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BUCHANAN.TXT
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1992-01-19
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Patrick Joseph Buchanan
Patrick Buchanan cut his teeth as a conservative
spokesman in the Nixon White House and refined that bite in
the Reagan administration.
And that bite made him famous as a syndicated columnist,
lecturer and television commentator upholding conservative
causes and savagely attacking liberal ideas.
With those intellectual credentials intact, Buchanan, 53,
announced Dec 10 in Concord, NH, he will enter the
battlefront of electoral politics by running against
President Bush for the GOP nomination.
Buchanan's willingness to take on a sitting president of
his own party is consistent with his longtime eagerness to
speak as the conservative watchdog of the Republican Party.
"If I can do well in New Hampshire and in the country,
it's because George Bush walked away from the conservative
base of his party," he said before his announcement.
"Why am I running?" Buchanan asked. "Because we
Republicans can no longer say it is all the liberals' fault.
It was not some liberal Democrat who declared: 'Read my
lips, no new taxes,' and then broke his word to cut a seedy
back room deal with the big spenders on Capitol Hill."
Besides Bush's going back on his promise not to raise
taxes, Buchanan opposed the recent civil rights bill that
many conservatives believe requires racial quotas.
His campaign is expected to stress stands such as America
first in foreign policy, massive budget cuts in fiscal
policy and emphasis on English-speaking, Anglo-Saxon
heritage in domestic affairs.
Buchanan's association with presidential politics began
when he became executive assistant to Richard Nixon.
In his role as Nixon's chief speechwriter, he was
credited with coining some of the president's most famous
remarks.
After working briefly with President Ford, Buchanan
struck out on his own, launching a career as a columnist and
political commentator.
He became a well-paid and highly sought after figure in
conservative circles and earned a national following through
television appearances on such shows as Crossfire on CNN,
where he would spar nightly with a liberal representative
from the media.
Buchanan returned to the White House in February 1985 as
director of communications for Ronald Reagan in charge of
the administration's long-range media planning. In that
role, he was a major critic of the media, believing it to be
heavily dominated by liberals.
Known as one of the most conservative people in the
Reagan White House, Buchanan vigorously sided with the
president when the Iran-Contra scandal broke. He publicly
denounced the media and "liberal" members of Congress, as
well as members of the Republican Party who were critical of
the sale of arms to Iran.
"It is times like this--when a trusted friend is standing
before a gathering mob--when people show their true colors,"
Buchanan said.
In 1986, Buchanan toyed with the idea of running for
president in 1988 but bowed out on grounds that he might
"splinter the conservative cause."
"My heart said yes but my head said no," he explained.
In resigning his White House job in February 1987,
Buchanan said he would be better able to influence issues in
the 1988 election from outside the Reagan administration.
He became increasingly disenchanted with the Bush
administration, which many conservatives thought was stocked
with moderate Republicans at their expense.
A major break with Bush came over the Persian Gulf War.
Long a vigorous anti-communist, Buchanan said he saw no
direct threat from Iraq to the US, believed Iran was the
real problem in the Middle East and criticized Bush for
going to war.
Buchanan was born Nov 2, 1938, in Washington, and
graduated from Georgetown U in 1961.
He married Shelley Ann Scarney May 8, 1971.
"My views, my values, my beliefs were shaped by being a
member of an Irish-Catholic conservative family of 9
children," Buchanan once said.
He earned a master's degree in journalism from Columbia
University and went to work as an editorial editor for the
St Louis Globe Democrat, where he remained for 4 years.
Buchanan published The New Majority in 1973 and
Conservative Votes, Liberal Victories in 1975.