Buchanan Backs Off His Campaign

Conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan all but dropped out of the presidential race Wednesday, saying he will not campaign for delegates but instead will try to influence the Republican Party on a variety of issues. He also suggested that a third-party bid, urged by some advisers, was unlikely.

At a news conference to tout one of those issues, restricting trade with China, Buchanan insisted that he was not suspending his campaign, even though he decided to cancel appearances in Pennsylvania, which holds its primary Tuesday. But there were no campaign signs, and Buchanan’s speech lacked the bravado and gusto that characterized his renegade campaign when he unexpectedly won the New Hampshire primary two months ago.

Buchanan has only emerged publicly once since the California primary March 26, when Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., claimed the Republican nomination. Despite the New Hampshire victory, Buchanan quickly faded as a threat to Dole as other contenders quit and he was unable to receive much more than a third of the vote.

Wednesday, while urging Republican lawmakers to deny China “most-favored-nation” trading status because of its human rights abuses, Buchanan was careful not to attack Dole for his past support of the Clinton administration policy of unlinking trade from human rights. (Dole is now rethinking his position.)

“This is not any effort to damage Sen. Dole,” Buchanan said. “This is a signal sent that we are not going after Sen. Dole.”

The Dole campaign took Buchanan’s remarks as a sign he would lighten up attacks.

“It’s encouraging that Pat turned his guns on Bill Clinton today. After all, Bill Clinton has been Bob Dole’s target for months,” Dole’s press secretary, Nelson Warfield, said.

Buchanan said he would go ahead with a plan to send questionnaires to 140,000 supporters asking if he should consider an independent bid. He said there was a “real sense of despair among many of my people about the choices they face.” But the lifelong activist in Republican causes suggested the third-party option was increasingly unlikely.

“If the question is, ‘Are we now pursuing a third-party option?,’ the answer is, ‘No,’ ” he said. “Each week that goes by makes it less realistic that it can be effective.”