President Appears to Stall Buchanan N.H. Challenge : Republicans: Bush uses ad campaign, conservative surrogates to isolate opponent from most GOP voters.

With an effective advertising campaign and the imported credibility of a gaggle of conservative surrogates, President Bush appears to have blunted, at least for now, the once-threatening New Hampshire campaign of his major Republican primary challenger, conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan.

Interviews with pollsters, political activists and voters across the state suggest that Bush is beginning to cement his own support and has isolated Buchanan from the bulk of Republican-oriented voters in New Hampshire, where the first primary in the nation will be held on Feb. 18.

A major component in Bush’s success appears to be Buchanan himself. While Bush has been damaged to some degree by Buchanan’s hard-hitting assault on the President’s broken pledge not to raise taxes, the challenger has yet to persuade voters to support him instead. Indications are that as voters get to know Buchanan, they feel less comfortable with him.

The political situation is volatile, and Buchanan could still get his campaign on track. But many around the state say the odds have lessened that Bush will suffer the embarrassment of a strong showing by Buchanan. Hardly any observers have expected Buchanan to defeat Bush. The fear in the Bush camp has been that the President would win only narrowly.

“I don’t think Mr. Buchanan nor anyone else has made any kind of case to unseat George Bush,” said William T. Burke, the Portsmouth police chief, after listening to Buchanan address the Rotary Club here the other day. “They get out here, fire their bricks. . . . They haven’t made a case.”

Recent New Hampshire polls show Buchanan’s stall: In the last five weeks, during which he has campaigned the length of New Hampshire, his support in one series of polls has not varied from the 18% he registered in December, shortly after his insurgent candidacy began. Other polls have occasionally shown Buchanan drawing more support, but also have found no sign of momentum for him.

Bush’s support has gone up and down, but has never fallen below 52%, according to polling by the American Research Group. And other polls have shown the President with up to two-thirds support from likely voters in the Republican primary.

GOP officials in the state’s three largest counties say there is no question that Buchanan enjoys a core of support among conservatives disenchanted with Bush. But, they added, his effort seems to have slowed.

Merrimack County Republican Chairman Peter Stio said Buchanan has already peaked there. “He was stronger yesterday than he is today,” Stio said. “I guess people are starting to say we’re better off with what we’ve got.”

That is the message, subtle and not-so-subtle, that the Bush surrogates have put out in recent days. Increasingly, they stress that Buchanan supporters would be wasting their vote on him and could harm the President’s chances against a Democrat in November.

Bush has been to New Hampshire only once this primary season, but his message is being broadcast with an ever-replenished supply of the surrogates. Most of them just happen to be renowned conservatives, the better to beat down Buchanan’s assertions that Bush has abandoned that wing of the party.

In recent weeks, the guest list has included California’s conservative firebrand, Rep. Robert K. Dornan of Garden Grove, Georgia Rep. Newt Gingrich, Texas Sen. Phil Gramm and former Education Secretary William J. Bennett. Today, Vice President Dan Quayle is due to campaign across the voter-rich southern section of New Hampshire.

This week’s prime surrogate was Jack Kemp, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development and a candidate for President in 1988. While Kemp’s campaign here was unsuccessful, he retains the adoration of conservatives who remember him as the co-architect of the Ronald Reagan Administration’s 1981 tax cuts.

“I cannot identify with the fact that people are willing to throw away a vote, throw away their election in 1992 to untried and untested men . . . either on the far left or the far right,” Kemp told Manchester voters, in a clear reference to Buchanan.

At a press conference at the Bush campaign’s Manchester headquarters, Kemp directly took on Buchanan’s major theme--that voters should toss the President out for his 1990 agreement to raise taxes.

“I want to remind everybody,” Kemp said pointedly, “that President Reagan raised taxes.”

Bush’s campaign commercials do not so much as mention Buchanan. But like Kemp and other surrogates, the advertisements strike hard at the challenger’s strengths.

Buchanan contends that in breaking the tax pledge Bush sold out conservatives by collaborating with Congress. He urges voters to “send a message” by voting for him.

In radio ads, Bush is countering Buchanan’s theme with the aid of two New Hampshire conservatives, former Sen. Gordon J. Humphrey and current Sen. Robert C. Smith. Smith praises Bush for standing up to “big-spending Democrats” with his 26 vetoes. Both Smith and Humphrey refer to Bush as “our conservative President.”

One Bush television ad features New Hampshire voters telling Bush point-blank about their economic difficulties. Bush vows to help--in effect saying he has already received the message Buchanan wishes them to send.

A second Bush television commercial shows the President in the Oval Office, touting the economic recovery program he unveiled in this week’s State of the Union address and asking voters to insist that Congress pass his plan.

That ad underscores Bush’s standing and seeks to toss the blame on Congress for the nation’s economic woes.

“It’s a very effective strategy to try to deflect the challenge from Buchanan,” said veteran New Hampshire pollster David Moore.

Moore and others suggest that Bush’s State of the Union address served to focus voters here on what may be Buchanan’s chief weakness: He has not made clear what he would do as President, and how he would differ from Bush.

“You have to offer your own ideas--particularly in Pat Buchanan’s case where he hasn’t been in elective positions,” said Wayne McDonald, the GOP chairman for Rockingham County. “The fact that he isn’t offering plans of his own puts him at a disadvantage. It emphasizes his challenger status.”

Illustrating his problem, Buchanan three times answered questions about issues from his Rotary Club audience in Portsmouth on Thursday by saying he agreed with Bush.

According to pollster Dick Bennett, whose American Research Group is conducting daily tracking polls in New Hampshire, there is little evidence of any Buchanan momentum among Republicans and registered independents, who in New Hampshire can vote in either party’s primary.

While there is potential for a strong protest vote--38% of likely GOP primary voters said in one survey they would consider voting for Buchanan to protest the economic downturn--it has yet to translate into solid support for Buchanan.

Indeed, when Bush fell in one recent survey--following an anti-Bush ad aired by Buchanan--voters who left the President went into the undecided column, not into Buchanan’s camp.

“His ads are driving Bush down but not Buchanan up,” said Bennett.

More troublesome for Buchanan are suggestions that voters are becoming more reluctant to support him. In Bennett’s most recent survey, about a third of the state’s Republicans say they would never vote for Buchanan, a number that has been rising steadily.

“My sense is that Buchanan does not have a lot of growth potential,” pollster Moore said.

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