Scared Down South

ABOUT TWO WEEKS AGO, I sat in my room and stared at my Georgia absentee voter's kit wondering what to do. Not knowing anything about the Democratic candidates--and not having enough time to run to any Institute of Politics forums or to sift through back issues of news magazines--I didn't have the slightest idea how to mark my ballot.

So I called my mom.

Although we disagree about a lot of things, I have to admit that my mother's political convictions are pretty dependable. Her ideas about policy and vision come directly from experience "in the trenches": she has spent over 10 years working as a crisis intervention social worker trying to salvage the lives of inner city families. She's seen the projects, the charity wards, the housing projects, and the board meetings. She knows what's out there.

Despite all of her connections with liberal social concerns, however, my mom doesn't always vote for the most "liberal" candidate. She thinks things through, from all sides.

So I called home. And, true to form, she took me by surprise.

She said she was thinking about voting for Bush.

"WHY?" I ASKED, honestly confused. I had always heard her complain about Reagan's and Bush's mismanagement of social programs.

"Because of Buchanan," she answered. "He's really scary."

"Oh," I said.

Now I was really confused. I knew enough about Buchanan's politics to know I couldn't support him (I have watched one too many "McLaughlin Group" shows). But deceived by this rarefied political atmosphere that we all call home--I had thought that nobody else would really take him seriously either.

Sure, he had done well in New Hampshire, but like many of my friends, I had viewed his coup as a negative vote against Bush--"the best thing the Democrats have going for them..." and all that. It just didn't seem possible to me that he could inspire a real groundswell of populist support.

But, as my mom knows, things are never that simple. In states throughout the South, Buchanan is relishing in an outrageous, showman-like campaign. He bases his strategy on a brand of "protest" aimed at white Southern Democrats who, like their counterparts here in the Northeast, are facing unemployment and uncertainty in the wake of Bush's "broken promises."

Just like the rest of the country, the South needs new ideas and initiatives to solve the racial, economic, and social problems that are accompanying its rapid growth and "modernization."

But no one likes to work too hard and Buchanan knows it. In a region known, in the first place, for its conservatism, Buchanan is running on the time-tested platform of stasis. He is taking his political cues from a distinctly 1960s brand of segregationist politician--from men like George Wallace and Lester Maddox. Buchanan's message throws Southerners back some 30 years. And alarmingly, he is coming through loud and clear.

HERE ARE SOME scenes from Buchanan's Southern campaign:

While stumping in Georgia, Buchanan told one group of small-town supporters in Perry, (Senator Sam Nunn's hometown) that the Voting Acts Right of 1965 was "an act of regional discrimination against the South."

The Atlanta Journal and Constitution pointed out, in a March 1 article, that "the Voting Rights Act in general has aided Southern Republicans." This was the act that banned discrimination at the ballot box and enforced compliance with the 15th Amendment.

Many groups have been protesting Presidents Day lately because the founding fathers were slave owners. Did you know that Buchanan had slave holding ancestors? He "bragged" of his family history in a speech to one group.

And don't forget states' rights. On one stop during his campaign jaunt, you could practically see Fort Sumter blowing up in the background. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution was there:

"Later in the day, after admiring the Stone Mountain carvings of Gen. Robert E. Lee, Gen. Stonewall Jackson and Confederate President Jefferson Davis, [Buchanan] told reporters, "We should have no second-class citizens in America and no second-class states."

PROGRESSIVE WHITE Southerners are scared by Buchanan's campaigning success. Two Democrats and a Republican--former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer, Georgia Governor Zell Miller and South Carolina Governor Carroll Campbell-blasted the Challenger's campaign tactics on Sunday morning television. And it's no accident that the Journal and Constitution article covering the Buchanan campaign ended with an excerpt from a conversation between the candidate and Robin Jackson, the president of the Houston county NAACP:

"You're for civil rights? Mr. Jackson asked.

"I'm for equal rights, my friend' said Mr. Buchanan, who then recounted a story about how as a teenager he defended a black high school athlete.

At the end of the conversation, Mr. Jackson said. "Don't mess with civil rights. Don't do that to us.'"

Even white Southerners who don't seem so progressive are a little uncomfortable. Take, for example, Durwood McAlister, former editor of the editorial pages of the Atlanta "Covers Dixie Like the Dew" Journal, He wrote in a column entitled, "Buchanan's Style is Ugly":

"But Pat Buchanan Jacks the key ingredient that was the saving grace of the rogues we remember fondly. He is without charm.

His style is more like the knife-in-the-gut meanness of Joe McCarthy than the deft ridicule used so successfully be George Wallace and Marvin Griffin.

It won't work in Georgia. A little negative campaigning is fine; but gutter politics, unrelieved by either wit or charm, will be, and should be, rejected."

NOW, OF COURSE, I don't present McAlister's reasoning as a resounding rejection of Buchanan's candidacy. But the other protests--and my mother's concerns--have a lot of validity.

It's easy for us to get excited when a relatively "popular" incumbent's hold begins to crumble. But we shouldn't forget that, whether Buchanan himself is racist or not, his campaign definitely is--and its influence over voters in the South is extremely dangerous. If we're really as concerned about racism and other backwards attitudes in the South as last year's Confederate flag debate would show us to be, then we should scream and yell about Buchanan too.

Because for voters around the South, Buchanan is definitely not "the Democrats' best friend." Instead, he's helping Southern Democrats--prime crossover voters--to further isolate themselves from the rest of the modern world.