The republican version of Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) made famous by many entrepraneurs, none so well known for their aggressive marketing than our friends from Ada, Michigan, the De Vos family; die-hard republicans to the bitter end. It's no secret within the organization that being a 'true believer' will propel you to the upper reaches of the ziggurat of succes. And it's also no secret that the organiztion leans so far to the right that they are probably funding genetic research to breed babies with two right hands.

Amway Corporation has often been identified as supporting the US Republican Party and other right-wing causes, but this is not strictly accurate. Amway Corporation, as such, supports no political party. It is true that the co-founders, Rich de Vos and Jay van Andes, are strong supporters of the Republican Party, but this is a personal position, not a company position per se. Many of Amway's best-known distributors, including Dexter Yager, are also self-declared Republicans. Perhaps paradoxically for an organization so widely regarded as right-wing, Amway touts the environmental benefits of many of its products, and in June 1989 it was recognized by UNEP's Regional Office for North America for its contributions to the cause of the environment.

The notion of translating the MLM concept into politics is visionary -- and also a little disquieting. Pyramid-based companies have proved amazingly successful at raising up armies of enterprising Americans; Amway, the world's most successful MLM, has more than 3.6 million distributors. But some MLM's thrive by imposing their own strange and insular cultures on their recruits, and while they offer the illusion of self-employment, those at the top of the pyramid often demand a rigid kind of uniformity and loyalty. Amway has often been compared to a cult -- so often, in fact, that on its own Web site the company feels the need to answer such frequently asked questions as ''I've heard rumors that Amway is a cult; is this true?'' and ''Why do Amway meetings appear to some people like a cult?'' When I met with Ken Mehlman, Bush's campaign manager, in suburban Washington, and suggested that the Bush campaign could fairly be compared to Amway in its approach, he agreed without hesitation. ''Amway, no question,'' he said.

Well, here the 1600 Crew are the "uplines". No matter how shitty the product, they want their true believers to each recruit and be responsible for others down-stream. It's a brilliant concept, and one that better be countered, and quickly by the Democrats, because like my mom, the recruited "down-line" voters won't know that they have a basement full of cheap-ass toilet paper until the bills come due after the election. I think my mom is still paying off the toilet paper. We never discuss it anymore, after she lost all her friends trying to get them to become "distributors". Hey, republicans ... it could happen to you, they'll use you and leave you like a two-dollar hooker after payday!