By SHARON KILPATRICK

By SHARON KILPATRICK

Rappahannock Newt SUIT Writer

Democratic presidential candidates are dropping by the wayside, but former Sen. Eugene McCarthy is still in the race.

He said he had read that Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton had gained 20 pounds on the campaign trail. “He may not make it either,” said the former Minnesota senator and regular presidential candidate who now makes his home in Woodville.

Sen. McCarthy’s greatest success so far was in Louisiana, where he received 14,000 votes, or about 4 percent of the total cast in the Democratic Primary, ahead of Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerry and Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin. Sen. McCarthy said he isn’t sure if they had already announced they were dropping out before the vote.

His greatest disappointment continues to be the lack of coverage of his campaign in the newspapers and on television. He noted that the owners justify excluding him because they say he can’t win. “They say, ‘You’re not going to win, and we’ll see that you don’t.’ Then they say, ‘We told you, you couldn’t win.’ It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy.”

He noted that the same process is at work in David Duke’s candidacy. “There have been some attempts to keep him off the ballot, and the networks have tended to block him out.” However, the exsenator considers his own situation “unique.”

Of the Republican primary process, Sen. McCarthy said, “I can’t really draw the line between Duke and Buchanan and Buchanan and Bush. Duke’s position is believed. Buchanan says his position is historical. Bush is neither ideological nor historical. It’s just pragmatic. It is useful for him to exploit these prejudices. That may be the least defensible position.”

Of the other Democratic contenders he notes that none have major foreign policy experience, and foreign policy has received no attention. He says Bush will be able to go into the fall election claiming, “I’m the experienced one.”

Sen. McCarthy noted that the only foreign policy issue discussed so far is how the candidates voted or would have voted on the resolution to go to war in the Persian Gulf, and none of the candidates who actually voted on that resolution have survived. “It’s not a significant issue,” he said.