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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!
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