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- NATION, Page 24Brother's Helper
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- The Pat Buchanan campaign began with a phone call last
- December, when the commentator discussed the possibility of a
- run with his sister Angela. She urged him on, and even
- volunteered to leave home and hit the road to help coordinate
- the effort against George Bush. In the three months since then,
- Angela ("Bay") Buchanan has become the candidate's most
- important adviser.
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- Buchanan has moved in conservative circles for most of her
- 43 years. Thanks to her brother's Republican contacts, she
- found a job working for Richard Nixon's re-election in 1972,
- then served as an accountant and treasurer for Ronald Reagan's
- quests for the presidency in 1976 and 1980. For her efforts, Bay
- was rewarded with the post of Treasurer of the United States in
- 1981, becoming, at 32, the youngest person to hold the largely
- ceremonial job. After leaving the Reagan Administration, she
- managed several G.O.P. campaigns in California and launched her
- own unsuccessful bid for state treasurer in 1990.
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- She is one of the few women on a campaign team dominated
- by white males and staffed by only 60 paid workers nationwide.
- While a spokesman concedes that the candidate's wife Shelley has
- a role limited to "taking care of the man running for office,"
- Bay's presence looms large. She is largely responsible for the
- seat-of-the-pants strategy that complements her brother's
- smooth stump manner and plays to his strengths. She helped
- create the effective antitax TV spot that parodied Bush's "read
- my lips" pledge on the eve of the New Hampshire primary. And it
- was Bay who advised Pat to pillory the President for delaying
- the $500 middle-class tax cut he had promised in the State of
- the Union address.
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- Her nearly constant presence at her brother's side
- represents something of a homecoming for Bay. In 1982 she
- abandoned Roman Catholicism and married into the Mormon faith.
- On her father's orders, many family members -- including Pat --
- did not attend the ceremony, and the marriage ended in divorce.
- Today the Pat-Bay relationship is close again, strengthened by
- their common mission: restoring the party to what they consider
- to be Reaganite conservatism.
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- -- By David Ellis. Reported by Nancy Traver/Washington.
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