THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 13, 1996 TAG: 9608130286
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: 71 lines
It was a day for three renegades outside the empty ring of the Republican National Convention.
In Long Beach on Sunday, Reform Party rivals Ross Perot and Richard Lamm sparred for the nomination. The Perot forces needed a contender - or a pretender - to lend suspense to their convention. In Lamm they got more.
He has a peculiar, engrossing style. Some people are able to keep a fixed smile on their faces while talking. Even rarer, Lamm talks with his mouth just short of a perpetual grind.
Reassuring about Lamm is his daughter, Heather. Calm, poised, nominating her dad, she brightened the dull, sublunary proceedings by remarking of her generation: ``More of us believe that Elvis lives than believe that Social Security will be there when we retire.''
Her dad said: ``I'm neither a fool nor am I quixotic. I personally face an enormous challenge by running against the founder of this party, but I do so with my eyes open, knowing in my heart the torch must pass.''
Perot talked twice as long as Lamm. You listen despite the tedium. He is about as easy to ignore as a sore toe. Identifying the third party's role, he said, ``We have to win in 1996 for this country, and we can win by being the swing vote.''
In Escondido, Republican Pat Buchanan gave an emotional speech that could be perceived as his bowing out of politics or preparing to run in 2000.
Shut out as a speaker at San Diego, Buchanan staged his own rally.
Buchanan opened by dishing out the red, raw meat that stirs his followers. Then he drew on campaign memories, one being of a children's Christmas pageant in Louisiana Bayou country. ``Cecil B. DeMille could not have put on a more magnificent scene,'' he said. ``I was so moved I cut loose with a sermon Billy Sunday could not have matched. When I finished, all Bethlehem was standing and cheering. Even old Herod was on his feet, fist in the air, shouting `Go, Pat, Go!' ''
He observed, ``Some ask, `Why even go to San Diego, Pat? Why even stay in a party some of whose leaders call us dreadful names and will not even let us speak?'
``But this isn't just their party. It is our party, too,'' Buchanan said. Enumerating individuals who had helped the cause, he said, ``Out in the heartland of this country is another Republican Party full of spirit and soul. Out there it remains Ronald Reagan's party.''
``If we walk away you leave them behind. I can't walk away from the men and women in the mills and factories and plants who looked to us for leadership. We can't walk away from folks who came out by the thousands even after I lost the nomination. We can't walk away. They stood by us; I'm gonna stand by them.''
``America doesn't need a third party,'' he said. ``It needs a fighting second party that means what it says and says what it means; that practices a conservatism of the heart - that looks out for all our people, but especially for those who have no one else to look out for them and no one else to speak for them.''
He noted, ``There is so much of ours in that platform, we've decided to ask Haley Barbour for royalties when he sells it.''
The Republican Party is being transformed into the Buchanan Party before the very eyes of the hierachy, he said.
Of the New World Order, he said, ``As long as there is life in me I will spend the rest of my days fighting to restore the lost sovereignty of the United States.''
To the young, he said, ``This cause is going to prevail because it is the cause of America and if I don't reach the `Promised Land' you will be there and through my remaining days - '' here, he choked up, paused, then continued, ``it will be the proudest honor of my life to have led the Buchanan Brigades.''
In Pat Buchanan and Jack Kemp, Bob Dole has two powerful horses to pull his bandwagon - if he can control them.
KEYWORDS: REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION 1996 ROSS
PEROT by CNB