Reactionary Running Mates.

• Author: Postrel, Virginia
• Position: Susan Faludi and Pat Buchanan

Susan Faludi sounds like Pat Buchanan.

If Pat Buchanan is going to run for president, he'll need a running mate. And with the Reform Party a shambles, he needs to get creative, to find someone who can attract positive attention and reach out to a different base.

I suggest feminist-of-the-moment Susan Faludi, star of Newsweek covers and myriad newspaper puff pieces. She's tiny and soft-spoken, an unlikely combination for a political crusader. But like Buchanan, she uses an unthreatening manner to deliver a radical message. Faludi and Buchanan are perfect for each other.

Both are clever wordsmiths, able to combine anecdotes and abstractions in a compelling form. Both are adept at manipulating their media images, putting the publicity-maximizing spin on their ideas, and turning up on the covers of news magazines. Both are well-connected insiders who adeptly portray themselves as populists. Both decline to let statistical truth get in the way of a good story. Both have emotional styles that stress empathy for the common man. And both share a general worldview.

It sounds absurd, of course. Buchanan is a man of the hard right, Faludi a woman of the hard left. His 1940s hero is Charles Lindbergh; hers is Henry Wallace. They travel in different circles, and they obviously disagree about abortion. In her latest book, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man, Faludi even zings Buchanan for abandoning his followers at the 1996 Republican convention.

But political tickets don't depend on complete agreement or personal harmony. They are alliances created to advance a common cause. And while Buchanan and Faludi have many differences, they are both prominent advocates of a particular understanding of what's wrong with contemporary American life.

Both Buchanan and Faludi believe that Americans in general, and American men in particular, have been betrayed - that the institutions, habits, and attitudes of our time represent broken promises. They both look back on a better day, during and after World War II, when American men could find meaning in job stability and collective endeavors. Current social and economic arrangements, they suggest, have been foisted on the good people of America by a cold system that cares nothing for their needs or aspirations.

After World War II, writes Faludi in the highly touted Stiffed, "The promise was that wartime masculinity, with its common mission, common enemy, and clear frontier, would continue in peacetime.... Like GI Joe, [each American man] would be judged not on his personal dominance but on his sense of duty, his voluntary service to an organization made up of equally anonymous men. The dog soldier would continue to have his day."

But...