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BY ELIZABETH COLLINS

In print | October 30, 2003

CNN political correspondent and self-proclaimed “right-winger” Bay Buchanan spoke about three lessons she had learned in an extensive political career and her surprising opposition to the Iraq war.

“I enjoy speaking to young people, particularly liberals,” Buchanan said when asked about coming to Swarthmore. “I find they aren’t as familiar as they think about conservative ideas and are able to have a more open mind when they are better informed.”

“I’m still in politics because the only time you’re beat in this game is when you quit,” Buchanan said about her career in politics. Buchanan, former campaign manager for her brother Patrick Buchanan’s bid for the presidency, spoke about three lessons she has learned in her career that have kept her in politics for 25 years: “A Love of People,” “A Love of Ideas” and “The Politics of Intimidation.”

Buchanan, who spoke on Tuesday, works for CNN’s program “Inside Politics.”

“When you watch a political convention on TV, you probably wonder, ‘Who are these people in the elephant hats and the big pins?’ " Buchanan said. “They are the salt of the earth.” Buchanan said grassroots volunteers and the money they donate get a candidate elected. It is the Democratic caucus in Iowa that will determine the outcome of the Democratic primary presidential election, not “the media, the TV spin doctors, and the polls,” because the caucus will be composed of ordinary people without agendas, she said.

“I like being called an activist and a right-winger,” Buchanan said. “It means I believe in something.” Buchanan said too many politicians changed their beliefs with the polls. Buchanan said politicians must become experts in the issues that most concern them, take a stand on the issues and stand by their beliefs with little compromise.

“Although I’m a liberal and don’t agree with many of her beliefs, I believe Ms. Buchanan correctly identified the problems that confront the Democratic and Republican parties,” Patrick Hart ’06 said.

Buchanan said both Democrats and Republicans were hindered by what she called “the politics of intimidation,” where members of both parties are afraid to take a strong stance on anything, particularly a controversial topic, for fear of losing a reelection or being called too radical.

“You need to go through the firestorm in politics,” Buchanan said. “You must have courage of your convictions.”

Buchanan said she was against the Iraq war because she did not believe there to be an imminent threat in Iraq and did not support the “global army” that seems to be forming in the United States. Buchanan said she did not blame Bush for the war in Iraq because she believed he truly thought there to be an imminent threat.

Instead, she blamed Congress for approving a war they believed to be wrong, a month before an election and at a time when polls indicated that Americans were in favor of the war.

“In the past, the Republican speakers we have had on campus spoke about strictly conservative topics,” Randy Goldstein ’05, president of the College Republicans said. “The College Republicans thought that Ms. Buchanan could appeal to a wider variety of Swarthmore students based not upon shock value but pure interest.”

“Her perspective is unique,” Matt Meltzer ’06 said. “She brought a view of conservatism that was different from that of neo-conservatives.”

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