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Tough-talkin' Pat plays Dixie
Reform Party hopeful Buchanan's mix of barbs and bombast finds a ready audience down in Clinton country.

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By Suzi Parker

Nov. 17, 1999 | LITTLE ROCK, ARK. -- The last time Pat Buchanan journeyed down here to Arkansas was 1966, when White House sex scandals stayed safely behind closed doors and nobody could even imagine a mess like Watergate.

But on Monday, Buchanan finally returned to the state now known as Clinton's playground, spreading his message of one nation under God and throwing in a shot at the evils of sexual liberation for good measure.

First, the would-be Reform Party candidate visited the Central Arkansas Christian School where he spoke to 800 high school students. Later, he spoke to about 100 supporters at a book signing fund-raiser at the Embassy Suites Hotel -- part of his money tour through Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma this week.

"I'm applying for a job held by an Arkansan," Buchanan joked to the students.

Buchanan used familiar sound bites to address his switch from the GOP to the Reform Party: "I'll have to body slam Jesse Ventura," though not "literally," Buchanan stated, in describing how he would be putting the Reform Party leader in his place.

The TV commentator/candidate said he is campaigning on two main issues: war and peace, and communist China. No one ever said Buchanan discusses warm and fuzzy issues, of course, and no one said he sticks to just two.

Buchanan's war and peace agenda ranges from Serbia to isolationism to immigration to embargoes and sanctions. It's all under the rubric of "America First" -- that the U.S. is losing its identity to a melting-pot madness, that immigrants are rapidly changing the face of America, and stealing its chances to have liberty and independence.

It's simple, really. According to Buchanan, the world is going to hell in a hand basket and he is the guy to save the day. Apparently he intends to do this by denouncing Europe's "superstate" and demanding that the U.S. close its borders to any further immigration.

"We should take our young men and women in the armed forces out of foreign countries and put them on the borders that count, along California and Texas," preached Buchanan.

He also ranted and raved about Monday's decision by the Clinton administration to support China's entry into the World Trade Organization in exchange for China's commitment to open up its markets to U.S. exports.

The students at the private Christian school clapped when Buchanan told them that "We gave her [China] $60 million in surplus from us and they use it to persecute Christians, build weapons targeting Taiwan and build missiles targeting the U.S." This is standard stump stuff from Pitchfork Pat, and it played well down in central Arkansas.

If Buchanan was in the White House, he said, the agreement between China and the WTO would never have been consummated. His plan? To bring in the Chinese premier -- he didn't mention his name and therefore couldn't get it wrong -- for a stern Oval Office lecture.

He says that he'd wag his finger and tell the Chinese to "stop harassing our friends on Taiwan, stop pointing missiles at my country and stop persecuting Christians, or you've sold your last pair of chopsticks in any mall in the United States of America."

. Next page | One girl's question throws Pat for a loop





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