One sign that the other candidates are beginning to take Cruz Bustamante seriously is that he is now the target of some sleazy racist attacks. When I wrote my post last week about his unexpected rise to front-runner status in the recall election, I noted that he had belonged to a separatist group in college. The organization, MeChA, at one time had called for a separate Chicano nation, which for a Mexican-American in the early 70's would have been as "extreme" as it would have been for a Jewish student in the 1930's to support Zionism.

My quibble, though, was not with that aspect of MeChA. I was more concerned that a number of people close to the organization had eventually drifted off into cloud-cuckoo land, spouting an anti-everyone else ideology. The group today is essentially an ethnic pride group, as "separatist" as the Knights of Columbus, and its university charters disavow any bigotry or separatism; in fact, the group is open to all races and ethnicities. Bustamante should appropriately tell the voters what his stance is on Aztlan, and then get on with the campaign.

However, first Fox News, and now Tom McClintock, have begun calling MeChA a "racist" organization. Both have good reason to smear this organization. Fox has had to confront an embarassing story this week about a leaked memo showing that its executives were trying to bias its coverage in favor of Ahnolt. McClintock, who absurdly claimed that MeChA was just like the KKK (well, for one thing, they don't burn crosses on people's lawns), is attempting to appeal to the Republican base, which overwhelmingly supported Prop. 187, and is, shall we say, uncomfortable with the possibility that a non-white might be the next governor.

In fact, most of the criticism concerning MeChA has come from the Ann Coulter/David Duke/David Horowitz wing of the body politic. Those who have a long memory in California politics need only go back to the 1969 Mayorality election in Los Angeles, when Sam Yorty, well-behind in the polls, accused Tom Bradley of having ties to the Black Panthers, to realize that this sort of ugly politics is not unusual in California, and even has a track record of success. Anyways, expect that story to get covered as if it were as important, as, say, a candidate boasting about a gang-bang.