Ferguson was right when he said he hadn't changed much since incumbent Democrat Gunn McKay defeated him in 1976. He's still a member of the John Birch Society, which McKay and others made a big issue. He said he is seasoned enough now to handle that better. In fact, the main thrust of his campaign this winter and spring will be direct attacks on President Bush and Cannon, whom he calls a Bush puppet, for looking the other way while Ferguson, the Birch Society and others say the United States is slowly blurring its borders in a secret attempt to merge the nation together with Mexico and Canada in a European Union-like organization they refer to as the North American Union.

"This country is in trouble," he said. "The president is doing a terrible job, the Congress is doing a terrible job and the Supreme Court is doing a terrible job."

Cannon has voted for CAFTA, the Central America Free Trade Agreement, which Ferguson criticized as a step toward a North American Union, and for No Child Left Behind, which Ferguson derided because it gave more power to the U.S. Department of Education, which he said was "like buying a drunk more and more whiskey."

Cannon declined to comment.

Ferguson is a member of the Birch Society's speakers bureau, available to talk about "Marxism: The Greatest Fraud of All Times." "Russia," he said in an interview, "is still a Communist-controlled country, I don't care what they say."

Another of his topics is "The Controlled Media: A Tool of America's Greatest Enemies." Ferguson said those enemies include the Council on Foreign Relations, which he said controls the U.S. media. The immediate past editor of the Deseret Morning News is John Hughes, a member of the CFR. The current editor is Joe Cannon, Rep. Cannon's brother.

Ferguson said he has known Joe Cannon to be fair, but wasn't happy that the paper printed an editorial this month that, within a week of Ferguson's first public appearance as a candidate, called the idea of an NAU "time-wasting nonsense." The editorial did not mention Ferguson but instead referred to a bill proposed in the state Legislature.

"The CFR agenda has been since 1921 to merge the United States into a world government," Ferguson said. "I though for years they would use the United Nations as the vehicle, but the U.N. might have been a feint."

He called a potential regional government like a North American Union a stepping-stone to a world government. "Why has George Bush never secured the borders of America?" Ferguson said. "What is his agenda? To erase those borders. It's a very difficult thing because it's being pushed by a Republican president, so Republicans are going to be reluctant to believe it."

He proposed that all illegal immigrants be forced to register with the government. Undesirables and those who don't register would be deported. Those allowed to stay, Ferguson said, should be given a high-tech ankle bracelet so they can be identified by satellite.

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E-mail: twalch@desnews.com