Buchanan shares ideas on war, politicians

By Corey G. Johnson
Staff writer

PEMBROKE — Political commentator Pat Buchanan warned Republicans on Tuesday that if U.S. troops are still in high numbers in Iraq by 2008, the presidency will be lost.

“If we are still in Iraq and not on our way out, I don’t see how the country will elect a Republican president,” Buchanan told a crowd of about 250 people at UNC-Pembroke.

Buchanan’s hourlong speech focused on why he thought the presidency and the country were “in trouble.” He peppered his observations about President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and immigration with jokes and historical anecdotes.

“The problem is Iraq has been around for 2,500 years. It’s never been a democracy,” said Buchanan, who is against the war. “Nineteen-year-old kids in the 82nd Airborne are going to make Iraq a democracy?”

Buchanan blamed failure in Iraq on what he called Bush’s arrogance, ignorance of history and the blind slavery to the ideology of neoconservatism. He compared the White House’s neoconservatism to worshiping a “false religion.”

“This neoconservatism is not true conservatism. It is the conservatism of those who I worked with in the White House,” said Buchanan, hinting at his days as a staffer in the Nixon White House.

He also urged the country to tighten the Mexican border to stem the tide of immigration.

“The Indians had a liberal immigration policy and look what happened to them,” Buchanan joked.

Buchanan closed his talk by sizing up the strength and weakness of the Democratic and Republican front-runners in the 2008 presidential campaign.

He predicted Hillary Clinton would emerge to compete against Mitt Romney when the dust settled. He praised Barack Obama’s speaking abilities but doubted voters would think he had enough experience to be president.

“I don’t think he can go the distance,” Buchanan said.

Erik Stancil, 20, said he agreed with Buchanan’s criticism of Bush but hoped he was wrong about Obama.

“We need someone who is of the people and can relate to them,” Stancil said of Obama. “But everything he said about Bush gets an amen out of me.”

Raymond Pearson, 20, said Buchanan’s speech inspired him to do more research before voting in 2008.

“I wasn’t that familiar with some of what he was talking about, but I agree that if we don’t address the immigration issue properly, then we are going to continue to have problems,” Pearson said.

Buchanan reiterated that he was not running for president in 2008, saying his 2000 experience of almost electing Al Gore was enough for him.

He said he would be satisfied if the current debate would hinge on the country’s leaders addressing questions such as “Where and when should the U.S. intervene in the world?” And, “Is it in our national interest to fight all these wars?”

Christian Coalition officer backs Romney

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A Christian Coalition of America officer who ran a successful campaign to ban gay marriage in South Carolina said Thursday he is endorsing Republican Mitt Romney's presidential bid and will work for the campaign.

Drew McKissick, the national coalition's secretary and board member, will be a paid "South Carolina grass roots adviser" for the campaign, Romney spokeswoman Gail Gitcho said Thursday.

McKissick, who also is co-chairman of the South Carolina GOP's rules committee, said his endorsement of the former Massachusetts governor has nothing to do with his own role with the Christian Coalition.

Gitcho and McKissick said there was no link between the endorsement and the paid campaign job.

"I started to go through this process a year ago," McKissick said of the endorsement. "It became obvious to me who was likely be the consensus conservative choice."

The campaign declined to say how much McKissick would be paid.

Last year, Romney's political action committee donated $5,000 to McKissick's SC for Marriage group, which pushed a state constitutional amendment that prevents any type of legal recognition of same-sex unions. While the group solicited cash from other presidential hopefuls, Romney was the only one to write a check, McKissick said.

Romney's black hair natural, not dyed

MILWAUKEE, Wis. --Don't expect Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to endorse hair dye products anytime soon.

The former governor of Massachusetts laid to rest on Friday any rumors that he dyes his hair black. His sleek dark coif, with just a hint of gray on his sideburns, is completely natural, he told reporters following a fundraiser in Milwaukee.

"I don't dye it. I don't color it and you can take a real close camera shot and see there's a lot of gray mixed in with all that black," said a laughing Romney.

Earlier this month Romney turned 60, an age when many men are forced to decide between coloring their hair or living gray.

Though Romney hasn't had to think about that just yet -- or so he says -- his campaign advisers worry that his hair is too perfect, according to an internal campaign document that recently surfaced in the media.

Romney is trailing in polls behind two older, hair-challenged candidates -- former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is mostly bald, and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, whose hair is white.

Meanwhile, the Michigan Republican Party announced Friday that the three candidates agreed to speak at the party's biennial Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference to be held Sept. 21-23 at the historic Grand Hotel. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has said he will wait until this fall before deciding if he'll run, also will address the conference.

The conference, held in odd-numbered years, usually draws about 3,000 Republican activists, guests, journalists and political pundits to the island situated in the Straits of Mackinac between Michigan's Upper and Lower peninsulas.