FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
June 20, 2000
PAT BUCHANAN RESPONDS TO LENORA FULANI'S RESIGNATION
Dr. Lenora B. Fulani
225 Broadway, Suite 2010
New York, New York 10007
Dear Lenora:
I have received your letter of resignation as
campaign co-chair, and, and do not dispute your
rendition of events -- except to say this:
While we did finally accede to the Dallas faction to
support the removal of Jack Gargan as co- chair at
Nashville, we did so only after we came to believe it
was essential for peace in the party. That is also
why, instead of supporting Dallas' choice for chair,
we supported Pat Choate, a unifying figure who,
indeed, had brought you into the Buchanan
campaign. I, too, was personally offended at how
shabbily Jack Gargan was treated at Nashville.
And while you understandably were angered at
Nashville when the Buchanan delegation voted first
to seat your New York delegation, then reversed
itself, let me explain: Our campaign had come to a
collective decision to support Pat Choate; and you, as
our co-chair, declined to support our decision. Yet,
even then, our delegation was instructed to vote to
seat your New York faction -- but, during the voting,
somebody called an audible at the line of scrimmage.
Our folks assumed the orders had come from
headquarters, and stood and reversed their votes. I
regret that; but we felt that the interests of the
Buchanan campaign had to come before any
marginal gains to be won in intra-party fighting in
which we had no real interest.
Third, and more importantly, on the issues: If you
read the speeches I have given in the last six months
-- on campaign and political reform, deconstructing
the New World Order, a more moral foreign policy --
you will find there ideas with which you strongly
agree. I do not recall your opposition to any of these;
indeed, you seemed to have been enthusiastic about
them. With regard to what you call the "social
issues," I do believe the deepest problems in our
society are not economic or political, but moral. And
while the solution to our social crisis may lie less in
politics than the human heart, I am and remain
proudly pro-life. Moreover, I believe that political
leaders must defend the moral order rooted in the
Old and New Testament and Natural Law that is
under relentless assault; just as we must defend our
heritage, history, and heroes, now being denigrated.
Else, our society is on a permanent downhill run, as is
our country.
Fourth, on your insistence in New York last week
that our campaign support you for Chair of the Party,
as Bay told you, we do not believe that would be in
the interests of our campaign or the Party. This is not
because you lack the talent or ability; you have far
more than enough. However, I do not believe you
could unify the party at Long Beach; and any
attempt by us to push your nomination through a
defiant party would backfire, fail, and divide us for
the fall, and for the future.
While there are going to be delegate battles right up
to Long Beach, if we win that nomination, we are
going to be there, first, with the oil can, and we will
do what is necessary to unite and energize this party,
and by that I mean all of its factions, for the fall. We
want to put off any further intra-party feuds until we
have given Reform the kind of leadership, campaign,
and national recognition we believe will put the
Reform Party on America's political map -- for good.
Anybody who is with us in that cause is welcome to
join us.
Let me say finally, in all our dealings, I have found
you to be honest, direct, straightforward, and
tough-minded always -- even when we disagree --
and, from what I see as your own standpoint and
agenda, I cannot disagree with your decision to
separate yourself from our campaign. Yet, with
personal best wishes,
Pat Buchanan
From Lenora Fulani:
This letter is my resignation as co-chair of Buchanan Reform 2000.
When you first made your decision to leave the Republican Party and join
the Reform Party to seek its presidential nomination, you and your
campaign manager Bay Buchanan approached me, asking for support for your
candidacy. My decision to give that support was based on several premises.
First, that you would seek to unify the party and thereby project it as a
party open to all the American people. I strongly recommended to you that
you not take sides in the internecine fights between those allied with
Ross Perot and those allied with Jesse Ventura and that you make a
substantial investment in reaching out to the party's independent sector.
I advised you to use your stature as a public figure - and my support of
your candidacy - to bring people in the party together.
Second, we acknowledged and agreed that we had pervasive differences on
social issues. However, your support for the party's core principle of
political reform and our agreement on many matters concerning trade and
foreign policy was sufficient basis for an alliance. I felt comfortable
with our disagreements. Indeed, I thought they enhanced the projection of
our partnership as a left/right coalition - a construct which has been
central to the principles of the Reform Party from the beginning. In
November, I publicly endorsed your candidacy for the Reform Party
nomination and accepted a position as a co-chair of the Buchanan campaign.
You then began to concern yourself with the task of accessing the ballot,
qualifying for the Reform Party primary and positioning yourself to win
the nomination. At that point disputes began to break out within various
state parties which were electing delegates to our National Convention. I
attempted to mediate numbers of these "on the ground" disputes.
My position was and remains that you had every right to bring your forces
into Reform and to have them participate fully in the organizational life
of the party. Insofar as your forces overwhelmed anemic state
organizations and captured delegate seats as a result, it is my opinion
that you were entitled to do so. My sole concern was the extent to which
your actions "on the ground" were contributing to polarizing, rather than
unifying the disparate forces in the party, having the destructive effect
of driving scores of activists away. In various situations I made
recommendations to you about how to proceed to help you win friends and
propel the party forward. In a few cases, you took my advice. In many you
did not. That was, of course, your prerogative and your call.
More and more scenarios unfolded at the state level that caused further
dissension in the party. In particular, you blocked with the Dallas-led
forces, helping them to regain strength they had lost at the Dearborn
convention when more than 60% of the delegates - mine included - voted to
reject the Dallas leadership and elected Jack Gargan as chair. Again, you
had every right to make that choice, though you risked alienating the
party's independents by doing so.
This pattern reached its pinnacle at the National Committee meeting in
Nashville where you, over my strenuous objections and my concerted efforts
to reunify the party, directed your allies to vote with Dallas to remove
Gargan from the chairmanship. During the credentialing process, when the
vote to seat the New York Independence Party delegation allied with me was
nearly ratified, your supporters suddenly switched their votes to
recognize the rival Jack Essenberg delegation (whose legitimacy had just
been struck down by the courts), which provided the votes needed to assure
Gargan's removal.
That was a critical turning point in the party's internal affairs. Not
only was the party hopelessly split, but you demonstrated that you were
more than willing to "stick it" to your friends, as well as your enemies,
to achieve your own (and in this case, Dallas') ends. Though you now call
for unity and have made an appeal to the party to overlook disagreements
and come together, your appeal is unfortunately five months too late.
Many in the party are now upset and unhappy with you and your campaign.
Some have deliberately fed the media's insatiable appetite for controversy
and scandal. While I don't agree with how you have handled many situations
and while we disagree - as we have from the start - on social issues, I
respect your right to make your own decisions. However, those decisions
have had ramifications and it is those ramifications I wish to address and
which cause me to tender my resignation as co-chair of your campaign
effective immediately.
After the initial announcement of my endorsement of your candidacy - an
announcement that explicitly put forth a new right/left coalition and
proclaimed your intention to broaden your base beyond its social
conservative borders - you began to backtrack off of that promise. You
shaped your actual campaign - both inside and outside the party - to
appeal to a narrow constituency in ways that increasingly excluded me, my
adherents inside the party and the base to which I relate.
Some people have vocally criticized you for being a social conservative
and have rejected your candidacy on that basis. That is not my issue. I
never objected to you or your social conservative followers becoming part
of a non-ideological pro-reform coalitional party. To the contrary, I
welcomed you. But I must and do object to your efforts to transform the
party into a party of and for only social conservatives.
As I told you when you and I met last week, I believe that decision was
and is a mistake. You and Bay have both told me that the choices you made
were, in large measure, determined by what the Brigades would and wouldn't
accept, and that they wouldn't accept a broadening of your message and
your associations. You may be right. However, throughout the course of our
partnership I have met many of your followers who enthusiastically
welcomed me and our coalition. I remain touched by their desire to go
beyond the divisions that afflict our country. While this particular
effort failed, I believe that millions of Americans are seeking leaders
capable of bringing ordinary people from across the political spectrum
together.
You now appear to be close to succeeding in your goal. Thus the issue for
me became whether there was any role for me in your campaign. When you and
I met, we discussed much of this history and I put a proposal on the
table. I asked you to support me for the position of National Chair at our
upcoming convention. As a founder of the party, having received 45% of the
vote for Vice Chair in Dearborn last year, as a leader of the party's
largest state affiliate and having been a part of the Buchanan coalition
from the beginning, supporting me for chair was the test of whether you
still intended to broaden your coalition and maintain the party's
commitment to left/center/right alliances. You and Bay rejected my
request. You have thus indicated to me that you are fully committed to
using your campaign to change the fundamental character of the Reform
Party in a direction that most American independents do not support.
Consequently, I withdraw my endorsement of your bid for the Reform
nomination and I resign my position as co-chair of your campaign. I
continue to be a "card-carrying member" of the Reform Party and an active
participant in all of its affairs and those of the state party I proudly
serve.
Respectfully,
Lenora Fulani
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