Pat Buchanan

Patrick Buchanan

Pat Buchanan (born November 2, 1938), is an American author, syndicated columnist, and television commentator. In 2000, he ran for President of the United States on the Reform Party ticket. He had twice sought the Republican nomination for president. He has written several books on his political and religious views.

He is also one of the founding editors of and main contributors to The American Conservative magazine.

Early life

Pat Buchanan was born one of 9 children in Washington, D.C. to William Baldwin Buchanan and his wife, Catherine Elizabeth Crum. He is often regarded as an Irish Catholic, but in reality he is one-half German, one-quarter Scots Irish, and one-quarter Irish. He was christened Patrick Joseph Buchanan, and later took the name Francis at confirmation.

He was educated in Roman Catholic schools, including Gonzaga College High School. He graduated from Georgetown University with degrees in English and Philosophy in 1961, and he earned a Master's Degree in Journalism from Columbia University in 1962.

The same year he obtained his Journalism degree, Buchanan became an editorial writer for the now-defunct St. Louis Globe Democrat newspaper. Buchanan was an early supporter of Richard Nixon's political comeback, and in 1966 began working as an advisor to Nixon's campaign, primarily as an opposition researcher. When Nixon took office in 1969, Buchanan worked as a White House advisor and as a speechwriter to Nixon and to Vice-President Spiro Agnew. He was associated with some of Nixon's "dirty tricks" campaigns to harass and embarrass opponents during the 1972 election, revealed years later in a memo that contradicted his testimony before Congress on the subject in 1973, where he said that he did not know of any covert operations.

Buchanan was not implicated in the Watergate Scandal, though he was mentioned as a possible (but incorrect) identity of "Deep Throat". When the actual identity of Deep Throat was revealed in 2005 as FBI Associate Director Mark Felt, Buchanan called Felt "sneaky," "dishonest," and "criminal," commenting that "What he should have done, was if he felt the investigation was corrupted, stand up and say, 'I'm going to resign from the FBI because I don't want to be a party to what's going on. This is not correct, I think things are going on in the White House that are wrong. I don't believe they're investigated. I don't believe they're being investigated properly.'"

When Nixon resigned in 1974, Buchanan briefly fulfilled the same duties under President Gerald Ford before quitting the same year. After leaving the White House, he became a syndicated political columnist and began his regular appearances as a host and commentator on various national television public affairs programs, including The McLaughlin Group and Crossfire. Buchanan returned to the White House in 1985, serving until 1987 as White House Communications Director for the Reagan administration.

He and liberal commentator Bill Press cohosted Buchanan & Press on American cable channel MSNBC from 2002 until its cancellation in November, 2003. Buchanan is still with MSNBC as an analyst, and he occasionally fills in for Joe Scarborough on the nightly show "Scarborough Country". His wife is Shelley Buchanan, who shares her husband's views in most, if not all, areas. They have no children.

Political views

Buchanan is typically categorized as conservative, right-wing, or even far right-wing, but this is not a complete description. His political views include elements of populism (such as protectionist sympathy for displaced factory workers) as well as a strong anti-war position adopted after the end of the Cold War (he vehemently opposed the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq). He is conservative on almost all social issues.

Buchanan refers to himself as a "traditional conservative" (in contrast to "mainstream conservative") and is often categorized as a paleoconservative. Although he was a long time member of the Republican party, he is highly critical of the party today, believing that the party has largely abandoned its traditional conservative principles in favor of neoconservatism. Many of his positions are in line with conservative Republicans of the first half of the 20th century, with views that have become less popular in recent decades.

Buchanan has described multiculturalism as "an across-the-board assault on our Anglo-American heritage" and supports restricting immigration into the United States. He has described homosexuality as leading to "a decay of society and a collapse of its basic cinder block, the family." He opposes abortion, including in cases of rape and incest. He supports allowing prayer in public schools. He supports abolishing many government bureaus and advocates a flat tax. He is in favor of ending treaties that do not protect the interests of the United States, such as one-way defense treaties where the U.S. must militarily come to the defense of another country, but not vice versa.

In contrast to many neoconservatives, Buchanan opposes free trade and interventionist American foreign policy. He supports repealing NAFTA and raising tariffs on imported goods to provide tax relief to domestic industry, and is often described as an isolationist. He is also critical of what he sees as unconditional American support for the State of Israel.

He accuses the Bush administration of being overinvolved in world affairs to the point where it is committing imperialism. He believes that Islamic terrorist attacks, such as the events of September 11, 2001 come as a result of intervening in foreign countries, saying "terrorists hate us for what we do, not what we are." He describes the term 'isolationist', frequently applied to him, as a derogatory label used by political groups which put foreign or global interests ahead of U.S. interests.

Despite being an isolationist with regard to contemporary politics and World War II, Buchanan was a staunch supporter of the Cold War and the Vietnam War, positions he justified on the basis that Communism directly threatened the safety of the United States.

In Britain, he was supported by the conservative journalist Auberon Waugh, whose position relative to Britain's Conservative mainstream post-Thatcher was very similar to Buchanan's position relative to the modern Republican mainstream. The British political thinkers most similar to Buchanan in this respect - notably those in the Conservative Democratic Alliance - would be unlikely to acknowledge the similarity because they tend to be strongly anti-American, seeing the pro-US policies of the modern Tory party as its greatest betrayal.

Presidential campaigns

Pat Buchanan has run for president three times on a platform of protectionist trade policies, immigration restriction, and opposition to multiculturalism, abortion, and gay rights.

1992

In 1992, Buchanan unsuccessfully challenged George H. W. Bush for the Republican Party Presidential nomination, garnering some 3 million votes in state primary elections. It is said that Buchanan's strong potential in the primaries pushed Bush to run a more conservative campaign than he had in 1988. Buchanan later threw his support behind President Bush, and delivered the controversial keynote address at the 1992 Republican National Convention which has since been dubbed the culture war speech. In it, he strongly attacked the liberalism of Bill Clinton, saying:

The agenda Clinton & Clinton would impose on America--abortion on demand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat--that's change, all right. But it is not the kind of change America wants. It is not the kind of change America needs. And it is not the kind of change we can tolerate in a nation that we still call God's country.

Buchanan's stances were controversial within the Republican party. His characterization of the United States as being in the center of culture war, as well as his strongly negative depictions of the economy, clashed with some of Bush's supporters. Many outside the party saw the speech as intolerant. Buchanan's speech is considered to have alienated voters in the general election, which Bush lost.

1996

Buchanan again sought the Republican nomination in 1996. It was in this campaign that Buchanan voiced his opposition to NAFTA. Buchanan won a surprising victory in the New Hampshire primary in February, defeating Senator Bob Dole by about 3000 votes. However, Dole defeated him by large margins in the subsequent Super Tuesday primaries. Buchanan dropped out of the race in March. He had collected 21% of the total votes in Republican state primaries. Buchanan threatened to run as the U.S. Taxpayers Party candidate if Bob Dole were to choose a pro-choice running mate. Dole ultimately chose pro-life Jack Kemp and Dole received Buchanan's endorsement.

2000

After leaving the Republican party in October 1999, Buchanan sought the nomination of the Reform Party. The party -- which was founded on reform of taxation and government but was mostly quiet on hot-button social issues -- was bitterly divided between nominating Buchanan and nominating John Hagelin, an Iowa physicist whose platform was based on transcendental meditation. Many members of the party were uncomfortable with Buchanan's strong rhetoric on abortion and gay rights, perceived racism and anti-Semitism, and involvement with "dirty tricks" in the Nixon administration. Party founder Ross Perot did not endorse a candidate, but his former running-mate Pat Choate endorsed Buchanan.

Supporters of Hagelin charged that the results of the party's write-in primary, which favored Buchanan by a wide margin, were "tainted". The party's delegates ignored the election and voted to nominate Hagelin, creating a split in the party with two camps claiming legitimacy for separate candidates. Ultimately, Buchanan won the nomination when the Federal Elections Commission ruled that Buchanan would receive ballot status as the Reform candidate and some $12.6 million dollars in federal campaign funds secured by Perot's showing in the 1996 election. In his acceptance speech, Buchanan proposed leaving the United Nations and kicking them out of New York, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Housing and Urban Development, taxes on inheritance and capital gains, and affirmative action programs. Buchanan chose Ezola B. Foster, an African-American activist and retired teacher from Los Angeles, as his running-mate.

He finished in fourth place nationwide with 449,895 votes, or 0.4% of the popular vote. (Hagelin garnered 0.1% as the Natural Law candidate). In Palm Beach County, Florida, Buchanan received 3,407 votes - extremely inconsistent with Palm Beach county's liberal leanings and his showing in the rest of the state. He is suspected to have gained thousands of inadvertent votes as a result of the county's now-infamous "butterfly ballot". (see 2000 Presidential Election) When Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer stated that "Palm Beach county is a Pat Buchanan stronghold and that's why Pat Buchanan received 3,407 votes there," Reform party officials strongly disagreed, estimating the number of supporters in the county at between 400 and 500. Appearing on the "Today" show, Buchanan said: "When I took one look at that ballot on Election Night ... it's very easy for me to see how someone could have voted for me in the belief they voted for Al Gore,"

Trivia

Was interviewed by Ali G on Da Ali G Show, where he was tricked into referring to WMDs as BLTs. [1]

Hunter S. Thompson considered him a friend. Buchanan wrote a short piece about Thompson in Rolling Stone Magazine after Thompson's suicide in 2005. [2]

Books

Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency (2004) ISBN 0312341156
The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization (2001) ISBN 0312285485
A Republic, Not an Empire: Reclaiming America's Destiny (1999) ISBN 089526272X
The Great Betrayal: How American Sovereignty and Social Justice Are Being Sacrificed to the Gods of the Global Economy (1998) ISBN 0316115185
Right from the Beginning (1988) ISBN 0316114081
Conservative Votes, Liberal Victories: Why the Right Has Failed (1975) ISBN 0812905822
The New Majority: President Nixon at Mid-Passage (1973)

External links

NNDB.com profile

Buchanan-affiliated

News and analysis

Opposing views

Supporting views

Misc.

A page featuring his ancestry through nine generations

Preceded by Ross Perot	Reform Party Presidential candidate 2000 (lost)	Succeeded by Ralph Nader