Nashua Telegraph
RAN 2/2
By JEFFREY MERRITT
Telegraph Staff
 CONCORD Conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan stepped up his attacks
on one of his Republican rivals Thursday morning and also targeted an
unlikely Democrat during a pair of campaign stops in New Hampshire.
 Buchanan argued that Steve Forbes' flat tax plan was unfair to the
working class and predicted the wealthy publisher's appeal to GOP voters
would drop as suddenly as it has risen. 
 But in the city that's home to Franklin Pierce Law School, Buchanan saved
a dig for Pierce, a New Hampshire Democrat and the undistinguished 14th
president of the United States. 
 During an address to the state Legislature, Buchanan launched a familiar
attack on the changing face of American public education, decrying that
morality and the Bible have been replaced in schools by condoms and sex
education. 
 Students now "worship dirt" during Earth Day instead of celebrating
Easter, he said, and Washington's Birthday is no longer a holiday. 
 "It's now Presidents' Day, and we can all look up to Chester Arthur,
Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce," Buchanan said, with a huge portrait
of Pierce looking down on him from the wall of Representatives Hall. 
 Making amends later, he joked about the remark, calling Pierce a
"top-tier" president and suggesting the holiday be renamed
"Washington-Pierce Day." 
 On the whole, Buchanan got a rousing reception from the Legislature,
considering he has endorsements from only 12 state representatives and two
senators. His speech ranged from his opposition to abortion and the
alleged rewriting of American history t o the struggles of working-class
Americans as a result of international trade deals and illegal
immigration. 
 "We have to concern ourselves with working people in this country,"
Buchanan said. "Too many of our politicians of both parties, and all
parties down in Washington, are representing the people who fill up those
envelopes with $1,0 00 contributions." 
 Earlier, during a breakfast address to the Merrimack Rotary Club,
Buchanan focused almost entirely on economic issues. It was the
candidate's second trip to Merrimack in less than a week, coming on the
heels of a speech to the Concerned Citizens of Merrimack last Friday in
which he stressed socially conservative themes. 
 The success of huge corporations, he said Thursday, is coming at the
expense of middle-class American workers. 
 "We don't want to get into the politics of envy," Buchanan said. "But we
do want to make sure that our working people and the middle class are
sharing in the prosperity." 
 For much the same reason, he criticized Forbes' flat tax proposal because
it would exempt investment income and leave the super-wealthy to retire
and stop paying taxes. 
 "If you have a flat tax, you have to tax the idle rich the same as you
tax everybody else," he said. 
 Later, asked about Forbes' rise in recent polls, Buchanan said the
publisher was "a temporary parking place for voters looking for a
real leader from outside Washington who's got some ideas to bring the
jobs home."
 Buchanan also took a shot at President Clinton and Senate Majority Leader
Bob Dole Clinton because of his use of conservative themes in his State of
the Union address and Dole for his response. 
 "The guy's on all sides of the issues. He's like a blind dog in a meat
market," Buchanan said of Clinton, as the Rotarians erupted in laughter.
"You have to get somebody up here who can take this fellow on, and Bob
Dole dron ing on into that camera didn't do it last week. He was
auditioning, and it didn't come off well." 
 In response to a question about environmental regulations, Buchanan said
he would do as much as he could to relieve the regulatory burden on small
businesses
 "Find out what is hassling small businesses and get rid of it," he said.
"Because you folks that are in small business are the ones that are going
to create the jobs to get the prosperity going for all of us." 
 Rotarian Lynn Christensen said Buchanan made the right choice to stick
with an economic message in Merrimack. 
 "I think it went over well because they heard what they needed to,"
Christensen said afterward. "I think he made an impression on some
people." 



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The Telegraph			The daily newspaper of Nashua and
P.O. Box 1008			southern New Hampshire since 1869
Nashua, NH 03061		voice: (603) 882-2741   fax: (603) 882-2681