CAUSE
AND EFFECT
The
Los Angeles Times reports
that Buchanan's campaign – stuck at less than 1% in the
polls – went on a 200-media-market "Hail Mary" buying
spree in more than 25 states" with this ad. By Sunday morning,
Tim Russert was citing the latest NBC poll on Meet
the Press that had Pat up to 2%, with Nader at 4%.
With only a few days to go before the election, Buchanan broke
a major campaign taboo – "Never bring up foreign policy
unless asked" – and the effect was dramatic, and immediate.
Oh, but nobody cares about foreign policy, they just care
about those red-meat emotional issues – right? Wrong,
wrong, wrong – as this uptick would indicate.
With Bush pulling ahead of Gore – thus encouraging some
Republicans to vote their conscience – the sudden infusion
of a fighting noninterventionist message into the pre-election
mix may just do the trick. Taking into account the fact that
Pat has always polled under the radar – he is
so politically incorrect that his support is only half-visible
to pollsters – this last minute surge could result in
the Reform Party reaching the magic 5% – enough to qualify
the Reformers for matching funds and a viable platform for
2004.
A
MESSAGE TO SERBIAN-AMERICANS, AND FRIENDS
For
the first time since the Vietnam war, a presidential candidate
has made opposition to our foreign policy of global intervention
the centerpiece of his campaign. The Buchanan Reform movement
was launched when Pat released A
Republic, Not an Empire, his campaign book: a 400-page
tome on foreign policy that boldly challenged the shibboleths
of internationalism and became a bestseller. Buchanan was
the only – repeat: only – major candidate
to explicitly oppose the Kosovo war. Not only that, but he
made his outrage at this criminal act an ongoing theme
of his presidential bid: I hope each and every one of my Serbian-American
friends will take that to heart, and remember it well as they
enter the voting booth. If Buchanan polls enough votes to
make the Reformers viable in 2004, Serbian-Americans will
be able to count on a continuing voice, a partisan champion
to speak up on their behalf – an absolutely essential
factor if US policy in the region is to be changed for the
better.
THESE
BLOODY WARS
The
same is true for Arab-American voters, who are forced to stand
by and watch as the Israeli lobby captures both major presidential
candidates, and turns the presidential debate into a "I'm
more pro-Israeli than you" contest, a veritable theater of
the absurd. Buchanan has paid his dues on this issue, and
deserves the vote of each and every Arab-American who is sick
and tired of the blatant bias of American policymakers. Again,
alone among the candidates, Buchanan has devoted precious
airtime to denouncing our failed (and dangerous) Middle East
policy. His fight is your fight – and that is true for
all Americans, no matter what their hyphenated cultural
allegiances. Joe Blow, the Average American, couldn't have
said it better: "These bloody wars are none of America's business."
RUNNING
UNDER THE INFLUENCE
Dubya
admits to driving under the influence – he says he doesn't
remember how many beers he chugga-lugged that long ago night
– but he, along with Gore, is just as certainly running
under the influence of the transnational corporate interests
who contributed millions of dollars to both parties. And while
everyone is avidly discussing the juicy details of the latest
mini-scandal, the
news that, for the first time, the US government is proposing
the insertion of UN "peacekeepers" in Israel's occupied territories
is buried in the back pages. On Wednesday, we will wake up
and Bill Clinton will still be the President of the United
States: which is why, before the end of his term in January,
US troops may already be on their way to the most volatile
hotspot of them all.
ROSS
PEROT – SINISTER DINGBAT
Humor
was not lacking this campaign season: there were guffaws aplenty
during the debates, and Ralph Nader certainly got in more
than a few zingers. The high (or is that low) point was when
the little guy with the jug ears went on Larry King and endorsed
Dubya. Why doesn't CNN make Perot pay for for all that airtime?
He can certainly afford it. At any rate, Dubya seems to have
survived the ordeal, but certainly Perot's hypocrisy has disillusioned
even his most unthinking loyalists – not including those
on the payroll, of course. This endorsement supposedly confers
on Bush the aura of moral purity affected by Perot, but the
latter's sanctimonious pose is a mask that can't cover up
the truth about his conniving self: While smearing Pat as
a "hater," Perot lied and denied any involvement in the Reform
Party wrecking crew's machinations – all the while touting
himself as an exemplar of honesty and integrity. How, then,
does the little creep explain why he signed a legal affidavit
alleging to the Federal Election Commission that Hagelin was
the authentic Reform Party candidate and the rightful recipient
of matching funds? In D
Magazine, Tom Pauken tells the
real story of why Perot, after publicly inviting Buchanan
into the Reform Party, turned on Pat like a snake in the grass,
and became the main backer of the Verney-Mangia-Fulani wrecking
crew. Pauken's revelations only confirm what I have been saying
in this column for more than a year: the Reform Party nominee's
foreign policy-centered campaign has been the main reason
for the rage of the elites, in politics and the media, directed
without letup at Buchanan.
CRANK
CALL
Speaking
of Perot and his Perotistas: the other day I got a phone call
from the John Hagelin for President campaign: you member,
the Transcendental Meditation dingbat who thinks he can fly
through the air? This nutball was used by the Perot people
as a kind of battering ram to wreck the Reform party they
no longer controlled – and delay Buchanan's matching
funds by a crucial three weeks. The telephone solicitor proudly
announced that he had a message from Russell Verney and Jim
Mangia directly to me (oh, gosh, this is truly orgasmic!)
urging me to vote for Hagelin on Election Day. Verney was
identified as a "chairman" of the Reform Party.
Say,
I said, isn't Hagelin the Levitating Candidate who says
the teachings of the Maharishi are the solution to all our
problems?
"Well,
uh, uh," stammered the poor schmuck on the other end, who
is so dumb that even in this economy it's the best job he
can get, "I didn't know that."
And,
say, it's been a long time since Russell Verney was any kind
of official in the Reform Party – didn't the Reform Party
finally have to get a court order to make you guys cease and
desist from representing Hagelin as the Reform Party presidential
candidate long after he had been soundly beaten?
"Gee,
I'll have to get my supervisor," he said, in a panic, "because
I don't know the answers to these questions."
Oh,
don't even bother. By the way, how did you get my phone number?
HAGELIN
AND THE LAROUCHE SOLUTION
I
voted in the Reform Party primary, and, in a typically wacky
Perotista procedure. I believe you were required to put your
phone number on your ballot. How did the Flying Carpeteers
get this information? Inquiring minds want to know.
I have a permanent solution to the Flying Carpeteer problem
in the Reform Party, and it is this: make up a rule specifically
excluding Verney, Mangia, and the Hagelinistas from the party.
The Democrats passed such a rule against professional crackpot
Lyndon LaRouche and his followers, and it has been upheld
by every court – how are the Yogic Flyers of the Maharishi
any less nutballish than good old Lyndon, who, unlike Hagelin,
at least obliquely seems to acknowledge his own megalomania?
A
GREAT COUP – OR A CRYING SHAME?
While
we're doing the third party circuit, what about the Libertarian
Party? After nearly thirty years of running candidates for
the office of President, and seeming to get (mostly) fewer
votes each successive election, the LP has set itself a new
goal: "It would be a great coup,'' said the LP's candidate
Harry Browne in a puff-piece
that somehow got printed in the San Jose Mercury News,
"if I end up ahead of Buchanan.'' Is this the culmination
of all those years of work, of slow, steady party-building,
endless conventions, ceaseless fundraising appeals, and millions
spent – to somehow prevent itself from falling into the
second echelon of third parties? Is this the reward at the
end of the journey, to wind up somewhere on the side of the
road along with Howard Phillips and the Constitution Party,
and the various left-wing splinter groups? In the 1970s the
LP used to proudly advertise itself as America's Third Party:
but, these days, it is more like fourth, fifth, or even sixth,
and that is a bitter pill for the LP leaders to swallow.
A
LIBERTARIAN "WHITEWATER"
The
Mercury News reporter cites some obscure political
science professor that nobody ever heard of who tastelessly
remarks that Buchanan represents the "let me regulate you
in the name of Christ" group: Browne is cited on his signature
issue of drug legalization, the only issue the counter-cultural
Libertarians really feel passionate about. Browne is also
depicted as little short of a saint for not taking $1 million
in federal matching funds: "It would be hypocritical of me
to call for smaller government and then go reaching into the
government's pocket,'' Browne said. But this doesn't stop
him from reaching into the pockets of his naïve contributors,
according to David
Kopel, of the Independence Institute, who writes in National
Review Online:
"What
about Libertarian Harry Browne? The Libertarian party platform
is wonderful, and I agree with about 95 percent of it. But
there are two major problems with voting for Harry Browne
this year. First, it is obvious that Browne will capture the
usual dismal 7/10th of 1 percent that Libertarian presidential
candidates usually get.
"Second,
as detailed
in Liberty magazine, Browne has turned the national
Libertarian party into a feeding trough for his consultants,
and he has ripped off Libertarian party donors with direct-mail
advertisements making patently absurd promises of imminent
electoral success. The LP needs to get rid of Harry Browne;
to vote for him is only to encourage Browne's crowd to maintain
their chokehold on the national party."
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