>
>WHY I VOTED FOR PAT BUCHANAN
>
>
>It's Tuesday, March 5, and I just returned from the polls,
>where I cast my ballot for Pat Buchanan. Let's set the
>record straight: I'm an independent who affiliated with the
>Republican party for the express purpose of voting in this
>GOP presidential primary. Tomorrow, it's back to being an
>independent. More importantly, I feel about Pat Buchanan
>like I feel about, say, herpes. I have nothing to say about
>the man that hasn't been said before, and with more venom.
>
>So what, in the name of all things progressive, would
>possess a free-thinking type like myself to vote for a man
>who represents, better than anybody this side of David Duke,
>all things evil in the world? Do I hate Bob Dole *that*
>much?
>
>No, not really. Dole is a politician -- nothing more,
>nothing less. We routinely send legions of his kind to
>legislatures all across the country, and a certain
>percentage of them inevitably make it the State House, even
>the White House. But deep in the festering bowels of the
>machine, one sewer rat is pretty much like another, and at
>his very worst Dole represents a difference in degree, not
>type.
>
>No, I voted for Buchanan for two reasons, neither of which
>really has much at all to do with either Bob or Pat.
>
>The first is purely gratuitous -- before I die, more than
>anything else in life, I want to witness an open, free-for-all,
>double-dealing, smoke-filled back room, knock-down,
>drag-out Republican convention. I want to see the winners
>bloodied and the losers neutered and driven naked into the
>streets. I want to see the Buchanan camp cry havoc and let
>slip the dogs of Holy War. I want to see the party's well-heeled, monied
>power elite trying to quell the Rise of the
>Right, as it were, beating back the Bible-thumping, trailer-trash rabble
>from the doors to the Inner Sanctum. The
>Country Club Crowd has been pandering to the Religious Right
>for years, eliciting votes with promises of moral reforms
>which have never been delivered.
>
>"I'll be with you on your wedding night," the Monster told
>Baron Frankenstein. What will the GOP mainstream do now
>that the covers are pulled back and they realize the
>intractable character of the hideous Monster with whom they
>now find themselves abed?
>
>Yes, indeed -- an open GOP convention would be something
>akin to a World Championship Wrestling pay-per-view for the
>politically aware. At the worst, the GOP emerges ripped and
>torn and Clinton wins the Ugly Dog Contest in November. I'm
>not Clinton's biggest fan right now, but I've turned my
>dictionary inside-out and there simply isn't a definition of
>the word "choice" which can be honestly applied to any race
>involving any of the Republican frontrunners.
>
>At best, after a couple of locked-up ballots fail to produce
>a winner, we might see a draft-Powell movement, and while I
>don't know if Colin would make a good president or not, at
>the very least his candidacy would make for an interesting
>campaign.
>
>The second reason I voted for Pat is more substantive, and
>goes directly to the question of the political clout wielded
>by the Reactionary Right since the Ascension of St. Ronald.
>Begin in the late 70s and early 80s in such unlikely
>backwaters as Lynchburg, Virginia, home of the Thomas Road
>Baptist Church and an ambitious country preacher named Jerry
>Falwell, who went on to found the Moral Majority (two lies
>for the price of one, its critics suggested). Then fast
>forward through a morass of Swaggarts and Robertsons and
>Wildmons and arrive, at the last, in places like Colorado
>Springs, beset on all sides by organizations with names like
>Coloradans for Family Values and Focus on the Family.
>
>These people wield considerable political power all out of
>proportion to their numbers. Nonetheless, CFV, FotF, and
>their ilk are masters of organization and fund-raising, and
>they have a keen (if twisted) sense of what the world
>*OUGHT* TO BE. And as far back as the Moral Majority, they
>have always intuitively understood the value of selecting
>names for themselves which connote mainstream, traditional
>American values. Never mind the fact that they long for an
>idyllic past that never was -- what matters here is their
>claim, from the outset, that *they represent the American
>majority*. Their values are American values, and to them
>the corrupting forces in the country are comprised of a
>wealthy, liberal media-elite. We must, through political
>activism, restore to the American majority the power to
>determine its own moral destiny. So the argument goes.
>
>To make matters worse, every candidate with any pretensions
>to large-scale power in the past decade-and-a-half has taken
>the bait, much like Panderella himself, Sen. Bob Dole, did
>in the early stages of the current campaign. In his haste
>to "reach out" to the Right, who have somehow cornered the
>market on morality, he completely forgot that ever since he
>was first elected to the Senate shortly after the Civil War,
>he has been a centrist (relatively speaking) deal maker. So
>seductive is the appeal of the Right that he nearly
>dismissed his traditional power base entirely. How ironic
>that he and supporters like Speaker Newt are now begging
>Alexander and Forbes to bow out of the race so all resources
>can be focused on Buchanan. Had Dole worried less about the
>Right and more about his own constituency to start with,
>it's hard to imagine how any other moderates could still be
>alive.
>
>So I voted for Buchanan. I'm sick of the pandering, sick to
>death of the power wielded by what I firmly believe is a
>small, fringe political action lobby. I want Buchanan on
>the ballot in November so we can settle the issue once and
>for all. If these folks do, as they claim, represent the
>beliefs of most Americans, let's elect Pat and hand over the
>reins. Majority rule (Moral or otherwise) -- this is
>ostensibly what our system of governance is all about
>anyway, right?
>
>Let's have a referendum on the agenda of the Religious Right
>and on their favorite son, Patrick Buchanan. And if they
>lose by the substantial margin I expect they will, *let's
>have no more of it*. Let's then get back to the business of
>identifying the needs and desires of the *real* majority of
>the voters, and let the preachers get back to doing what
>they ought to be doing in the first place: preaching.
>
>===========
>Sam Smith
>Center for Mass Media Research
>University of Colorado
>543-8610
>smithsr@spot.colorado.edu
>
>
Jonathon S. Epstein "I realize
Department of Sociology I hold the key
Wake Forest University to freedom, I
Winston Salem, N.C. 27109 cannot let my
(910)-759-5447 life be ruled
epstein@wfu.edu by threads."
Rocklist@sun.soci.niu.edu Marillion