To have one political party torn by ideological differences, splintered by nasty personality clashes and bitterly divided over the future is a proud American tradition.
Democrats are as comfortable with that brand of stress as they are with losing Utah in presidential elections and singing ”Happy Days Are Here Again.” But to have the two parties behaving in the same way at the same time as an election year approaches seems, well, careless.
However, that`s the scenario as Patrick J. Buchanan and the irate right wing of his party scramble onto the Republican presidential primary scene.
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You know Buchanan as well as you know Oprah and Sally Jessy and Geraldo. Buchanan is a syndicated newspaper columnist and television commentator, host of ”Crossfire” and ”Capital Gang” on the Cable News Network, and a panelist on ”The McLaughlin Group.”
In case your TV has been broken for the last decade, Buchanan is an out-at-the-elbows Irish-American of the old school. He is a body of pure opinion, an America First ideologue with more outlets than K mart.
Now, having recused himself from paid opinion-making, Buchanan is mulling over a challenge to his president and Great Betrayer of Reagan Revolution, George Bush.
As a president, Buchanan would make a splendid scribbler. His column is vastly entertaining, delivered in a muscular writing style and offering opinions as straightforward as they are predictable.
Still, he has no credible experience in governance, as they say, and is in fact less well-equipped to serve as president than, say, Jesse Jackson.
Buchanan does know the landscape, however, having served as a propagandist for two presidents-Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan-who didn`t have the truth in them, as the Irish say.
The swings and roundabouts of other people`s tenures have never bothered Buchanan because he prospers in a town where advisers are rarely held accountable for the political missteps of their patrons.
Politicos who lose elections often disappear in the mist, but the folks who are hired to think for them demonstrate the recuperative powers of the Three Stooges.
In Washington, there is always work for pollsters who can`t count, Democratic political consultants who`ve helped presidential candidates lose anywhere from 40 to 49 states, and White House advisers who were witness to a variety of indictable and unindictable offenses.
Many of them wind up on TV, opining in low-budget formats on Ch. 52 or yakking with the morning talk-show host about this guy`s chances or that guy`s problems.
For his part, Buchanan owes it all to television and his home town. Born, raised, educated and come to right-wing glory in the nation`s capital, he is never happier than when he is encouraging one of his liberal compadres to leave D.C. for the right-thinking pleasures of the Heartland.
Like many commentators inside the Beltway, of course, Buchanan seldom ventures beyond Washington`s area code without a first-class airline ticket and a juicy stipend for speechmaking in Muncie, Montpelier or Modesto.
Upon arrival, Buchanan (and his chatty band of brothers) tell the locals what`s going on-and what`s going wrong-in Washington.
It`s an automatic teller machine for opinionmakers, and you can`t help but think a run for the White House might boost those oratorical fees.
None of this disqualifies Buchanan, of course. Evangelists and retired NATO chiefs have run for president as Republicans, and now longtime Hitler admirer David Duke, a state representative in Louisiana, indicates that he is also ready to set his sights on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Actually, Buchanan gave some thought to a race in 1987 but stepped aside to make room for the perennial third runner-up in Republican politics, Jack Kemp, now Bush`s housing secretary.
This time, Buchanan starts with a base of support in New Hampshire, where the dyspeptic publisher of the Manchester Union Leader has been urging him to run.
Apparently, discontent with Bush in New Hampshire is based on two principles. The first is utter contempt for John Sununu, White House chief of staff and former Granite State governor.
Once considered a wily and able chap, Sununu is now viewed by many Republicans as an albatross in a size 50-short suit.
Beyond Sununu, conservative GOP voters up there appear vexed at Bush for not giving them pure, unadulterated Reaganomics, ignoring the evidence that a decade of what Bush once called ”voodoo economics” has helped push their state to the brink of fiscal collapse.
It all sounds like the sort of blood-spattering we`ve come to expect from the Democrats, and you can`t ask for more fun than that.
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If Buchanan runs and Duke runs and Republican women force a fight on abortion rights, Bush ought to consider moving his party`s national convention next year from Houston to a more appropriate Texas site: the Alamo.