The Crusader: The Life and Tumultuous Times of Pat Buchanan

In this lengthy, thorough biography, Stanley (Kennedy vs. Carter) details the political highs and lows of Pat Buchanan, the pivotal, polarizing figure of modern American conservatism. Stanley is drawn to Buchanan’s personality, which even his opponents concede is “funny and quick and intellectually coherent, even when his views are totally toxic.” The author links Buchanan’s brawling childhood and immersion in “drink, girls, and gangs [which] all led to a nightly routine of fistfights and bloody noses” to the pugnacity he brought into writing speeches for Nixon and promoting anticommunism. As a Reagan adviser, though, the cerebral roots of his conservatism were underappreciated, as “the Reagan White House lacked the intellectual cut and thrust of the Nixon years,” and Buchanan turned to a lucrative career in punditry. Stanley provides a play-by-play of Buchanan’s three presidential bids, but his treatment is uneven; in particular, he underplays Buchanan’s turn toward an ugly nativism in his 1996 and 2000 runs. The “paleoconservative” Buchanan is clearly an inspiration for today’s Tea Party, and his subjects of scorn—abortion, contraception, feminism, homosexuality—remain at the forefront of the culture war he declared. But the ways in which the inchoate rage of the American middle is channeled has shifted, and Stanley spends too much time on Buchanan and not enough on how his moment has passed. (Feb.)