Mason Williams ("Classical Gas") was the producer of the '80s Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and the wit behind Pat Paulsen's campaign for president. He's still active through his website and has a great bumper sticker you can download, laminate and put on you wheels.

GO FOR BROKE
Vote Republican

Very good point on Libertarians :) I was one once.

In the 80's I lived in Alaska and due to a state law governing parties eligible for registration, those of us registered as Libertarian were notified in early '88 that the party had lost it's eligibility and we would have to reregister. I had decided to get active because I liked Dole much more than HW (and his lack of record for all the jobs he had) so I checked out what we needed to do to participate in the upcoming GOP caucus. Just show up and register there. I confirmed this and was assured we did not need to register before then.

We showed up, explained our situation and were told by our precinct chair, an assistant pastor of the mega Anchorage Baptist Temple across the street, that he couldn't do that. He said we could stay and watch, but not participate. The level of control in that entire room of ~10 precincts was unreal. Every one parroted the party lines, no one had a unique, or even lame, variation. We were not asked to sign a volunteer information sheet, even though I had been clear about wanting to get active. No effort to get our names, address, phone #. After we were totally fed up, we walked out, stopping to explain the situation to a newspaper reporter as we left. The story made the front page the next day and while I was trying to absorb the lie the pastor had passed off on the reporter, the phone rang. A very senior member of the state GOP was calling to apologize for the pastor's "mistake", and offered to send someone to the house. I declined, informing him that from what we had seen at the caucus, the GOP was clearly not our party. That night I went to the Democratic caucus, registered and found out the Dems are sane, patriotic Americans who were not trying to make the country socialist. My response is, if you want to participate in the GOP, you need to tote or quote the Bible.

I also had a call from a local church that was just starting a 4 week seminar on the evangelical infiltration of politics. Most of the information came from Citizens Network, a Cornell University project devoted to exposing the forces behind the arms race. It was overwhelming then and has only increased.

If you really want to delve in to the religious power that runs DC, find a copy of Jeff Sharlet's "The Family". It's worse than you can possibly immagine. Without some grasp of this behind the scenes organization, history and operation, DC is just not understandable. Until we have enough awareness and a strong grassroots movement to expose and replace the elected legislators who are participants, the system will not function to represent the will of the people. It is violating the separation of church and state, big time. Worse, The Family's distorted interpretation of Jesus' message supports our massive military and using it - to promote a Christian world. Note, this group is different than the Evangelical/ fundamentalist church groups - although they work in concert. If your head isn't reeling, it should be.