Buchanan Running Dry in O.C.

If there was one county in California where Republican presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan could have expected to do well in next Tuesday’s primary, this one would be it.

With Orange County solidly Republican by voter registration rolls, conservative by reputation, sometimes independent-minded and the birthplace of the anti-illegal immigration Proposition 187, Buchanan is among kindred spirits.

But these days, Buchanan is badly trailing GOP front-runner Bob Dole in the national delegate count, as well as in public opinion polls in California and Orange County. Even Buchanan was not giving himself much hope for next Tuesday’s California primary when he stopped in Santa Ana on Thursday.

Instead, he refused to close the door on a “third-party” candidacy, acknowledging during a news conference he will meet next week with supporters from across the country to discuss his options.

“We want to get to the Republican convention and bring all our folks into the Republican Party, reshape and remake that party,” Buchanan said Thursday.

However, with Ross Perot getting ready for a possible independent candidacy (he took 25% of the county vote in 1992) and the U.S. Taxpayers Party also looking for a candidate--perhaps Buchanan himself--Buchanan said, “Anything can happen.”

“One week Sen. Dole’s people say they don’t want us in the convention, the next it’s ‘Pat’s a good Republican.’ So we don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said.

Asked what it would take for him to “enthusiastically” support the Senate majority leader, Buchanan replied: “Why don’t we drop the ‘enthusiastic’ stuff here?”

Despite Buchanan’s public flirtation with a third-party candidacy, Orange County Republican Chairman Thomas A. Fuentes predicted Buchanan, a former White House staffer for both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, will not leave the GOP.

“Disloyalty is something that Nixon Republicans never encouraged. I think that at [Buchanan’s] very most inner level, such disloyalty would just not be something that could come out of Pat Buchanan. . . . I don’t think he is capable of such disloyalty to the Republican Party,” Fuentes said.

Dale Dykema, the president of the influential Lincoln Club of Orange County, also said he doubted Buchanan would run because of a lack of money.

“He’s no Ross Perot,” Dykema said. “There’s no way that he is going to be able to come up with the type of money that Perot comes up with. And in order to be successful in politics, it’s proven time after time after time that money is such a significant factor.”

Buchanan conceded the odds against his winning California.

A Times Orange County Poll earlier this month showed Buchanan with 18% of likely GOP voters, compared to 27% for Dole and 21% for magazine publisher Steve Forbes, who dropped out of the race last week. Statewide, a Times Poll earlier this week showed Dole with 52% to Buchanan’s 18%.

Some of the political establishment, which earlier supported Texas Sen. Phil Gramm for the Republican nomination, already has switched to Dole. Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), a former California co-chairman for Gramm, will be traveling with Dole when the Kansan campaigns in California this weekend.

With no money for an expensive California media campaign, Buchanan is counting on radio and television interviews and campaign stops like the one in Santa Ana on Thursday to address his issues.

His news conference was held at Greenville Fundamental School, which was picked by his campaign because it teaches only in English, a program he supports.

And even among second-graders, Buchanan looked for votes.

“How can I be president?” Buchanan said, repeating a student’s question. “I better start winning some delegates. What I have to do is I have to beat Sen. Dole here in California. OK? So tell your mom and pop. . . . “