The Debate: Bushism vs. Reaganism

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul “came out of his shell” at the Republican presidential debate this week and delineated the fault lines in the Republican Party for all to see, according to columnist Pat Buchanan.

For more than three decades, those fault lines have boiled down to a battle between Bushism and Reaganism. And Paul succeeded in reflecting the latter.

Buchanan, a two-time Republican presidential candidate, said on “The Laura Ingraham Show” that Paul offered a forceful defense of his libertarian views on foreign policy.

Buchanan said the crowd who watched the debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Tuesday night was far more supportive of military intervention than the American public at large. The result, he said, is that Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and others got applause with calls for muscular action in the Middle East.

“Rand Paul is a reluctant interventionist, and I think a great majority of the American people are there,” Buchanan said.

Buchanan said that makes Paul more like Ronald Reagan, for whom Buchanan worked as a White House official. He recalled urging Reagan to “put Poland in default” and destroy the credit rating of the Warsaw Pact nations after the Soviet Union’s puppet government in Poland crushed the Solidarity movement in 1981.

“He didn’t do it,” Buchanan said. “He didn’t intervene.”

But Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is better positioned to make a serious run at the nomination, Buchanan argued.

Buchanan said Cruz is well-positioned to consolidate support among voters who want an outsider. The Texas senator had a good debate, Buchanan said.

“Cruz has more natural political abilities … than anybody up there,” he said. “If (Ben) Carson begins to slip, his constituency is not going to probate. I think it starts moving to Ted Cruz.”

Buchanan said Rubio also had a good performance. But he said both he and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush hurt themselves with their views on immigration.

“Bush and Marco pretty much indicated that nobody’s going to be sent back, which is de facto amnesty,” he said.