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Patrick Joseph Buchanan

For three consecutive presidential elections, Reform Party candidate Patrick Buchanan and his conservative followers have been a persistent pain for the Republican Party.

In 1992, the former Republican stung then-President George Bush, the father of this election's GOP nominee, with a strong showing in the New Hampshire primary. Then in 1996, he beat frontrunner Bob Dole in the same contest.

Because the New Hampshire primary is the first and helps set the tone for the election, it draws worldwide attention.

Last year, the former television commentator and former aide to presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan split with Republicans after accusing the party of abandoning social conservatives.

Moderate Republican leaders did not lament his departure. Buchanan had offended many with pronouncements that described Congress as "Israeli-occupied territory" and declared that women are "less equipped psychologically" to succeed at business.

Indeed, Buchanan does not mince words. In recent speeches and television appearances the Reform Party candidate described the RU-486 abortion pill approved by the government as "human pesticide."

Buchanan also has said the United Nations should be moved from the United States and that he would shut down the National Endowment for the Arts because it supports what he describes as obscene and blasphemous projects. The NEA is a federal agency that provides money for artistic programs. Buchanan objects to that agency's funding of controversial projects that include nudity and other non-traditional themes.

Buchanan is accompanied on the Reform Party ticket by Ezola Foster, a teacher and conservative activist from Los Angeles.

Buchanan, a fervent Catholic, was the valedictorian of his high school and was suspended for a year from Georgetown University after scuffling with police during a traffic altercation. He graduated from Georgetown and later earned a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.

Buchanan, 61, is married and lives in McLean, Virginia. He and his wife, Shelley, have no children, but they have a cat named Gipper.

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The Reform Party
Pat Buchanan for President

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