A populist conservative might beat Hillary, he tells Salon — while taking on MSNBC, McCain, the Tea Party and more.
After losing the presidential election in 1960 and the California governor’s race in 1962, Nixon famously told reporters: “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.” Soon after, he set up a law practice in New York, where he largely stayed out of the spotlight.
A few years later, Patrick J. Buchanan, a young editorial writer in St. Louis, told Nixon at a local Republican gathering that he wanted to work on what he felt certain would be Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign. When Buchanan joined Richard Nixon in early 1966, he wasn’t so much joining Nixon’s staff as he was Nixon’s staff.
Nixon’s improbable rise from the has-been heap to the White House is the subject of Buchanan’s new memoir, “The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority.” Buchanan talked to Salon about the Republican Party’s turnaround in the late 1960s, Hillary Clinton’s presidential prospects in 2016, and what Eric Cantor’s recent primary loss means for immigration policy.
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