Will Pat Go?

IN a race that seems destined to give us a choice between TweedleBush and TweedleGore, almost the only interesting question is whether Patrick J. Buchanan will abandon the GOP and seek the presidential nomination of the Reform party. He must feel enormously tempted to do so, for ample reasons.

If Buchanan is indeed to defect, he must make up his mind soon—by December at the latest. “Sore loser” rules mean that he cannot run in GOP primaries and then switch to another party for the general election. And because the media have played up the possibility of his departure, some of his grass-roots supporters are themselves switching to other candidates, such as Dan Quayle. With the risk of his own organization imploding, and the fact that the internal politics of the Reform nomination are themselves highly fluid, he would be well advised to decide earlier than December.

About the Author

John O’Sullivan

John O’Sullivan is a senior fellow at National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review.

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IN a race that seems destined to give us a choice between TweedleBush and TweedleGore, almost the only interesting question is whether Patrick J. Buchanan will abandon the GOP and seek the presidential nomination of the Reform party. He must feel enormously tempted to do so, for ample reasons.

If Buchanan is indeed to defect, he must make up his mind soon—by December at the latest. “Sore loser” rules mean that he cannot run in GOP primaries and then switch to another party for the general election. And because the media have played up the possibility of his departure, some of his grass-roots supporters are themselves switching to other candidates, such as Dan Quayle. With the risk of his own organization imploding, and the fact that the internal politics of the Reform nomination are themselves highly fluid, he would be well advised to decide earlier than December.