While Gore's minions are frantically trying to keep their far left-wing in line, as I point out in my column, on the Right a similar rearguard effort is taking place on behalf of Bush against possible defections to the Buchanan camp, especially now that Dubya seems to be pulling ahead in the home stretch. A whole bunch of Republicans remember, with real anger, being lectured by Colin Powell on the virtues of affirmative action, and resent the exclusion of all conservatives from the podium of the Philadelphia convention: they are ready to vote for Buchanan in the privacy of the voting booth – but not if my good friend Lew Rockwell can help it. I note, with sadness, Lew's somewhat baffling screed against Pat Buchanan. PJB, in Lew's view, is a "failure" – and why? It seems Lew went off somewhere to speak to a group of conservative doctors, who were quite vocal about why they couldn't support Pat, and he came back with a whole list of reasons, starting with that old saw about Bush being "the lesser of the two evils." Of course, only yesterday, Lew was encouraging us not to vote, because politics don't matter anyway: the Leviathan State is supposedly crumbling of its own accord – it seems people aren't paying attention to it anymore. But I guess that was yesterday: today, we are faced with the "steely-eyed socialism" of Gore and so must choose Bush, the "lesser of the two evils." I think I'll pass on that one.

THAT'SA ONE SPICY MEATBALL!

For Rockwell to accuse Buchanan of "ideological incoherence" seems disingenuous in the extreme coming from someone who claims to oppose all immigration on "libertarian" grounds: that's one ideological meatball that seems indigestible, even if one did somehow manage to swallow it. It is not true that Buchanan never talks about taxes or regulations. Most regulatory issues, however, are operational at the state level, and PJB's analysis is properly presidential: the broad scope of his vision and his arguments encompasses such issues as the pernicious role of the World Bank and other international institutions in redistributing America's wealth around the globe. Buchanan has, over the course of three campaigns, spoken out on every issue under the sun, from AIDS to the abolition of the income tax, from tax cuts to the real meaning of the tenth amendment. He, quite properly, emphasized some issues – foreign policy – over others, but then this is a strategic matter, and not a question of principle.

BEAUTIFUL LOSERS

Among Lew's other miscellaneous complaints: it seems that, besides being a protectionist, Pat neglected to submit an op ed piece to the Wall Street Journal, his campaign is "disorganized" (this from a former top campaign official in the notoriously disorganized Libertarian Party!) and he takes public money (so does Bush, but then this is a "lesser evil" by definition, I guess: or at least, a lesser evil than Pat's). But if you're going to come down off your high horse long enough to run for public office, and all the other candidates are doing it, then why not play the game on a level playing field, so to speak? I have never understood why it is a libertarian "principle" to absolutely refuse federal matching funds – any more than traveling to a voting booth along a government-funded road would be. The only "principle" involved here seems to be that of the inveterate loser.

WARPED MINDS

Silliest of all is the accusation that Pat's is a "vanity candidacy" – according to the consensus at this conclave of crankish doctors, Pat was found guilty of wanting "to garner the attention of crowds"! Oh, for shame! And what else is a candidate to do – stay holed up in his bunker? But it gets worse: Lew avers that Pat has "warped some the best segments of the American right into anti-trade and pro-union thinking, not to speak of wasting time and money (close to $30 million by the time it's over). It's also sad to see the ruin of the great old slogan 'America First,' once a valiant cry for peace, now a demand for higher taxes on imports." Never mind Buchanan's campaign book, which Lew does not deign to mention by its title, A Republic, Not an Empire, the single best exposition of the noninterventionist Old Right position ever written – which gives a lucidly sympathetic historical account of the original America First movement. If nothing came out of the campaign but an unusually large audience for a book of this kind, then the whole thing will have been worth it: this is how a real political movement is built, around the power of ideas. It is hardly fair to say that PJB has "ruined" a "great old slogan" – when it was none other than he who single-handedly revived it.

IN PURSUIT OF MODERATION?

Rockwell concludes by worrying that:

"On election eve, the media are going to claim that Buchanan's failure represents the political downfall of the right. Not true. His opportunity to make a difference in American politics may have come and gone, but, according to my doctor friends, that represents only the failure of one campaign, not the better part of the ideas he once represented."

There is something just not right in this analysis, especially if Lew imagines that election eve is going to measure the success or failure of Buchanan as a political influence on a whole generation of conservative activists. Why write off many thousands of paleo-conservative activists, each and every one of them in 90% agreement with every principle Lew Rockwell holds dear – and embrace a party that cheers and even cries out for more as Colin Powell lectures them on the virtues of affirmative action? Unless good old Lew is trying to – dare I say it? – moderate his image somewhat, it is hard to figure this one out.

THE SAME OLD PAT

In answer to Lew, I can only remind him that the Pat both he and I supported in the 1991-92 campaign is pretty much the same candidate he is today – only better. We knew he was a protectionist back then – protectionism is an old conservative theme – check out those old back issues of The American Mercury! If anything, Buchanan's emphasis on the key issue, foreign policy, has increased over the years, especially with the publication of A Republic, Not an Empire. In end, I suppose, one can only remind Lew of what our old friend and mentor Murray N. Rothbard had to say on the subject: specifically, on January 18, 1992, in Herndon, Virginia. The text of his speech, by the way, was published in a great little periodical, The Rothbard-Rockwell Report: does that ring a bell? Murray Rothbard was in a celebratory mood that day. He was celebrating the implosion of the Communist despotism, the final confirmation of what Ludwig von Mises and other economists of the Austrian school had long predicted; he was celebrating his own return to the Right, after long years of exile, in the post-cold war upsurge of right-wing "isolationism" – and the return of the Old Right as represented by the candidacy of Patrick J, Buchanan:

"This, only the second annual meeting of the John Randolph Club, celebrates the fact that we have suddenly vaulted from the periphery to a central role in the American Right. The occasion of this dramatic change, of course, has been the entry into the presidential race of our esteemed Randolph Club member Patrick J. Buchanan. As Sidney Blumenthal puts it in the January 6-13 issue of the New Republic – he speaks of the magazine Chronicles but this applies equally well to the Randolph Club-: 'Chronicles, which was on the periphery of conservatism under Reagan, has become suddenly engaged at its center as the Bush/Buchanan race looms.'

Murray was exuberant: "What has happened is that what I call the Old Right is suddenly back!"

But aside from PJB's generally good politics, for Rothbard the key question of style was vitally important:

"It is important to realize that the establishment doesn't want excitement in politics, it wants torpor, it wants the masses to continue to be lulled to sleep. It wants kinder, gentler, it wants the measured, judicious, mushy tone, and content, of a James Reston, a David Broder, or a 'Washington Week in Review.' It doesn't want a Pat Buchanan, not only for the excitement and hard edge of his content, but also for his similar tone and style."

CUTTING THROUGH THE HERMENEUTICAL FOG

In the end, I think I'll follow Murray's advice on this one, and here it is direct:

"And so the proper strategy for the Right-wing must be what we can call "Right-wing populism": exciting, dynamic, tough, and confrontational, rousing, and inspiring not only the exploited masses, but the often shell-shocked Right-wing intellectual cadre as well. And in this era where the intellectual and media elites are all establishment liberal-conservatives, all in a deep sense one variety or another of social democrat, all bitterly hostile to a genuine Right, we need a dynamic, charismatic leader who has the ability to short-circuit the media elites, and to reach and rouse the masses directly. We need a leadership that can reach the masses and cut through the crippling and distorting hermeneutical fog spread by the media elites. We need, in short, the leadership of Patrick J. Buchanan."

HERE TO STAY

Wipe away the hermeneutical fog from your eyes, Lew, and get with the program. Buchanan is a hero, not a villain: few have sacrificed as much as he has (including his health) trying to build a movement to take back our Old Republic. No party is perfect, no campaign is perfect, no leader is perfect, because all of us are human and therefore inherently imperfect. But let me tell you one thing: after close to a decade of being in and around the bohemian Libertarian Party, the solidly bourgeois Buchananites came as a great relief, and I have never seen a better bunch of people: dedicated, intelligent, and knowledgeable to a man (and woman). Far from being a failure, the Buchananized Reform party is going to flourish as Dubya sells out his party and its principles in very short order. Conservative dissent will flourish as never before – and the Reformers will be there, ready to welcome in the flood of new members. As Rothbard put it: the Old Right is back – and here to stay.