The Public Face, Private Debate Inside Bush Campaign : Politics: While reporting primary victories, aides are divided over how to woo large number of GOP voters dissatisfied with his leadership.

Call it the Tuesday night-Wednesday morning syndrome.

On Tuesday night, President Bush emerges from a primary election with a majority of the votes and delegates. On Wednesday morning, his aides busily try to explain in public why a significant chunk of Republican voters chose not to vote for him, while in private they engage in anxious debate about what changes are needed to make sure such a “victory” doesn’t happen again.

Such was the case a week ago after the New Hampshire primary, in which 47% of those voting in the GOP contest cast ballots for conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan and a variety of other candidates. Such was the case Wednesday after the South Dakota primary in which Bush--running unopposed--saw 31% of the Republican vote go to an uncommitted slate of national convention delegates.

Bush’s political team is predicting more of the same in the coming weeks, even as the President continues to outpace Buchanan in racking up delegates.

“There seems to be a solid 30% disaffected vote,” said a senior White House official. “You saw it in New Hampshire. You saw it in South Dakota. You’ll see it down South,” where several states hold primaries during the week between next Tuesday and March 10, Super Tuesday.

In the wake of the South Dakota results, Bush’s aides resumed their internal debate Wednesday over whether he should spend more time as a candidate or more time as President, whether their advertising should attack Buchanan or spotlight the Bush agenda for tackling the nation’s economic woes, whether the problem is in his message or simply in the way the message is being conveyed.

Their initial response was to bring on board two respected campaigners who worked for former President Ronald Reagan: communications adviser James Lake, a partner in a Washington public relations firm, and speech writer Peggy Noonan, who crafted the well-received speech Bush delivered to the 1988 Republican National Convention. Their appointments to campaign posts are likely to be announced in the next day or so, Republican sources said.

Regardless of such moves, the bottom line for the President remains this: A large number of GOP voters apparently are so dissatisfied with his performance that they cannot bring themselves to back him, despite growing warnings from Administration figures that the longer the party remains divided, the more Democrats will benefit.

Most immediately, there is some fear that at least one state--Louisiana--may actually give Buchanan a majority of votes in its March 10 primary. On Wednesday, Buchanan’s chances may have been boosted in the state when he won the endorsement of the state Republican chairman, William Nungesser.

“If we don’t stand behind Pat Buchanan, we will lose the true conservative legacy of Ronald Reagan,” Nungesser said at the opening of Buchanan’s Louisiana headquarters--a small office above a pawn shop with a small sign advising customers to unload their guns before entering.

The long-range concern among Bush’s advisers is that if the battle with Buchanan becomes nastier, they could find themselves in much the same position as President Gerald R. Ford did in 1976. In that year’s primary campaign, Ford fought off a sustained challenge but found himself with a party so split that, combined with residual political problems stemming from the Watergate scandal, he lost the November election to Democrat Jimmy Carter.

Speaking on the record, the Bush team was upbeat in its assessment of the South Dakota vote. It was, said White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater, “a great victory.”

Referring to South Dakota, the President’s New Hampshire victory and his sizable victory in the Maine caucus on Sunday, Fitzwater said: “We’re three for three. We’re on a roll.”

Bush was more circumspect about the South Dakota results. “It was a good victory--69%--a good victory,” he said as he arrived in San Antonio for a drug summit with South American leaders after an overnight stay in Los Angeles.

But these public assessments were not echoed in the private comments others were making. Nor were they echoed in the continuing debate among campaign strategists.

Campaign and White House sources said the President’s advisers seemed uncertain whether their enemy is Buchanan himself or the protest he is fueling with the fiery rhetoric of his candidacy.

The result, said a senior White House aide, is a Bush camp that remains divided. Some argued that because the President was slowly gaining enough delegates to be assured of renomination, he can afford to largely ignore Buchanan, focus on long-term national problems “and move to fix what is fixable by November.”

Others maintained that a swift defeat of Buchanan would eliminate the growing perception of Bush as weakened politically, because then there would be no opportunity for Republicans to cast a protest vote. Thus, they said, Bush must take off the gloves and rid himself of the Buchanan nuisance--at the risk, one adviser said, of “getting down into the pits, in the mud.”

One presidential adviser contended that only the President’s longtime friend and closest political confidant, Secretary of State James A. Baker III, has the long association and clout with the candidate needed to set the campaign on an even keel. Baker directed Bush’s 1988 campaign and is widely credited with being crucial to its victory.

“Jim is going to have to step in, because I don’t think there’s anybody big enough who can put this thing into shape,” the adviser said.

Times staff writers Michael Ross and Douglas Jehl contributed to this story.