Absurdity rules on the US campaign trail

Bush gives a W sign with people wearing Bush masks on Hallowe'en. Picture / Reuters

ROGER FRANKLIN casts an outsider's eye over the strange process of getting elected in the US

NEW YORK - One of the interesting things about having my surname and living in New York is that I am sometimes mistaken, at least by charity collectors and unsolicited telephone callers, for that which I am not.

The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, for example, often invites this pasty pink boy to join its ranks and celebrate his African heritage. The same thing happens with Jewish organisations, apparently because of the Semitic possibilities of my family name's first syllable.

That must have been the reason why Rick Lazio dragged me from the dinner table one night last week to pass on the news that Hillary Clinton, his opponent in the New York Senate race, is a both a boon companion of Arab terrorists, and a woman who quite likely played some part in the recent bombing that all but sank the USS Cole in Aden Harbour. Actually, it wasn't Lazio but a recorded message being speed-dialed into tens of thousands of other likely homes across the state. And to be fair, he didn't quite accuse Hillary of loading explosives on to the suicide skiff - though, if I had drawn that conclusion, the underdog Republican would doubtless have been immensely pleased.

Instead, all he achieved for his telephone time was to provide this foreign reporter with a crowning moment of absurdity: A disembodied, robot voice urging an alien who cannot vote that only Hillary's defeat on Wednesday (New Zealand time) will prevent fanatics blowing up US sailors in ports where common sense says they should never have gone in the first place except, maybe, to demonstrate this country's abiding commitment to Israel's security.

That call was the ultimate proof: In a country with a long-standing weakness for deranged democracy, this year's campaign trail has followed a straight line from standard dopiness to distilled dementia. Fortunately, there have been enough stops along the way for revelatory moments of hypocrisy and sheer stupidity to keep the process interesting. The question is, where to begin?

Perhaps way back in the early primaries with Republican also-ran Gary Bauer, who committed the campaign season's seminal act of loopiness when he attempted to demonstrate his fitness for the White House by flipping pancakes in a New Hampshire diner (Don't ask. To Americans, these things make sense). In any case, he lost his footing, took a pratfall worthy of the young Jerry Lewis and all but killed himself while simultaneously demolishing his host's kitchen.

Or perhaps with Al Gore, who manfully paddled a canoe through a photo op on a Connecticut river to demonstrate his passion for all things green and pure. Unfortunately for Gore, Republican operatives were explaining to reporters even before the Vice-President stepped ashore that the area was in the grip of major drought, and that Gore's handlers had strong-armed state officials into opening the floodgates of a nearby dam. While this squandered a large part of what little was left of the local town's precious water supply, it also made sure Canoe Two did not run aground.