Conservative political strategist William A. Rusher dies at 87

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

William A. Rusher, a conservative strategist for more than 50 years who helped engineer Barry Goldwater’s nomination as the Republican candidate for president in 1964, has died. He was 87.

Rusher died Saturday in a nursing facility in San Francisco after a long illness. His death was confirmed by Richard Vetterli, a spokesman for the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s Office.

Rusher’s influence was felt on decades of U.S. politics, from the 1961 stirrings of the ‘draft Goldwater’ effort to opposing Richard Nixon’s overtures to China in the 1970s to advising Ronald Reagan’s administration in the 1980s.

Rusher also helped shape the public debate through syndicated columns in newspapers across the country. He spent 31 years as publisher of National Review, the magazine founded by William F. Buckley Jr. that was a postwar cornerstone of anti-communism and American conservative thought.

‘There wasn’t an active candidate or a politician who wasn’t familiar with his work,’ said Brian Kennedy, president of the Claremont Institute, a conservative public-policy think tank in Claremont. Rusher joined the institute as a distinguished fellow after leaving the National Review in 1988.

Sal Russo, a Sacramento Republican operative who is the chief strategist for the Tea Party Express, said he developed a friendship with Rusher back when Russo was working for then-Gov. Ronald Reagan in the 1960s. Buckley and Rusher laid the groundwork for the conservative agenda, he said, that would be personified by Reagan as president.

‘He has really been somewhat of a hidden giant of the conservative movement,’ Russo said. ‘He was there at the very beginning, when they came up with the idea of what has become the modern conservative movement.’

Russo said that although Buckley was the face of the conservative movement, Rusher worked hard behind the scenes to pull the coalition together. ‘Bill was a crucial person in that whole process. Buckley of course was full of ideas, but Rusher was very organized, fastidious and he provided all the organizational heft and played a big role in the Young Americans for Freedom.’

More later at latimes.com/obits.

-- Associated Press