While stumping in Georgia, Buchanan told one group of small-town supporters in Perry, (Senator Sam Nunn's hometown) that the Voting Acts Right of 1965 was "an act of regional discrimination against the South."

The Atlanta Journal and Constitution pointed out, in a March 1 article, that "the Voting Rights Act in general has aided Southern Republicans." This was the act that banned discrimination at the ballot box and enforced compliance with the 15th Amendment.

Many groups have been protesting Presidents Day lately because the founding fathers were slave owners. Did you know that Buchanan had slave holding ancestors? He "bragged" of his family history in a speech to one group.

And don't forget states' rights. On one stop during his campaign jaunt, you could practically see Fort Sumter blowing up in the background. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution was there:

"Later in the day, after admiring the Stone Mountain carvings of Gen. Robert E. Lee, Gen. Stonewall Jackson and Confederate President Jefferson Davis, [Buchanan] told reporters, "We should have no second-class citizens in America and no second-class states."

PROGRESSIVE WHITE Southerners are scared by Buchanan's campaigning success. Two Democrats and a Republican--former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer, Georgia Governor Zell Miller and South Carolina Governor Carroll Campbell-blasted the Challenger's campaign tactics on Sunday morning television. And it's no accident that the Journal and Constitution article covering the Buchanan campaign ended with an excerpt from a conversation between the candidate and Robin Jackson, the president of the Houston county NAACP:

"You're for civil rights? Mr. Jackson asked.

"I'm for equal rights, my friend' said Mr. Buchanan, who then recounted a story about how as a teenager he defended a black high school athlete.

At the end of the conversation, Mr. Jackson said. "Don't mess with civil rights. Don't do that to us.'"

Even white Southerners who don't seem so progressive are a little uncomfortable. Take, for example, Durwood McAlister, former editor of the editorial pages of the Atlanta "Covers Dixie Like the Dew" Journal, He wrote in a column entitled, "Buchanan's Style is Ugly":

"But Pat Buchanan Jacks the key ingredient that was the saving grace of the rogues we remember fondly. He is without charm.

His style is more like the knife-in-the-gut meanness of Joe McCarthy than the deft ridicule used so successfully be George Wallace and Marvin Griffin.

It won't work in Georgia. A little negative campaigning is fine; but gutter politics, unrelieved by either wit or charm, will be, and should be, rejected."

NOW, OF COURSE, I don't present McAlister's reasoning as a resounding rejection of Buchanan's candidacy. But the other protests--and my mother's concerns--have a lot of validity.

It's easy for us to get excited when a relatively "popular" incumbent's hold begins to crumble. But we shouldn't forget that, whether Buchanan himself is racist or not, his campaign definitely is--and its influence over voters in the South is extremely dangerous. If we're really as concerned about racism and other backwards attitudes in the South as last year's Confederate flag debate would show us to be, then we should scream and yell about Buchanan too.

Because for voters around the South, Buchanan is definitely not "the Democrats' best friend." Instead, he's helping Southern Democrats--prime crossover voters--to further isolate themselves from the rest of the modern world.