Republican Presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan favors a government which will protect the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of all Americans. Although that sounds like a clich", most politicians seem uninterested in promoting those ideals. Modern politicians do not promote the life of the innocent, but allow our 2,500 violent death row inmates to postpone their sentences for an average of eight years. Modern politicians do not embrace liberty, but the idea that the government knows what is best for others. They do not guard happiness, but give way to the giant squid of government, which chokes us by attaching its tentacles to every possible businessman, taxpayer, and consumer. Under Republican President Bush, the squid is growing, aggravating the recession with more taxes, more business regulation, and more quota systems.

That is why Patrick Buchanan is running for president. He believes that because of George Bush, the Republicans can no longer say "It's all the Democrats' fault." Buchanan knows it is wrong for the politicians to tax thirty percent of a person's earnings and spend it as if it were their divine right. Buchanan sees a flaw in spending taxes on both discouraging smoking and sending money to tobacco growers. He also feels it is unnecessary to spend taxes on guarding the rich nations of Western Europe 47 years after Hitler's death. Buchanan not only wants to cut such "fat," but he wants to prevent other "fat" from growing by passing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

Buchanan also believes that federal poverty programs do not work. For 35 years the government has shoveled billions of tax dollars into welfare, only to create dependent recipients. It has also shifted moral responsibilities away from the family and towards the so-called human service agents. Buchanan blames the decline in the family for increasing crime, violence, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, and despair. Helping poor people to become helpless is not helpful. It is clear that only a strong, free economy will help the poor to rise.

Finally, Buchanan favors two major reforms to "take a bite out of crime." First of all, death row inmates are now unfairly postponing their death sentences through petitions lacking any rhyme or reason; Buchanan agrees with Chief Justice Rehnquist to limit these petitions. Secondly, Buchanan favors allowing the admission of evidence in a trial obtained illegally by policemen. It has been policy for 25 years to exclude such illegal evidence, which has allowed many criminals "off the hook" because of a policeman's mistake. Buchanan favors alternative incentives for policemen to be careful in their jobs. But if a guilty man is convicted, justice is done, not undone.

These are major issues in the election of 1992. There is President George Bush, who has been so unfaithful to Republicanism that big government, big spending, and big debts have been allowed to get bigger. Then there are the five Democrats, all of whom embrace special interest groups, more spending, and more debt. The question of this campaign is whether to support Patrick Buchanan, who will starve the giant squid of government, or whether to support George Bush and his Democratic company who forget about the biggest special interest group of all , the people. n