Republican Primaries

To beat President Clinton, the Republican candidate will have to win the TV debates. While Steve Forbes won Arizona (Feb. 28), and has generated debate (once again) on the flat tax, it will get nowhere. Further, he favors return to the gold standard, which would stop the world economy in its tracks. He could not stand up to Clinton in face-to-face debate on TV.

Pat Buchanan is increasingly seen as a pawn of the extreme “Christian right wing.” He can handle himself as well as Clinton on TV, but his ideas won’t sell.

Bob Dole has no ideas. He is a competent deal-maker, ideal for the Senate, but more of an insider than Clinton. In face-to-face TV debate, Clinton would bury him.

Republicans should hope for a brokered convention that could produce the only candidate with serious ideas who can crush Clinton in debate: Jack Kemp.

CARL G. HOKANSON

Los Angeles

* As the Republican establishment awakens, the dream of a Dole/Powell pairing is fading from memory. This is not primarily because of Dole’s unexpected vulnerability. He may yet seize high ground in a weak field. But he will have to face the general election campaign without the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at his side.

In its battle to denounce Buchanan, the establishment should not have included a statement by Colin Powell that he would not vote for Buchanan if he were the nominee (Feb. 22). Buchanan may now claim the reciprocal right if Powell is on the ticket. The Dole dilemma is that he may need the excitement generated by Powell to defeat Clinton, but cannot risk providing an opening that would legitimize a Buchanan insurgency.

LARRY I. STEIN

Pomona

* In all the discussion about the Republicans’ extremism, I have seen no mention of the contribution party leaders like Dole and Gov. Pete Wilson have made to Buchanan’s rise, by their giving up on traditional Republican stands on issues such as environmental concern, a woman’s right to choose and economic justice. If Dole, Wilson and others had not made a mad dash to the right wing of the party, Buchanan and his so-called extreme ideas might not seem so legitimate. Those defending the “best party in the country” have no one to blame but themselves.

KENNETH R. BROWN

Burbank

* For the last 16 years, people have denied that the Republican Party is racist. I finally have some proof: Buchanan’s showing in the primaries to date and the failure of Alan Keyes to get even one delegate so far. Critics claim African Americans aren’t speaking the right conservative tone to gather votes, but in a party that’s supposed to be controlled by socially conservative activists, Keyes is ignored. Enough said?

JAMES O. CLEMENT

Long Beach

* Re “Buchanan Aide Was at Tribute to Doctor’s Killer,” Feb. 27:

How could such a well-informed man as Buchanan campaign co-chair Michael Farris be, in his words, “absolutely clueless” as to the purpose of the “White Rose Banquet” held in honor of Paul Hill and other antiabortion terrorists? Farris is a constitutional attorney. He formerly served as the general counsel for Concerned Women for America (Tim and Beverly LaHaye’s organization), and is the founder and chairman of the Madison Project, a nonprofit political action membership organization that raises money for conservative Republican candidates. He is a home-schooling advocate, and he was chairman of the drafting committee for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.

PAULA PILECKI

Institute for the Study

of the Religious Right

Los Angeles

* On Feb. 27 you carried a photo of Buchanan, gun at his hip, at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Ariz. I had to laugh. Here was Pat “NRA 2nd Amendment Lock-and-Load” Buchanan posing as a self-styled Wyatt Earp.

The reason the Earps went to the corral was to meet the Clantons and enforce a Tombstone law--forbidding the carrying of firearms within the city. Wyatt established similar ordinances in every town he served. How ironic that Buchanan should be evoking the memory of a man who believed in gun control.

RICHARD MURPHY

Whittier

* We should tell our delegates at the Republican convention in San Diego to draft George Bush and Colin Powell to be our candidates for president and vice president.

SID O’NEIL