"SEND FIVE AND KEEP AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ALIVE

" That's the campaign slogan of just-announced GOP presidential hopeful Arthur Fletcher, who was U.S.Civil Rights Commissioner from 1990-93, and describes himself as "the father of affirmative action." A seventy year old African American, Fletcher has pushed affirmative action programs under four Republican presidents -- Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Bush -- but now laments that current GOP politics dictate that "there's not a ghost of a chance of Republican candidates being nominated . . . unless they engage in the race-baiting, gender-bashing tactics of the moment." He's running, at least in part, "to see to it that the party doesn't completely end up abandoning the middle, where the majority of the voters live." If he can raise enough $5 contributions, Fletcher aims to campaign by bus and recreate the "Freedom Rides" of the 1960s.