Hundreds turn out for lost cause

When I learned that Constitution Party presidential nominee Michael Peroutka was speaking in Spokane Tuesday night, I knew I had to be there to open my wallet and help out. What a hoot. With platform proposals like repealing the Voting Rights Act and “We say ‘No!’ to the so-called New World Order,” the Constitution Party is more entertaining and out to sea than SpongeBob SquarePants. This bunch is so uptight it should be called the Constipation Party. Party? A group this unhappy with America shouldn’t even be allowed to use the word party. Another wacky CP scheme is to get rid of those Federal Reserve notes otherwise known to us consumers as “moolah.” They would then give us “a new American dollar” backed by gold and silver. Well, the Constitution Party has to start somewhere. So I went to the Peroutka meeting at Shadle Park High School on a crusade to liberate their socialist greenbacks. Campaign slogan: “Give Doug Your Devil Money!” Sadly, greedy habits die hard. I would have made more bumming change on West Sprague. I couldn’t get anyone to cough up so much as a Federal Reserve nickel. I was especially disappointed in wannabe President Peroutka. You’d think the party’s man of the minute would set an example. But noooo. When I shook his hand and asked for tainted money, he gave me this surprised look, like I’d just admitted being Castro’s love child. Then he muttered something like, “I guess we’re all stuck in a system where they are instruments of debt,” as he turned away. I have no idea what that meant. But since he didn’t fork over any loot, I took it as a “no.” It gets worse. Not only did my collection effort fail, but the Constitution Party took 12 of my Federal Reserve notes in exchange for a ticket into the event. I grossly underestimated the Constitution Party’s support around here. Prior to the speech, I figured maybe 30 folks would show up to see Peroutka and former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore. Moore was removed from office when he refused a federal judge’s order to yank a granite Ten Commandments monument from the courthouse. The actual turnout was closer to 500. It was an impressive turnout. Other than in Mariners fans, you rarely see this level of loyalty to a lost cause. In fact, the last time I faced such hard-headed commitment to defeat was almost exactly four years ago. It was at a Green Party rally at Manito Park. You students of political history will remember that back then the flipped-out lefties of the Green Party were on a fool’s mission to put Ralph Nader in the White House. I told them something like: “Look, we all know Nader has as much chance of winning as Martha Stewart has winning the Nobel Peace Prize. And you all hate Bush the ‘W’ worse than monkeypox. “Yet here you are, willing to waste your votes on Nader, which will take votes away from Al Gore, which will help elect George the Younger. “Are you people even goofier than you look?” Think they’d listen? Hah! That’s the thing about kooks who get sucked into fringe parties. They’re allergic to reason. The Greensters told me their Nader support was a matter of unyielding allegiance to principle. Please. As if principle has anything to do with politics. “I think Bush is scary,” a 25-year-old Green Party member told me. “But I think the two-party system in scarier.” Look who’s commander in chief now, bozo brain. Constitution Party loyalists are every millimeter as rigid. The only difference is that they claim they’re getting their direction from God Almighty, who’s apparently a Peroutka Man. This is a very spiritual party of very conservative people with very traditional family values. Packed into the muggy, sweltering Shadle Park High School auditorium, there was almost as much talk about prayer as politics going on. Not that there’s anything wrong with prayer. I just wish somebody would have had the decency to pray for some air conditioning. Peroutka looks vaguely like Tom Poston, who played Bob Newhart’s friend on the old Bob Newhart show. They called him “The Peeper.” Poston, not Peroutka. OK. I know I’m wasting my breath. But I’ll tell the Constitution Party essentially the same thing I told the Naderites. Keep it up and the next noise you hear will be John Kerry turning cartwheels. Before that happens, however, I would like to make one last appeal for you Constitution Party members to look deep within your souls and… Give Doug Your Devil Money!