The Republican congressional candidate James L Hart has acknowledged that he is an unapologetic supporter of eugenics, the fake science that resulted in thousands of people being sterilized in an attempt to purify the white race.

He believes the country will look "like one big Detroit" - which has a large African-American population - if it doesn't eliminate welfare payments and immigration. He believes that if blacks were integrated centuries ago, the automobile would never have been invented.

Mr Hart has been said to turn up at voters' homes wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a gun, telling them that "white children deserve the same rights as everyone else".

But, despite his radical views, Mr Hart may end up winning the Republican nomination in a north-western Tennessee district because he is the only Republican candidate on the ballot in tomorrow's primary. His presence in the campaign has embarrassed Republican leaders, who were blind-sided by Mr Hart after they didn't bother fielding a candidate. John Tanner, a Democrat, has held the seat for 15 years.

"I would characterize him as a racist, an elitist," said Dennis Bertrand, a financial analyst and former military officer who also stood as a candidate. "His idea of ... genetically altering the human race in order to build a super race with super intelligence is appalling."

Much of Mr Hart's platform revolves around eugenics, which developed before the Second World War as a pseudoscientific movement to solve social problems by preventing the "unfit" from having children. It inspired 33 US states to pass laws that allowed the sterilization of some 65,000 people, and Nazi Germany used the US examples to justify programs that sterilized and killed millions.

Mr Hart, a 60-year-old estate agent, knows his views on eugenics are far from the mainstream and knows he is viewed as racist by most people. But he insists his beliefs have nothing to do with racism and everything to do with "favored races" from Europe and Asia and "less-favored races" from Africa. To achieve his goal of a country populated by "favored races," Mr Hart proposes eliminating welfare and immigration.

"If an individual demonstrates the ability to produce and contribute to society, he or she would be encouraged to have more children. People on welfare would not," Mr Hart said.

Mr Bertrand said he found out about Mr Hart's views from the internet, where he went to learn more about the race in Tennessee's 8th District, which covers the mostly rural counties of north-west Tennessee, stretching from north Memphis to Clarksville. He says he is running to make sure Mr Hart does not win the Republican Party's endorsement.

"I was appalled by what I'd seen there," Mr Bertrand said. "It had nothing to do with the beliefs I have, or of any Republican I know - or any Democrat or independent."

© 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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