conduct a referendum on the leadership of Mr. Wilson and the leadership of Mr. Bush and the direction of our country,” the conservative television commentator said.

“California is going to be the mother of all primaries in 1992,” Buchanan said.

Wilson has responded angrily to Buchanan’s criticism of him, saying among other things that the Republican candidate is anti-Semitic.

The criticism, which has been made by others and denied by Buchanan, stems from his claims that alleged Nazi war criminals were wrongly deported and from critical comments concerning Israel’s influence in the United States.

Buchanan omitted the criticism of Congress that had been part of his remarks earlier this week in Wisconsin and Minnesota and instead concentrated his fire on Bush and Wilson.

At his press conference, Buchanan outlined a three-point plan of attack he intends to employ in California: taxes, which both Bush and Wilson promised not to raise but did; Bush’s foreign policy, which Buchanan says is hurting Americans at home; and illegal immigration.

On immigration, Buchanan sounded an old theme. “I can’t see how President Bush can send an army overseas to secure the boundaries of Kuwait when he can’t secure the boundaries of his own country.”

California is one of the states hardest hit by illegal immigration, and Buchanan said it is adding to the “social and economic disasters in California.”