["We bought it, we paid for it, and…]

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"We bought it, we paid for it, and it is ours, and we intend to keep it"

With this prize bit of jingoism about the Panama Canal, extreme right wing presidential hopeful Ronald Reagan has been rolling up one primary victory after another to bid as a serious candidate for the Republican nomination.

Never mind that he has got his American history muddled. Never mind that his brand of six-gun imperialism could lead to war in Latin America.

Reagan's language is that of the Texas rancher, the Indianapolis shepkeeper, even some sections of skilled workers who have gained a house in the suburbs and a second car - and will turn to any force which promises to prevent their loss MIDDLE CLASS To the post-Vietnam American middle classes, disorientated by changes in the world balance of class forces and scared by economic crisis, Reagan's words conjure up a fantasy of US dominance and boom.

Reagan's campaign is also helped by Democrat supporters of that arch-reactionary of the other capitalist party George Wallace. Seeing that their own one-time idol is a lost cause, they have crossed party lines, in states whose primary election rules permit, to swell the vote for "Ronnie"

т- arthras tha anlar differences of principle are over how to keep workers in lihe when the economy dips again, reactions have largely concentrated on image.

Ford's advisers have told him to start acting more "presidential" and some have begun to call on him to dump Kissinger, whose recent African manoeuvrings alarmed the wealthy Texans into believing that something else was about to be "given away"

PTIVE Last week there were also stirrings from Rocketeller, who accused Reagan of being "totally deceptive in the way he's raising the issues". Rockefeller, no mean hand at deception himself, will certainly move against Reagan on behalf of liberal finance interests, if the latter looks like wresting the nomination from Ford. JimMy Carlace out or the ace, With Wallace out of the race racist with black bourgeois support - seems likely to become the Democratic candidate, througie is party continues to produce new runners from its hat, the latest of whom, Idaho Senator Frank Church, narrowly beat Carter in the Nebraska primary.

UNDIGNIFIED

The undignified scramble of the de union leaders, bent on ablis ling a cosy relationship y rith amncrat most likely to

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