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FYI
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Pat Buchanan will be meeting with volunteers at noon Wednesday, June 23, 1999, in Iowa City at the downtown City
Plaza Hotel (formerly Holiday Inn) and at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 23, 1999, at the Sheraton Four Points in
Cedar Rapids. Both meetings are open to the public.
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DES MOINES -- Republican presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan said Monday he believes he stands
the best chance of foiling Texas Gov. George W. Bush's plan to capture the Aug. 14 GOP straw
vote to be taken in Ames.
"Bush clearly wants to basically end the race for Republican nomination on Aug. 14, effectively terminate it," Buchanan said in kicking off a five-day campaign swing that will
bring him to Eastern Iowa.
The former TV political commentator and presidential aide said Iowa Republicans should be
"mildly insulted" that his party's political establishment is attempting to "crown their
nominee" even before next year's first-in-the-nation Iowa precinct caucuses.
Buchanan, the second-place finisher in Iowa's 1996 caucuses, pegged Bush and former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander as the
favorites heading into the August balloting in Ames. But he said he planned to make a "very
strong showing" and expected the GOP race would narrow to a two-man contest between Bush and
himself.
"Clearly, Bush is the man to beat. He's sitting up at the top of the polls and the top of
the mountain and the top of the world, and we're crawling up there to get at him," Buchanan
said. "I really think it's time that we nominated someone from the heart and soul of the party,
and I have a candidate in mind."
Buchanan emphasized his populist message and portrayed Bush as a "globalist" who has taken
trade-policy positions similar to the Clinton-Gore administration.
He said the Texas governor has supported trade agreements that have not been in American farmers' best interests and is a "Xerox copy of Clinton and
Gore" on many national issues.
"This is going to be a battle between economic patriotism, economic nationalism vs.
globalism. I think I stand against the Clinton-Gore-Bush agenda on all of those," he said.
Buchanan said Iowa's exploding methamphetamine problem can be attributed in part to a North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that opened the U.S. southern border to narcotics
traffickers and made it possible for trucks to enter this country "almost uninspected."
