new conservatism

Patrick Ruffini wonders if we can have Buckley back. The short answer? No. That yacht has sailed off into the sunset, and William F. Buckley won't be coming back. If we want a new Buckley, it's up to us to build one. Frankly, we're failing... not only to build the next Buckley, but to build a conservative movement of our own.

You know, William F. Buckley was 30 years old when he started National Review. He was 35 when Young Americans for Freedom was founded at his home in Sharon, Connecticut. He was 41 when he started Firing Line. People my age (I turned 35 not too long ago) remember Buckley as an older man, and we forget that the leaders we grew up with were our age when they started the modern conservative movement in the 1950's.