In an afternoon speech at the ARCO forum yesterday, Reform Party presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan attempted to establish himself as a viable third-party candidate, but an overflowing audience made it clear that it would not forget his controversial past.

Although the majority of Buchanan's prepared speech focused on the need for both campaign finance reform and a third party in American politics, he was unable to escape audience attack regarding his views on homosexuality, immigration, the Holocaust and women's issues.

"In his speech, he made himself sound reasonable," said Alvaro M. Bedoya '03. "But as soon as people started asking him questions about his record and what he really stood for, it was ridiculous and quite frightening."

In what has become something of a standard event in his recent speeches, Buchanan attempted to distance himself from the Republican party--in part because of what he sees as diminishing differences between the GOP and Democrats.

"The party of Ronald Reagan is dead," he said. "Its successor is little more than the bellhop stand of the business roundtable."

Buchanan said his move to the Reform Party came after he concluded that George W. Bush would win the Republican presidential nomination. In addition, he said he feared Democratic challenger Al Gore '69 would win in the November election and that conservatives "will go down for the third time."

After his formal statement, audience members took the opportunity to grill the candidate.

One questioner read an excerpt from of one of Buchanan's columns that which said that "Women are not endowed by nature with the will and ambition to succeed in the modern world."