Buchanan, Pat(rick Joseph) (1938– )

US right-wing Republican activist and journalist. Although a TV and radio commentator, he often attacked the mass media. He was a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 1992 and 1996.

Buchanan was special assistant and speechwriter to President Richard Nixon 1966–73, and was President Ronald Reagan's White House director of communications 1985–87. In 1993 he became chair of his own broadcasting company.

An advocate of ‘America First’ protectionism, the outlawing of abortion, an end to US participation in United Nations peacekeeping missions, and a moratorium on immigration, he became referred to by opponents as the USA's equivalent to the Russian extremist xenophobe Vladimir Zhirinovsky. From 1992 he was chair of the American Cause protectionist group.

Buchanan was born in Washington, DC, educated at Georgetown and Columbia universities, and worked as a journalist on the St Louis Globe-Democrat 1962–65 before taking a job in Nixon's law firm.

When Nixon became president in 1969, it was Buchanan who prepared his daily briefing. Buchanan attacked the television networks, which he believed were under the control of antigovernment liberals and were too influential. Appointed special consultant to the president in 1972, he stayed on under Gerald Ford.

In the book Conservative Voters, Liberal Victories (1975), Buchanan attacked the media for undermining public support for the Vietnam War. From 1975 to 1978 he wrote a syndicated political column, and from 1978 to 1982 he introduced the commentary programme Confrontation on NBC radio. He was moderator of the TV show Capital Gang 1988–92 and editor of the newsletter PJB – From the Right 1990–91.

His controversial challenge for the Republican presidential nomination against the incumbent George Bush in 1992 was unsuccessful, despite winning 37% support in the opening New Hampshire primary. In the 1996 open contest for the Republican nomination, Buchanan ran a vigorous populist campaign which, railing against abortion, illegal immigration, and the big business elite, drew in support from the self-styled ‘moral majority’ religious right and disaffected blue-collar workers. In the New Hampshire primary he narrowly defeated the Senate leader Bob Dole, but his campaign subsequently never got more than 20–30% support, and Dole went on to gain the nomination.