The lights of the Houston Astrodome burned brightly on the evening of Aug. 17, 1992, as thousands of Republican delegates gathered for the party’s national convention. They had come to renominate President George H. W. Bush and begin the general election campaign.
Before the night was over, the convention would be remembered for a speech delivered by the man who had just failed to defeat Bush for the Republican nomination.
The former White House aide Pat Buchanan approached the podium and delivered the speech that became the defining moment of his political career.
“There is a religious war going on in this country. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we shall be as the Cold War itself, for this war is for the soul of America.”
The speech drew immediate backlash. Liberal columnist Molly Ivins wrote that Buchanan’s speech “probably sounded better in the original German.” Many Republicans feared it had overshadowed President Bush’s convention.