Yeah , I remember seeing pictures of Reagan and Buckley together.
But Buckley fell short of hitting the bullseye about America’s problems and solutions IMO. I liked Buckley and thought he was intelligent and witty. But sometimes I felt like he got a bit tangled up in his own witty verbosity.
What really shined the light on that for me was Buckley’s discussions with Milton Friedman. IMO, Milton Friedman, who self-admittedly made mistakes himself along the way, had his finger on the pulse of the real issues facing America: the value of individual freedom and the threat of way too much government interference and coercion. Buckley seemed a bit flummoxed by all of that. For instance, Buckley, as so many “conservatives” seem to, seemed to have a hard time in his discussions with Friedman embracing the concepts and value of the market economy free from government interference (ie. NO socialism).
I met Buckley in the late 80s at a fundraiser where he gave a speech. I don’t remember how I managed to get in but evidently they didn’t have good door security.
Unlike some speakers, a Trump say, Buckley read his speech rather than speaking extemporaneously. While meeting people afterwards it was apparent that he greatly enjoyed being treated as a celebrity.
I met some other NR people around that time. William Rusher was one. I brought up illegal immigration, already a huge problem here in California. Their eyes glazed over. I might has well have been talking about the troubles penguins were having with seals in Antarctica. This NR crew wasn’t venturing beyond Newport Beach, one of the wealthiest strips of land in SoCal. They didn’t have any clue about what was happening ten miles inland, and worse they didn’t care. It didn’t come as a big surprise when NR went full Bush and embraced wide open borders .