American right-wing politician with inflammatory rhetoric. He announced his candidacy for U.S. President on 10/10/1991 at Concord, MA. His run for office in 1992 and 1996 hobbled Republican front-runners by splitting the vote. Formerly a journalist, then speechwriter in the Nixon White House, he criticizes and mocks sensitive issues. Buchanan was a rabble-rouser in his “America first” campaign, winning by preaching to fears no one else had the courage to name, sounding fire bells for the loss of the America in which he was raised. America listens to his incendiary language and extreme views, bemoaning the specter of corporate downsizing and the decline of the once traditional family. Disregarding endorsements, he says, “I want to win by myself.”
Selecting specific enemies to match the state in which he’s campaigning, he refers to a long list: Mexican immigrants, the U.N., the World Trade Organization, Supreme Court Justices Ruth Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, Japanese Prime Minister Hashimoto, supply-side theorists, K Street lawyers and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. In Arizona he denounced Mexican illegals and championed a law to make English the official language. In the Bible belt South, he stressed opposition to abortion, affirmative action and “corporate butchers” in the ranks of textile executives.
Buchanan apprenticed with Richard Nixon, traveling with him as an aide-de-camp and speechwriter during the ’60s. He was at Spiro Agnew’s side during the tumultuous midterm elections of 1970 and with Nixon again in 1972. He learned timing and tactics. The tag line in his ads summarizes his appeal: “He says what he means and he means what he says.”
Raised in Washington, he has left the area only twice; first for a year at Columbia journalism school, then four years in the early ’60s when he took nasty FBI leaks about the private life of Dr. Martin Luther King and turned them into incendiary editorials for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat paper.
Brought up in a brawling, clannish, right wing Roman Catholic family, he carefully cultivates an image of being rugged and pugnacious. He stumps in a cowboy hat and bolo tie as a “man of the people.” In actuality, he is known as a gracious guest in the Washington party circuit, a media insider. This “man of the people” lives well, dines well, and frequents the best private clubs.
His inconsistencies are egregious. His multi-million-dollar personal portfolio includes foreign investments, in a British bank, Argentine and French oil interests and a Hong Kong utility with a stake in a Chinese power plant. Where he routinely ridicules Robert Dole for his ties to agriculture, he himself is closely tied to textile magnate Roger Milliken, who routinely seeks government favors. In 1994, Milliken pumped $1.7 million into Buchanan’s organization, The American Cause. While claiming to be the best family-values candidate, Buchanan and his wife, Shelley, have no kids of their own. He would bar abortion even in cases of rape and incest, but he himself chooses not to adopt. He has no experience with average family activities, and he missed military life due to an arthritic knee. Though speaking for the “everyday man,” he himself is chauffeured around town by his wife Shelley, who also answers his mail, handles his personal appointments and takes care of his everyday schedule.
In the first week of June 1992, he had surgery to replace a heart valve apparently damaged by complications from an illness he had when he was 20. With a puckish humor, he wrote an engaging autobiography, “Right From the Beginning.”
Buchanan credits his sister Bay with forcing his decision to run for president in 1996. As outspoken and passionately committed as he, Bay has been called “Pat in a dress.” On the other hand, his wife Shelley is quiet and adoring, and also a political junkie.
On 3/02/1999, he launched a third White House bid with a pledge to fight “a moral deficit that has become America’s great enemy within.” He promises to continue his usual themes, standing against unfettered imports, freewheeling immigration, abortion, euthanasia, expanded judicial powers, a shrinking American sovereignty and at times, his own party.
In his 1999 publication, “A Republic, Not an Empire,” he argues for extreme isolationism, warning that too many black and brown-skinned people are entering the U.S. He lashes out at Jews, the media and large corporations, as well as any minority that takes away from the white Anglo-Christian vote.
Buchanan won the battling Reform Party’s presidential nomination on 8/11/2000 in a move bitterly opposed by Ross Perot’s supporters. In a surprise move, he named a black woman as his running mate, Ezola Foster, a Los Angeles teacher and conservative political activist.
On 8/17/2000, he had his gall bladder successfully removed, after having stomach pains the past several months. On 9/13/2000, recovered from his surgery, he was legally declared the Reform Party’s true presidential nominee and that his rival, John Hagelin, was barred from campaigning as such.
Link to Wikipedia biography