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Time - Man of the Year
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1988-12-31
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GRAPEVINE, Page 21
By JANICE CASTRO
Buchanan: Going for the Gold
Well before Californians get a chance to make their wishes
known in their June 2 primary, President Bush may have a
majority of his party's delegates locked up. So why does PAT
BUCHANAN press on? He has said he is fighting for the soul of
the party. By taking the ideological battle to California,
Buchanan also hopes for a shoot-out with Governor Pete Wilson,
a moderate whom he may face in a 1996 presidential bid. But most
important of all are those restless California conservatives.
They are the stuff of a dream mailing list -- and Buchanan is
determined to sign them up for his own.
Don't Underestimate Perot
Suddenly the White House is paying very close attention to
this fellow PEROT, thanks in part to the alarms sounded by the
President's son George W. Bush. George W., who lives in Dallas
and knows a number of ardent Perot supporters, has been worried
that the Bush-Quayle campaign has been underestimating the
dangers posed by a Perot candidacy. The President needs 270
electoral votes to win. In 1988, though, Bush won 120 of his 426
electoral votes by margins of less than 5% of the total ballots
cast. According to George W.'s calculations, the Democratic
candidate can win if Perot siphons off just 5% of the vote in
12 key states: Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Missouri,
California, New Mexico, Michigan, Colorado, Louisiana, Texas,
Oklahoma and Tennessee. And California and the South are already
considered Perot's main strongholds among the white,
middle-class, unhappy voters Bush needs. Sums up a senior
adviser to the Bush campaign: "Ross Perot doesn't have to do
well to knock Bush off."
Trouble in the Ranks
Dick Cheney has earned high marks as the Bush
administration's embodiment of square-jawed Western rectitude.
But some in the U.S. military no longer see him that way. Though
his forthright account of dozens of House-bank overdrafts while
a Congressman satisfied most political observers, it did not
wash with citizens of the more stringent military culture.
Letters in service newspapers have pointed out that the armed
forces would never have tolerated such behavior. Wrote an
outraged correspondent in the Army Times: "There have been good
troops put out of the services with a bad discharge for having
committed lesser offenses than Cheney did."
A Worrisome Brand of Japanese Investor
Even as the FBI is gaining ground on the American branch
of the Mafia, it is getting ready to take on a new threat: the
YAKUZA -- Japanese mobsters. An estimated 100,000 yakuza in
Japan rake in some $10 billion a year from narcotics, extortion
and loan-sharking. As the gangs channel that cash into
legitimate investments in the U.S. and Europe, the FBI will be
hard pressed to decipher the money trail. One reason: money
laundering is not a crime in Japan, so the mobsters can operate
through shell corporations without the kind of close scrutiny
at home that hampers crooks in other countries -- and provides
invaluable help to American law enforcement.
WORD WATCH
Political correctness is spreading like a virus through
the English language, turning every personal trait into an
agenda. Recently spotted: Women of Size and Fruitarian (one who
refuses to eat anything that requires the killing of plants or
animals).
A few suggested terms for the compleat political
correctoid:
MORALLY CHALLENGED: Mike Milken, John Gotti, Manuel
Noriega, Leona Helmsley and every other soul who finds thievery
and deceit irresistible
WOMEN (OR MEN) OF SOLITUDE: people of size on Saturday
nights
VERTICALLY GIFTED: Michael Jordan (the opposite of
"vertically challenged," a term for short people)
BEHAVIORALLY IMPAIRED: Archie Bunker
HUMANTARIAN (not to be confused with Humanitarian):
Jeffrey Dahmer
MOTIVATIONALLY DISPOSSESSED: plumb lazy
MSTERLY: a feminine term for a manifestation of superior
skill
INTUITIVELY DEPRIVED: thick
DIFFERENTLY EVOLVED: pets have feelings too
.10 CENTS A DANCE: JUST CALL 1-800-426 . . .
On the eve of the New York primary, James Carville, Bill
Clinton's guru, spotted Jacques Barzaghi, Jerry Brown's, at a
television studio. "Barzaghi!" cried Carville, sweeping his
opposite into a dance. Ah, New York in the springtime!