What else should Dis-

trict residents expect from the Man From Hope, who made his career by selling off chunks of his integrity to corporations like Tyson’s Chicken and International Paper, serving fatcats in an impoverished Southern state (“The Most Invisible Man in D.C.,” 10/4)?

It’s time to consider hiring our public servants outside of the Democratic Party. My own bias this year is the Green Party, and I’ll vote for Ralph Nader. As Loose Lips reported in the same issue, the Greens need at least 7,500 votes in November to get them a permanent spot on the D.C. map as an alternative to the Democrats.

But less important than which third party is that one votes for a third party at all. Besides the Greens, we have the New Party, the Statehood Party, the AIDS Cure Party, the recently founded Labor Party, if it starts running candidates in 1998, and others that are more responsive to citizens than to corporate boardrooms. (I exclude Ross Perot’s Reform Party from this list. Would you trust a president proposing health care reform who has major stock holdings in HMOs?) Maybe if small progressive parties can coalesce by 2000, we’ll have a national candidate who might win.

Clinton leads by double-digit percentage points in national polls, and will certainly pull a majority in the District. This is by far the best election to vote third party. We can register our dissatisfaction safely, without worrying that we’ll spoil the election and put the infinitely worse Bob Dole in the White House. We don’t need to waste our votes by throwing them at the Clinton juggernaut. If Clinton loses us, it’s his own fault: He took D.C. for granted.

D.C.’s stagnant, shoo-in Democratic Party will whine about the loyalty we owe them. Phooey. Whenever our allegiance becomes less than contingent, politicians piss all over us.

Foggy Bottom