Aides Say Howard Baker Favors White House Bid

Four top advisers to former Senate Majority Leader Howard H. Baker Jr. said Thursday that he is likely to seek the 1988 Republican presidential nomination and that he is gearing up campaign operations in advance of a final decision next week.

“I wouldn’t say it’s 100% certain, but it’s in the high 90s,” said James Cannon, a longtime aide to the Tennessean who has been asked to begin organizing staff and developing issues for a presidential campaign. Tom Griscom, another key adviser, agreed.

Richard Redman, a Des Moines builder who is Baker’s chief organizer in Iowa, said that the former senator has been encouraged by recent meetings with 200 politically active Iowans and told them that he “probably” would run.

‘Significant Movement’

Meanwhile, Thomas Rath, a Concord, N.H., lawyer who heads Baker’s national exploratory committee, said that Baker “gave us direction last week to go ahead and prepare those things that would facilitate a campaign, should he make that decision. That was a significant movement from his position a month ago. He is strongly inclined to run.”

According to Rath, Baker’s only major uncertainty is whether he could raise the approximately $15 million that will be needed to take him through the primaries with the help of about $7 million in federal matching funds.

In contrast with several other GOP hopefuls who have built up large war chests, Baker’s exploratory committee has only $50,000. And Baker has expressed a strong distaste for having to spend an estimated four or five days a week this year going to fund-raising events.

Gets Financial Advice

“Raising money is a political abomination,” Baker said recently at a breakfast session with The Times’ Washington Bureau. “It takes a whole year--1987 would be essentially fund raising.”

Aides said that Baker has been getting candid advice on his financial prospects this week from Thomas Welch, a Nashville businessman and former Republican national finance chairman who would serve as Baker’s principal fund-raiser. Neither Baker nor Welch could be reached for comment.

According to associates, Baker has resolved two other concerns: the health of his wife, Joy, and his chances for taking the nomination in a field that includes two other candidates substantially ahead of him in the polls, Vice President George Bush and Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.).

Mrs. Baker was treated for lung cancer nearly five years ago. Doctors have told Baker that back pains she is suffering now are not related to a malignancy, as had been feared earlier.

“That was a tremendous burden lifted,” Cannon said. Griscom added: “He feels that she could withstand the rigors of a campaign.”

Sees ‘Wide Open’ Race

As for his presidential chances, Baker, who retired from the Senate two years ago, believes that the race is “wide open” and that, for him, winning is “doable,” Redman said.

Baker said a month ago that he originally planned to decide whether to run by Jan. 1 of this year but had postponed the decision for at least three months because of the political uncertainties caused by the Iran- contra scandal.

“It would be foolish to make a final commitment until you know how the dust settles,” he said then.

Now Baker has advanced the timetable, aides said, because it is clear that Bush has been hurt by the scandal and has lost substantial ground in the polls, while other GOP presidential hopefuls have gained.