In a half century of following presidential campaigns, I have never seen anything quite like what is unfolding before us now.
There's the current Clinton/Obama focus on Michigan: Will there be a re-do or deal on the Jan. 15 Democratic primary that Hillary Clinton won, but is not accepted by the national party because it broke party rules?
And there's the astounding comeback of GOP nominee-in-waiting John McCain, who won the 2000 Michigan Republican primary but lost it this year to Michigan native Mitt Romney, who subsequently dropped out and is now hyped by some as a possible running mate for McCain.
My campaign focus today, reflecting on the wisdom and wit of William F. Buckley Jr. after his recent death, is on the striking contrast between the civility of the eloquent Buckley, a giant who fashioned the movement, and those bellowing conservatives who now inflame it on the airwaves and in other election discourse.
Cheers to McCain for rebuking Cincinnati talk radio personality Bill Cunningham, said to fancy himself as the Rush Limbaugh of Ohio, after Cunningham made ranting, mocking references to Barak Obama during his warm-up act for a Feb. 26 McCain campaign event.
An angry Cunningham then was featured on nationwide TV vowing to vote for Clinton rather than McCain. It's a tack earlier taken by some more prominent conservative media figures who have a lingering hang-up with conservative McCain, whose straight talk does not veer far enough to the right for them on some issues.
There's a sharp difference between the thoughtful conservative minds of yesterday and some snarling conservative mouths in today's shout fests. They hammer. Buckley scored memorable points with well-timed thrusts of a fencer's epee.
The Man of Mecosta
Consider these comments about the author of "The Conservative Mind" ... "long respected as a seminal figure in the founding of the American conservative movement in the post-world War II years ... a great American man of letters. A sage thinker, prolific writer, and eloquent stylist."
Bill Buckley?
No, those were words of the Delaware-based Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) about Michigan's Russell Kirk (1918-94), who was born in Plymouth and settled in Mecosta County, now the site of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal. ISI in 2007 published "The Essential Russell Kirk," a marvelous collection of selected essays.
Kirk did not have the flash and dash of Buckley, or the national media exposure of Buckley's "Firing Line" TV show and such things as appearing in 1970 on "Laugh-In" (where, when asked why he was always seated when appearing on television, he said: "It's very hard to stand up carrying the weight of what I know.")
Kirk liked lists of ten. Go to www.kirkcenter.org and you can find his Ten Conservative Principles, adapted from "The Politics of Prudence," from ISI Books.
One of the ten is that "conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. ... Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity."
Another Top Ten: "Conservatives are champions of custom, convention, and continuity because they prefer the devil they know to the devil they don't know. ... Necessary change, conservatives argue, ought to be gradual and discriminatory, never unfixing old interests at once."
In one essay, Kirk lists "Ten Exemplary Conservatives," including a Roman orator (Cicero), a Roman emperor (Marcus Aurelius), a Scottish romancer (Sir Walter Scott), and a "fighting, writing President" (Teddy Roosevelt).
Rough-rider Roosevelt was McCain's kind of guy. But presumptive GOP nominee McCain is not the kind of guy favored by some elements of the GOP's base.
Too much of a Bull Moose.
George Weeks retired in 2006 after 22 years as political columnist for The Detroit News. His weekly Michigan Politics column is syndicated by Superior Features.
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