This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, October 7, 2010.

I'm Caleb Brown.

William F. Buckley helped create the modern conservative movement,

but even Buckley found himself at odds with modern

conservatives in his later years.

Jeremy Lott is author of the book William F Buckley, part of the Christian encounters series

published by Thomas Nelson. We spoke last week.

William F Buckley is credited with helping foster this strong intellectual aspect to conservatism and I guess helping define modern

conservatism what was it that he helped create? How would people today think

about what he helped create in the 50s?

There were various strains of conservative thought going into of the 50s,

but they weren't put together.

And with National Review and with young Americans for Freedom

and with some of the other things that he worked to put together,

he helped to build a conservative movement that you see today.

You can't these days walk the streets of DC without being able to spot a

conservative here or there. That would have been inconceivable before Buckley and before the conservative movement that he founded.

The conscience of a conservative comes out and sort of helps the group of people sort of coalesce around Barry Goldwater, which was, you know, a bad election, suffice

it to say, for Goldwater.

But it was a good election for conservatism, because it showed that there was a floor of

support for conservatives that you could build on and that proved to be very very

important you know the to And that proved to be very, very important.

...