Vote Buchanan, Then Wash Your Hands

Like most savvy people in America today, I dearly wish I could be a conservative Republican.

Sadly, my obstacles are two: First, I’m not wealthy enough; second, I just can’t manage to be bribed or duped by those who are.

I hope to remedy these deficiencies - the former anyway - but the outlook is not bright.

Usually, this lack of pedigree doesn’t bother me. I’m content to stand back on the curb with everyone else and raise my hat as the limousines whiz by.

But now, with less than two weeks left until the Arizona Republican presidential primary, I feel it acutely.

That’s because I long for the chance to do the right thing on Feb. 27, to salvage something meaningful out of this sham political hypefest.

I long to cast my vote for Pat Buchanan.

That’s right, I am indeed speaking of that bejowled beast of the Beltway, that gay-bashing, foreigner-hating poster boy of the Christian Right, who “won” in Iowa by coming in a close second to Bob Dole.

Why Buchanan? Certainly not because of his personality, that of an aging, privileged bully. Clearly not because of the bulk of his views, which are shamelessly rooted in bigotry and fear.

No, the reason I’d vote Buchanan is the same one that moved folks in Iowa on Monday. A reason clearly outlined in two national news reports this week:

The Good News: The stock market continues to soar into the stratosphere. The Dow Jones industrial average declined a bit Wednesday, but only after a seven-day run of records that pushed it above the astounding level of 5600.

The market has “been on an unrelenting tear,” one money manager said Wednesday, “because earnings are great, rates are falling and there is nothing real negative out there.”

The Bad News: Wages and benefits paid American workers rose just 2.9 percent last year, the smallest increase on record. Pay and benefits for private blue-collar workers rose 2.5 percent, just matching inflation; compensation for white-collar workers rose 3.1 percent.

Workers in the fast-growing service sector did worst, receiving a pay and benefits hike of only 2 percent.

Get the picture? Of course you do - unless you’re wealthy enough not to care or have been bribed or duped by those who are.

Millions of Americans have lost their jobs. Millions more have seen their incomes stagnate or fall. Millions of their kids are growing up in mediocre schools.

Corporations are out-sourcing, downsizing and exporting jobs to Third-World sweat shops. CEOs’ compensation is skyrocketing. Labor unions have been broken and social services shredded.

Economic panic has become a daily ordeal for hard-working, law-abiding, tax-paying Americans who watch stunned as an elite of corporate insiders, athletes and entertainers reap fortunes.

Stunned and increasingly angry.

How bad is it? So bad that only one major candidate has emphasized America’s desperate need for economic justice.

So bad that the candidate is Pat Buchanan.

If Arizona Republicans really want to accomplish something of national significance, they’ll send a message that might scare their party leaders - and that other prominent moderate Republican, Bill Clinton - into addressing the plight of the hard-pressed citizens they’re supposed to care about.

So listen up, GOP stalwarts. Get to the polls on Feb. 27, and vote Buchanan.

Don’t worry: Although pangs of guilt and self-loathing may follow, you can publicly confess your error.

You can promise never to support a right-wing bigot again, and maybe perform a few hours of community service.

Then if you still feel bad, there’s one sure way of redeeming yourself completely when the general election rolls around on Nov. 5.

Stay home.

xxxx