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Experts say the important bloc in this year's election is the Bubba vote -- low-life white guys. But the analysts haven't explained Tuesday's primary in light of the Bubba factor. So I consulted Dr. Jethro Hoon, a research fellow at the American Bubba Institute in nearby Smeltertown.
He noted that his doctorate is earned, not honorary; the embossed sheepskin on the wall was indeed issued by the Close-Cover-Before-Striking College of Theology and Refrigeration Technology in Peckerwood, La.
Is the Buchanan vote mostly from GOP Bubbas?
I
began.
Of course,
Hoon said. Buchanan ran strongest
in Bubba strongholds like red-clay Georgia, the eastern
shore of Maryland, and the western slope of Colorado. This
shows you how easy it is to fool Bubba.
How's that?
Hoon looked exasperated. With Bubba, only image
matters. Take George Bush in 1988. He's a condescending
patrician who makes Nelson Rockefeller look like a
horny-handed son of the soil. But Bush joins the NRA,
pitches horseshoes and chomps pork rinds, and Bubba loves
him for as long as Bush needs him to.
Now Buchanan talks tougher than Bush and he swaggers
like John Wayne on his way to clean out a saloon. Buck
comes on like the most regular guy since Gary Cooper, even
if really is just another member of the chattering class
like us -- if he's got any callouses, they're from
typing.
I asked about the Democratic primaries.
If I had to design a candidate that would never get a
single Bubba vote, I couldn't do better than Paul
Tsongas,
Hoon said. He's even more of an unBubba
than Mike Dukakis, and I thought that was impossible.
Tsongas has the charisma of a high-school civics teacher
mumbling from the textbook.
So why's he doing so well?
I asked.
His support comes from suburbanites with college
degrees -- that is, people who paid attention in civics
class, and even in 10th grade, Bubba knew that 'How a Bill
Becomes Law' had a lot more to do with money and
connections than with the public interest.
But even if the college-degree crowd is criminally
naive, they're the major factor in Democratic
primaries,
Hoon said. They can nominate a
high-minded Democrat like McGovern or Dukakis, but they
can't elect him -- you've got to have Bubba if you're going
to win.
I asked what Jerry Brown's victory in Colorado meant, since he did well in Bubba country as well as in the flaky zones where he was expected to score.
Bubba is real fed up business as usual,
Hoon
said, and Brown is running a campaign that's just this
side of an armed Jeffersonian revolution -- throw all the
bastards out and don't give any more of America to the
greedy swine who already own most of it. Find 10 Bubbas in
a bowling alley, and at least eight of them will be saying
the same thing.
I thought for a moment. But Clinton swept Georgia, a
prime Bubba zone. How come the charges of infidelity and
draft-dodging didn't hurt him? And Clinton is an Ivy League
product as well as a Rhodes scholar who doesn't know a
stovebolt six from a come-along.
Clinton's from Arkansas. Arkansas is to Bubbas what
Israel is to Jews. Vietnam and his marriage don't matter;
the only way Clinton could lose Bubba is to get caught
driving a Volvo to a wine-and-cheese party.
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