Rabid run.

Pat Buchanan? I'm not surprised by Buchanan's stunning success so far this primary season. I remember being on a local TV show more than a year ago with John Nichols, and the moderator asked us who we thought was going to win the Republican nomination. After nodding to Bob Dole, Nichols and I both said watch out for Pat Buchanan.

I relate this story not just to stamp our soothsayer credentials, but to point out that Buchanan's popularity was predictable. He had a head start in New Hampshire, since he performed well against George Bush there four years ago. Beyond that, he's had an advantage ideologically. On social issues, he's the furthest right in a conservative field, always a plus in Republican primaries. And on economic issues, he's the only one who's been appealing to working-class Americans, addressing their concerns in terms that echo the speeches of Jesse Jackson, Ralph Nader, and Jim Hightower.

Buchanan does voices. He sounds like a progressive one second and Pinochet the next.

But his is the ugly face of populism. In the tradition of Tom Watson, Huey Long, Father Coughlin, Joe McCarthy, and George Wallace, Pat Buchanan plays the bigot's clarinet. He hits all the notes of resentment, and he tells his rabid followers to go froth and multiply.

His anti-immigrant bias is clearly aimed at people of color, as he none-too-subtly says he wants to close our border to "Jose."

His anti-Semitic bias comes through when he denounces Ruth Bader Ginsburg, drawing out each syllable of her name to stress her Jewishness.

His anti-black bias comes through in his defense of the Confederate flag and his opposition to affirmative action.

His anti-woman bias comes through in his comments about traditional female roles, and in his hard-core opposition to abortion.

And he's unapologetic about his bias against gays and lesbians. (He's unapologetic about everything, like any bully.)

Buchanan's popularity is in part an indictment of the Democrats, who no longer seem to stand up for working people. And it's in part an indictment of the left (as Nichols points out in his article this issue), since we've had no one on the national stage articulating an alternative politics that would genuinely defend the rights of working people--without recourse to the easy scapegoating of a Pat Buchanan.

When we don't contest for power at the Presidential level, whether within the Democratic Party or through an independent or third-party candidacy, we create a vacuum. Buchanan has stormed into that vacuum.

Buchanan frankly scares me, as he should all progressives. Adolph Reed aptly argues this month that Buchanan is a native-born fascist, and we underestimate him at our peril. Certainly, we should have no truck with him.

So I'm dismayed to read in Nichols's article that Ralph Nader boasts of educating Buchanan on NAFTA and GATT. What in the world is Nader doing playing footsie with Buchanan? Except for a few of Buchanan's economic planks, the rest of his platform is unvarnished reaction. That's not the stuff of an ally.

I know there are some on the left who thrill to hear anyone denouncing big corporations, but we need to hear the whole Buchanan song, not just the verse he stole from our hymnbook.

And even when Buchanan mouths our lyrics, he gives them his own twisted meaning. Reed argues convincingly that Buchanan's economic message is part and parcel of his racist, scapegoating social message--a way of telling white working-class Americans that their economic suffering is the fault of immigrants, Jews, blacks, and gays (you know, those who aren't real Americans).

In any event, Buchanan's claim to be the workers' friend is hardly credible; he opposes increasing the minimum wage and strengthening unions--the two fastest ways to give workers more money and more power. When was the last time Pat Buchanan walked a picket line?

If ever there were a time to get beyond single-issue politics, now would be it. Just because Buchanan mouths a few of our economic views doesn't mean we should have sympathy for the devil.

The Buchanan candidacy demonstrates in the bluntest terms that the left needs to be a multifaceted force for justice. Yes, we're for economic democracy, much more so than Pat Buchanan pretends to be. But we're also for civic freedom: the rights and liberties of all Americans, including women, gays and lesbians, atheists and Jews, African Americans and Latinos--all those whom Buchanan would brand with his hot iron.

We should not for a minute be taken in by the rhetoric of Pat Buchanan. We need to denounce him in the most unequivocal terms. It's crucial to know who our enemies are; Pat Buchanan is one of them.