As Bush’s Sails Gather Wind, Some Conservatives Are Jumping Ship

A Republican Party effort to dispel the GOP’s harsh image by rallying around Texas Gov. George W. Bush has sparked a backlash among conservatives, who threaten to abandon the party for a candidate with a sharper ideological edge.

Talk of such insurrection is a virtual staple every four years. This time, however, the mutinous rumblings have apparently started earlier than ever, reflecting both a speeded-up campaign and the widely held sense that, failing some epic event, the Republican contest may be effectively over before any votes are cast.

Already, Sen. Bob Smith of New Hampshire has quit the GOP, accusing its leaders of watering down the party’s principles in its quest for victory and vowing to wage an independent run for president that stresses his uncompromising opposition to abortion rights and gun control.

More worrisome to Republicans, however, is the prospect of still another rump candidacy, this one by Patrick J. Buchanan, the conservative commentator and runner-up for the party’s 1996 nomination. The incendiary Buchanan has pointedly refused to rule out a breakaway bid if the GOP swerves from a hard-line stance on the social issues he holds dear.

“The Republican establishment is moving away from anything controversial in its thirst for victory,” Buchanan asserted during a campaign swing this week through Michigan. “I don’t think there’s anything they wouldn’t jettison or throw over the side.”

Adding to the unsettled picture is the Reform Party, which opened a three-day convention Friday and suffers its own internal strife between forces loyal to its founder and chief bankroller, Texas businessman Ross Perot, and a faction backing Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura.

Ventura, the highest elected Reform Party official in the nation, is often mentioned as a prospective guerrilla candidate in 2000, though he has repeatedly dismissed the notion.

The ferment within the Republican right comes at a time when, broadly speaking, most of the country is content. The economy continues to skip merrily along. The war in Yugoslavia is ended. And recent polls suggest that voters are largely satisfied with the choices presented in the presidential contest.

The most recent survey, a poll released Thursday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, found that 53% of those asked were “very satisfied” or “fairly satisfied” with a choice between Democratic Vice President Al Gore and Bush. (The question omitted the nine other candidates seeking the GOP nomination as well as Gore’s lone rival, former Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey.)

In contrast, a Pew poll in June 1992 found that 61% were “not satisfied” with the leading candidates, a level of discontent that helped invigorate Perot’s independent White House bid.

By their very nature, however, third-party insurgencies tend to be minority-led movements, given the circumstances that most often spawn electoral insurrection. In some cases, a third party arises because the majority parties fail to address some pressing social issue, such as slavery in the case of the Whigs and Democrats, resulting in the birth of the Republican Party. In other instances, one or the other major parties alienates a core constituency, resulting in a splinter movement, such as when the Dixiecrats split off from the Democratic Party over civil rights.

The current unrest reflects the latter circumstance, a feeling among some on the far right that the Republican establishment, enraptured with Bush, is compromising its philosophy simply for the sake of ending the GOP’s eight-year exile from the White House.

“I have concluded that the Republican Party, with its big-tent philosophy, could win election but not change the course of public policy,” said Howard Phillips, a former Republican and founder of the U.S. Taxpayer Party, which will likely nominate Smith as its presidential standard-bearer. “The Republican Party is the biggest fraud because it has pretended to be something it’s not.”

Of course, there are many Republicans perfectly pleased with Bush and the way he soft-pedals contentious issues such as immigration and abortion rights as part of his effort to present a more inclusive, tolerant image.

“George Bush isn’t listening to the loony right,” Allan Hoffenblum, a veteran California campaign consultant, said approvingly.

“George Bush is a conservative without scaring people,” agreed Eddie Mahe, another longtime GOP strategist.

But even some Republicans who find no fault with Bush are concerned that the GOP nominating contest may, for all intents, be ending too quickly, before most of the public and many important issues are engaged. “A good, healthy debate will strengthen the candidate, strengthen the campaign and prepare the party for the main event,” said Scott Reed, who managed Republican Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign. “It would not only be good, but it’s vital if we’re going to run a strong campaign next summer and next fall against Al Gore.”

The greater discontent, however, is coming from conservatives such as Gary Bauer, a longtime social activist and another of the unsung candidates for the GOP nomination, who increasingly insist there is little real difference between the front-running Bush and Gore. “On major issues, this is going to be Tweedledee and Tweedledum,” Bauer argued.

Bumping along on an extended bus tour of Iowa, Bauer couldn’t resist needling Bush--and by extension the party establishment that seems all but ready to coronate the Texas governor.

“The last four months we’ve effectively been a Bush Republican Party,” Bauer said over a scratchy cell phone. “The one measurable result of that is we’ve got one fewer Republican [Smith] in the Senate than we had four months ago. That is not an auspicious beginning for Bush Republicanism.”