William F. Buckley Jr.

William F Buckley Jr. (born as William Francis Buckley in November 24th, 1925 and died february 27th 2008) was an American politician, conservative author and commentator. He launched National Review in 1955, a magazine which promoted staunch foreign policies against the Nazis and Conservative political thought. He would subsequently start Firing line in 1960 (6 years earlier than real life) which would rise him to prominence in the political sphere. He served as a volunteer for the British during WW2 and returned furious that America did not enter the European front which among many factors caused the Nazis to obtain a close victory across Europe.

He would later expose the Kefauver administration for widespread corruption in his newly set-up welfare system, which would cause Buckley's popularity to rise in the Republican Party. He would run in the 1964 republican primaries against Billy Graham and Russell Kirk and would win due to Kirk's falling out with the republican establishment and Billy Graham's populist staunch anti-segregation platforms. Buckley ran on a platform of moderate civil rights legislation, welfare reform, tax cuts, regulation cuts, hawkish foreign policies against the Nazis, intervention in Africa, and the Balkans, and broad social conservative governance.

He originally intended on selecting Nelson Rockefeller as his running mate but instead chose Billy Graham for the strategic purposes of winning the Black vote, the rural vote and pro civil rights vote. Although the south was all but lost when on his first campaign stop in Ohio Billy Graham invited Louis Armstrong, to play his cover of "Go Down Moses", without the knowledge of Buckley. Buckley would then be forced to adopt a more pro-civil rights platform.