AMY GOODMAN: Pat Buchanan concedes Bob Dole’s sweep of eight Junior Tuesday primaries makes his nomination as Republican presidential candidate almost inevitable. The commentator and candidate said today he doesn’t see anything that can stop Dole now, but he continues to attack the Kansas senator, calling Dole an “empty vessel with no ideas.”

In a few minutes, we’ll talk about the future of the Republican primaries with national affairs commentator Larry Bensky. Then we’re going to be going to Georgia — actually, Washington, D.C., where the Georgia Democrat Cynthia McKinney is standing by. Congress has gone back into session. She’s one of the most progressive legislators in Washington right now, the first African American woman to represent her state. We’ll be talking with her about Georgia politics, where the primary just took place. She’s a neighbor of Newt Gingrich’s district. And we’ll be talking with her about the challenge to her own district. It has been brought to the Supreme Court.

And finally, we’re coming to New York for the New York primary. In fact, that’s where we’re broadcasting from today, from Pacifica station WBAI in New York. And we can’t talk about New York and Republican presidential politics without talking about Senator Alfonse D’Amato. We’re going to be talking with reporter Dennis Bernstein about a piece he just wrote in the Bay Guardian called King Alfonse: Why Senator Al D’Amato Is a Ticking Time Bomb for Dole’s '96 Presidential Campaign.” And then we'll be joined by Mark Green. He’s New York City’s public advocate. And a poll has just come out saying that Mark Green could beat Alfonse D’Amato in the next senatorial race. In fact, Mark Green has gone up against Alfonse D’Amato, which led to the ethics investigation into the Republican senator. And we’re going to talk about all that with him. So, that’s all coming up.

But right now we want to do a wrap-up of what happened yesterday throughout the South and the West, and really all over, the Northeast, as well. So we’re going out to our Pacifica station in Berkeley, KPFA, to our national affairs correspondent, Larry Bensky.

Larry, are you there?

LARRY BENSKY: I am here, Amy and welcome back to New York City. Have you been on the subway yet?

AMY GOODMAN: I haven’t made it there yet. But yes, I’ve been underground, coming up in the train. I felt like I was coming into my own living room.

LARRY BENSKY: I was wondering if you saw any of Pat Buchanan’s peasants with pitchforks down there yet. Have they arrived?

AMY GOODMAN: They’re making their way slowly, although there are many that live here.

LARRY BENSKY: OK. Well, they’ll be there soon, in time for your primary on Thursday, I’m sure, although the great Pat himself hasn’t come any closer than 300 miles to New York City, I understand. He basically reached his limit that we’ve been talking about, Amy, over and over again on this program and on Pacifica. He can’t really break out of that 30%. The exit polls last night in all eight states said that two-thirds of the people basically would never vote for Pat Buchanan. They voted for Bob Dole as an alternative. And that’s why Bob Dole is basically where he is today. The exit polls showed in all eight states that people mostly did not think Bob Dole could beat Bill Clinton, although they were hoping that he could. More than half of the Republican voters, overall, said that they thought Pat Buchanan was too extreme. Now, these are Republican voters. And so they did what we were talking about last week. The Forbes voters will never vote for Buchanan, the Buchanan voters will never vote for Forbes, but both can hold their nose and vote for Dole, and that’s what they did.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the race from here on in? Is it really over in terms of the Republican primaries?

LARRY BENSKY: It would seem to be over as far as the selection of the Republican candidate Bob Dole is concerned. Whether or not it’s over for what Buchanan and Forbes are trying to do is a very interesting question. Buchanan is trying to build a political movement. He sees himself in the mold of people like Barry Goldwater, Newt Gingrich, Jesse Jackson and George McGovern. He’s a bipartisan movement builder, not that he has the ideology of all those people, far from it, but the techniques that he’s using are to get young people involved for the first time, as I saw last week in Arizona and as other people have reported from other states, to get people into the political process that weren’t previously there, to bring people over to his side, from Democrats and disaffected people who previously voted for Ross Perot, and to build a Buchananite movement of conservatives, which he sees as pure and harder and more advantageous to what he thinks is an ideology than the other conservative movements in the United States. And so that’s what he’s doing. And that’s why he’ll stay in, because you can always build and attract a movement. It’s not that he has no money, as everybody’s saying. He actually has plenty of money. He’s raised over $10 million so far. But he does run a relatively low-budget campaign.

As to why Steve Forbes stays in, if he does, it’s really very simple. Steve Forbes, if his economic plans become dogma for the Republicans — that is to say, if they get into the Republican Party platform — he and his family save a billion — “billion” with a B — dollars in inheritance taxes alone. And capital gains taxes and the flat tax would advantage them even more.

So, both of these people are basically ideologues. They’ll stay in as long as they think they can push their ideology and get somewhere with it.

AMY GOODMAN: Larry, what do you think is going to happen at the Republican convention? I certainly remember Pat Buchanan’s speech in 1992, talking about the Democratic convention as being the largest group of cross-dressers in history. What do you think is going to happen there? How much power do you think he’ll have at that convention, not to mention Steve Forbes?

LARRY BENSKY: I think that Pat Buchanan will have a lot of power at the Republican convention. I don’t know how many delegates he will have. It may be as many as 200. It may be as many as 300. It may be fewer. But it doesn’t really matter, because he is in a position now, Amy, to control his followers to some extent. And by “control,” I mean telling them whether or not to vote for him, or whether or not he will bolt to a third party. Remember that his sister, who’s his campaign manager, Bay Buchanan, has said throughout this campaign that she thinks if Pat doesn’t get the nomination, he should run as a third-party candidate. And also remember that he was the most popular speaker at Ross Perot’s Reform Party convention last August. So, if Pat Buchanan stays Republican, goes to the convention, he will have a lot of power. Now, whether he will make an inflammatory, divisive speech, the one that you and I saw in Houston back in '92, something like that, or whether he will cool it in the guise of trying to foster party unity remains to be seen. He is an important factor in the Republican Party, not because his ideology, not because his ideology is so popular. Remember that exit polls are showing in state after state, for example, that on the question of reproductive choice, Republicans who are voting in this primary — and there aren't very many; we’re having very low turnout — but even among the hardcore Republicans who are voting in his primary, more than half in every state are saying they do not want that anti-abortion plank in the Republican Party platform. And yet Buchanan is going on and saying this is his holy grail, this is what he really wants. Well, if he pushes that, as he will, at the Republican convention, again, it’s going to be very divisive. And if you take polls in the population as large — at large, rather, rather than just Republicans, you will see that the anti-abortion stance is even less popular. So, he’s a factor. He’s an ideologue. He controls something the Republicans need, which is his followers to vote for Bob Dole. And so he’s in there for the long haul.

AMY GOODMAN: Larry, any final comments as we wrap up this Junior Tuesday, moving into the Super Tuesday of next week?

LARRY BENSKY: I just want you to watch out for those peasants with pitchforks, Amy. I know there are a lot of dangers on the New York streets as it is, and be careful.

AMY GOODMAN: And that’s Larry Bensky, our national affairs correspondent out in Berkeley. He’s at our studios in KPFA. And in just a little while, we’re going to be talking about the king. That’s what Dole calls him. He is Senator Alfonse D’Amato here in New York, the man pulling the purse strings. And we’ll be going out again to Berkeley to our station there to speak with reporter Dennis Bernstein, who’s just done a piece called “King Alfonse: Why Senator Al D’Amato Was a Ticking Time Bomb for Dole’s '96 presidential campaign. The piece chronicles Alfonse D'Amato’s history in New York and the country. That’s coming up.