It seems that of the three types of rhetoric Aristotle described, you mean we need more of Buckley’s appeal to Logos (or the logic/reason of a position) and less appeals to Pathos (emotion) and Ethos (character of the speaker). But then you refer to how we ought to “speak to the heart,” which implicates Pathos.

I agree we could us a Buckley in our day, but it is not, as many conservatives have posited, that we need a Buckley “for our time.” After all, classical conservatism is rooted in traditional understandings and resists change for its own sake.

What we really need, then, is someone to make the same appeals to logic and longstanding conservative principles in the face of today’s struggles–to remind us that we must stand our ground even now!

You make a good point, though, that the right reasoning will not necessarily lead us down the same path on every issue. In other words, the right answer won’t always “feel” right. It is only by resorting to principle and reason that we know with the full strength of our convictions that we are, in fact, right. And Buckley’s many words of wisdom will allow his ghost to guide conservatism for a long time to come if we’ll only revisit them regularly.