Creating a New Party Can Be Messy Business

At the Reform Party convention in Long Beach last week, candidate Patrick J. Buchanan bitterly fought with supporters of Ross Perot and Jesse Ventura. On Thursday, 100 Perot supporters met outside the convention hall after being turned away by guards. Claiming Buchanan hijacked their party, they planned a separate convention and want to legally challenge Buchanan’s right to claim $12.6 million in federal campaign funds.

This scene was an odd sight for modern political observers. After the tightly choreographed gathering in Philadelphia, where Republicans avoided any conflict, pundits explained why conventions no longer matter. This week, we are likely to read similar reports when Democrats present their show in Los Angeles.

But the Reform Party offers a throwback to the era when conventions mattered, when they showcased major debates about a party’s principles. At conventions, parties once struggled to define themselves. The most bitter internal conflicts occurred when the fundamental tenets of a party were up for grabs. The usual result: One faction was eliminated as the party settled on an agenda, or the party entered into its final days.

A look back at U.S. history demonstrates that the Reform Party faces a seminal choice in the days ahead: whether to continue as an independent voice for political reform, as a new conservative party, or disintegrate completely. This conflict, which can appear comical or petty at times, is more than a personality clash.

Internal party conflicts are not new to developing parties. Indeed, they are a typical growing pain associated with becoming a serious political presence. However, some fights have decimated parties because there was no possible resolution.

Before the Civil War, the Whig Party was convulsed by an internecine struggle over slavery. After two decades of significant accomplishment, the Whigs grew paralyzed by this crisis. Because of a large Northern Protestant membership, as well as the presence of abolitionists in the leadership, the party refused to endorse slavery. At the same time, it failed to condemn it by accepting the Compromise of 1850, which strengthened the fugitive-slave law. At their 1852 convention, Whigs nominated Gen. Winfield Scott, who gave no indication of where he stood on the issue. This refusal to take a firm stand on slavery alienated Southerners, who feared they were no longer welcome in the party. At the same time, many Northerners were outraged their party was straddling this fundamental issue. After antagonizing both Southern and Northern members, the Whig Party began to rapidly disintegrate.

Other new parties have found their members fighting over the question of whether to ally with a major party. This was the dilemma facing the People’s Party, or the Populists, in 1896, during its convention in St. Louis. Fusionists, as they were called, wanted to endorse Democrat William Jennings Bryan, who had supported free silver as a moderate alternative to the more radical populist agenda. Purists, however, rejected any alliance and insisted on nominating their own candidate, even if it resulted in a Republican victory by attracting Democratic votes.

The debate became so fierce that members of each faction physically fought during the meeting. At one point, it nearly turned into a riot. The party leadership, hoping to win Bryan’s support, decided to endorse the Democratic ticket, while substituting their own vice presidential choice. The convention decision effectively marked the end of this third party. Radical populist Henry Demarest Lloyd lamented at the time, “the People’s Party has been betrayed.” By endorsing a major party that had co-opted their issue, and forming permanent factions, the Populists sacrificed their own future role in U.S. history.

Bitter internal conflicts have also taken place in the established parties when factions have attempted to take over the leadership. In 1912, many Republicans had grown frustrated by their party’s conservative orientation. When GOP leaders rejected former president Theodore Roosevelt, and instead backed William Howard Taft, all hell broke loose. Each faction accused the other of tampering with votes. Roosevelt warned his supporters, “We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord.”

As soon as Taft secured the nomination, Roosevelt’s delegates stormed out of the convention to reconvene in a hotel nearby, not all that unsimilar to what is happening at the Reform Party today. The mavericks formed the Progressive (“Bull Moose”) Party, with Roosevelt as their candidate.

Though the party’s strong showing did not translate into a victory, the decision had a profound effect on Republicans. Maintaining its alliance with big corporations and constitutional conservatives, the GOP relinquished the votes of those who wanted a stronger progressive agenda in such areas as social welfare and public-utility regulation. Democrats would eventually absorb these voters into a new governing majority that triumphed for much of the period between 1932 and 1968. Republicans would suffer greatly as a result.

Yet, Democrats have faced their own bitter fights. The most famous took place at the 1948 convention in Philadelphia, when a group of Northern renegades fought to make civil rights integral to the party agenda. Since Reconstruction, the party’s Southern core had adamantly resisted any federal intervention on race relations. At the convention, senatorial candidate Hubert H. Humphrey delivered a dramatic speech in favor of a strong civil-rights plank. When a delegate warned that Southerners would defect, the Minnesotan responded, “Some of them should have been out of the party a long time ago.”

Once Harry S. Truman accepted the platform, Southerners did indeed bolt from the convention, forming the Dixiecrat Party. Though Dixiecrat candidate Strom Thurmond only won four states, the battle had historic consequences. The decision inspired many prominent Democrats to start incorporating civil-rights legislation into their top objectives (if at a slow pace), while it also triggered a continuing Southern defection from the party that culminated in Alabama Gov. George Wallace’s candidacy in 1968.

Last week’s events at the Reform Party Convention were all too familiar in the history of U.S. political parties. The process is not pretty, nor is the outcome of these conflicts ever certain. Parties have either walked away from these battles with a new agenda or gradually collapsed as a result. The Reform Party, which captured the imagination of millions of voters in 1992, will be making many historic decisions in the coming days. *