Buchanan Not Ready to Quit, says He’s ‘on a Roll’

Patrick J. Buchanan suggested Sunday that he might abandon his insurgent challenge to President Bush if his vote totals drop into the 15% range--but not just yet.

“If you get down the road to the point where you’re not getting 40% or 30%, but only 15%, do you then continue to do battle against the President, who is the presumptive nominee?” the conservative columnist said on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley.” “You’ve got to take a look at that question then, but not right now, when we’re on a roll.”

He predicted that the Georgia primary on March 3 “may be the New Hampshire of the South.” He said he has already “punched a hole” in Bush’s “blimp” by getting 37% of the vote in last Tuesday’s Republican primary in New Hampshire, where Bush won with 53%. He vowed to press on.

“If we punch a second hole in it in Georgia, the whole thing may go up, and I will have a fighting chance for the nomination,” he said.

Buchanan’s aides hope he will win 35% of the vote in Georgia, for a springboard going into the 10 Super Tuesday primaries of March 10.

Later, at a rally in Miami during a campaign swing across several Southern states, Buchanan pledged that “Fidel Castro would not survive a Buchanan presidency.”

About 350 supporters, most of them Cubans, turned out for the airport rally. It was one of the largest and most enthusiastic crowds Buchanan has drawn in the South.

Pressed to elaborate on how he would bring about Castro’s downfall, Buchanan said he would tighten the embargo and hinted at covert CIA efforts to undermine the Cuban leader, but he ruled out using troops.

The embargo, imposed in 1962, contains few exceptions now. Food and medicines may be shipped only to be distributed by non-governmental organizations in Cuba.

Earlier in the day, Vice President Dan Quayle intensified a line of attack that the White House clearly hopes will hurt Buchanan in the Southern primaries. Quayle assailed Buchanan as a protectionist on trade and an isolationist on foreign affairs.

“He’s down there beating the drums for a protectionist policy right now in the South. It’s not going to work for him. The people . . . know that protectionism is a dead-end street,” Quayle said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

He continued: “Pat Buchanan opposed the President on the Persian Gulf War. Most Republicans supported the President. As a matter of fact, I’d say, most Democrats supported the President. So Pat Buchanan on this issue is isolated.”

Quayle predicted that former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas or Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton would be the Democrats’ presidential nominee, but he said any one of the Democratic contenders would be vulnerable in the November contest with Bush.

“Are they qualified to be President of the United States?” he asked. “I mean, how many leaders around the world have they met?”

Tsongas, winner of the New Hampshire Democratic primary, also appeared on “This Week With David Brinkley.” He said he has responded to questions about his health by privately drafting a list of names of strong potential running mates. He refused to name any of those he is considering, but Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is known to be one of them--a fact that could help Tsongas in Georgia.

Cimons reported from Washington and Ross from Miami. Times staff writer Richard Boudreaux contributed to this story.