by Patrick J. Buchanan

With the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 8, and the Iowa caucuses dead ahead, the nominees of both parties may be known in two weeks. Surely, after Feb. 5, when a slew of primaries are held, both races will be all but over.

Then, from Feb. 5 to Nov. 4, nine months, those nominees will be made to run an Iroquois gauntlet.

To define them, before either defines himself or herself for the voters, both parties will engage in sustained barrage attacks. Their opposition research arms are stocked with ammunition.

by Patrick J. Buchanan

Good for Time.

Its Person of the Year was Vladimir Putin, who has presided over the economic rebirth of his nation and reasserted Russia’s role as a great power.

A first runner-up was Gen. David Petraeus, leader of the “surge” in Iraq that staved off what appeared a U.S. defeat and debacle, and helped revive the Bush presidency. Indeed, the anti-war Congress was arguably the greatest disappointment and biggest loser of 2007.

by Patrick J. Buchanan

Not since 1952 has the nation entered a presidential year with greater seeming uncertainty as to who will face off in November.

Early that year, Tennessee Sen. Ernest Kefauver upset Harry Truman in New Hampshire, relieving the nation by dashing Harry’s hopes for another four years. The Republican race would be a titanic struggle between the Eastern Establishment’s Gen. Dwight Eisenhower and “Mr. Republican,” Ohio Sen. Robert Taft, the conservative paragon.

Splitting the primaries between them, Ike and Taft fought all the way to the convention, where Ike’s Texas delegates were seated and Bob Taft’s booted.

by Patrick J. Buchanan

It was as low a blow as has lately been landed in national politics.

And it had all the subtlety of a surprise kick to the groin.

Bill Shaheen, husband of ex-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, a national co-chair of the Clinton campaign, volunteered to the Washington Post his concern at what might happen to Barack Obama, were he to be nominated.

“The Republicans are not going to give up without a fight, and one of the things they’re certainly going to jump on is drug use,” said Shaheen. And, as Obama has admitted in his autobiography to using drugs, this will “open the door” to further probing.

by Patrick J. Buchanan

The White House campaign to stampede this nation into war, to smash Iran’s nuclear facilities before she acquires the capability to build an atom bomb, has been derailed, probably for the duration of the Bush presidency.

And the Bush policy – to leave the military option on the table while pressing China, Russia and NATO to back tougher sanctions in the Security Council – has been torpedoed.

by Patrick J. Buchanan

Four weeks before New Hampshire and three weeks before the Iowa caucuses, the Republican race has become a proxy religious war.

On one side is a Baptist preacher who called homosexuality “an aberrant, unnatural and sinful lifestyle” that “can pose a dangerous public health risk,” urged the isolation of AIDS sufferers and declared in 1998 that we must “answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ.”

On the other is a devout Mormon whose finest hour was last week’s televised address in which he refused to back away from any precept of his faith but affirmed: “Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind.”

by Patrick J. Buchanan

If Mitt Romney wins the Republican nomination, it will be due in large measure to his splendid and moving defense of his faith and beliefs delivered today at the George Bush Presidential Library.

The address was courageous in a way John F. Kennedy’s speech to the Baptist ministers was not. Kennedy went to Houston to assure the ministers he agreed with them on virtually every issue where they differed with the Catholic agenda and that his faith would not affect any decision he made as president. He called himself “the Democratic Party’s candidate for president who happens also to be a Catholic.”

by Patrick J. Buchanan

On the Great Seal of the United States, first suggested by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, there was to be emblazoned a new motto: “E Pluribus Unum” – “Out of many, one.”

It was in their unity, not their diversity, that the strength of the colonies resided. So Patrick Henry believed, as he declared, “The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American.”

National identity must supersede state identity for America to survive.