Presidential candidate James "Bo" Gritz says he knows how to solve all of the nation's problems. It will take just one week, he told 10,000 enthusiastic supporters at the Huntsman Center Saturday night.
Take world peace, for example."I will personally lead Congress anywhere on this globe where they'd send our young men and wo-men," Gritz said. "I think if they know we are going to go first, we are going to be a very peaceful nation."
Gritz, an independent candidate who is on the ballot in 44 states, stormed Utah Friday and Saturday, meeting with supporters in Enterprise, Provo and Salt Lake City. He called for a second American revolution to restore the government promised in the Con-sti-tu-tion.
Gritz bombed the Federal Reserve, President Bush, the new world order, the Internal Revenue Service, the American Medical Association and other institutions and political leaders in remarks that were a blend of military swagger, conspiracy theory and religious conviction.
On stage with Gritz were a semi-circle of 55 empty chairs: He told the audience a campaign worker had a dream that the nation's Founding Fathers might want to join the crowd of patriots gathered at the Huntsman Center.
Gritz wants to "restore Constitutional government, retrieve POWs who may still be alive in Southeast Asia, win the war on drugs and put accuracy, accountability and integrity back in government."
"I've been looking for him a long time," said Miral Thornton, Woods Cross, who attended the rally at the Huntsman Center. "I'm looking for somebody who'll stand up for the Constitution."
Gritz is a retired Green Beret colonel who received 62 valor citations, the most ever given to a Green Beret. He served as commander of the U.S. Army Special Forces in Latin America, as chief of special activities for the U.S. Army General Staff at the Pentagon, as Delta Force intelligence officer and reconnaissance chief, and as the Pentagon's chief of congressional relations.
Gritz gained national attention for leading four excursions into southeast Asia in search of American POWs. He maintains the U.S. government abandoned living soldiers in Laos rather than admit it waged war there.
He also gained fame when he helped defuse the standoff involving Randy Weaver in northern Ida-ho.
Gritz said he is suing the major networks for $100 million because they refuse to give or sell him air time. That money will "help us elect a lot of good people," he said.
Gritz, who lives in Sandy Valley, Nevada, with his wife Claudia, told supporters that seven days after he gets America back on its feet, he'll head to Hanoi to bring back living American POWs. He also promised to bring something back for former secretary of state Henry Kissinger.
"We're going to bring something home to Mr. Kissinger that he deserves more than a Nobel Peace Prize and that's an indictment for treason," Gritz said.
Gritz began his quest for the presidency 14 months ago. He says he's running his campaign like a guerrilla war, with "generals" in each state calling their own shots. Utah was the first state to put him on the ballot. In a Dan Jones poll conducted in September, Gritz received 8 percent of the vote. In Utah County, he did even better, polling 12 percent of the vote. Gritz said a TV poll released Friday in Idaho shows him beating Bush, Clinton and Perot by pulling in 35 percent of the vote.
"I just want our country back on track," said Traci Heinz, who joined 500 people who gave Gritz a hero's welcome at a luncheon in Provo Saturday. "Bo knows the problems and has answers."
Gritz outlines his goals in a "Bill of Gritz" which includes strict adherence to the Constitution, curbing powers of the Supreme Court, eliminating foreign aid and all-out protection of American jobs and industries. Gritz also wants to demolish the Department of Education and let states and cities set curriculums, close the Federal Reserve Board, restore a monetary system based on the gold standard, pull the United States out of the United Nations, prohibit foreign ownership of U.S. land, abolish the personal income tax, the property tax and the Internal Revenue Service, cut off foreign aid, end affirmative action programs and use armed forces to stop illegal immigration.
"We are going to rout out the human sediment that is blocking the flow of good government," Gritz said, brandishing a toilet plunger, which he said would be the symbol of his administration.