Bush Invokes Desert Storm in Appeal to South

A year after military victory in the Persian Gulf, President Bush appealed Saturday to Southern voters with pointed tributes to patriotism and a new claim that the war is paying off for the American economy.

His praise for those who “do not cut and run” served as another backhanded swipe at Republican rival Patrick J. Buchanan, as the two campaigned hard in Georgia on the way to a crucial showdown in Tuesday’s primary election.

Buchanan, who opposed the war, but who is showing unexpected strength in Georgia, continued to press the standard themes of his campaign, but also shifted the emphasis of his rhetoric as he sought support from conservative Democrats whose crossover votes are critical to his hopes in this state where there is no registration by party.

To drive home his patriotic message, Bush paid an unannounced visit to a veterans’ hall bingo game, where he borrowed the caller’s microphone to speak of his “great emotional feeling of what happened just one year ago.”

But his parallel effort to link Operation Desert Storm to domestic prosperity reflected the unease of a Bush campaign still grappling to find an invigorating theme.

In apparent recognition that merely invoking the Gulf War now carries little weight, Bush told a Dallas audience that American companies stand to gain $5 billion because of the need to rebuild battle-ravaged Kuwait.

Proclaiming “good news” in the aftermath of war, Bush said the building boom could forge 60,000 U.S. jobs and “proves that my long-range program to create jobs by pushing exports is working.”

The suggestion that what had been tragic for Kuwait had been good for America was emblematic of a Bush campaign still searching for ways to recapture a feel-good national spirit.

As he moved on to meet with Republican Party faithful at the state GOP dinner here, Bush avoided direct criticism of Buchanan and sounded familiar themes about “bedrock values.”

But some of those attending the dinner said the enthusiastic greeting the President received had been made more demonstrative by uneasiness about the toll Buchanan appears to be exacting.

“He’s done a little bit better than we wanted him to,” state Sen. Frank Albert of Augusta said of Buchanan. “It was funny in the beginning. It’s gotten serious now.”

Speaking to reporters before the event, two of the state’s most respected Republicans, U.S. House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich and former Sen. Mack Mattingly, urged the sharp-tongued insurgent to withdraw from the race.

In a sign of the degree to which the Bush-Buchanan race here has become an angry and bitter feud, Gingrich was to have repeated that demand before the full party dinner. But he held his tongue after a warning from White House Chief of Staff Samuel K. Skinner that such a hard line would be inappropriate at an event where Bush was present.

Veiling his anger only slightly, Gingrich instead said, “There’s nothing wrong with a debate inside this party as long as it is a fair fight, an honest fight, and as long as you remember the nominee needs all our help to stop the fight.”

Meanwhile, Buchanan campaigned hard in southern Georgia, attacking Bush for raising taxes and federal spending and with an appeal to voters to support him as the only conservative of either party in the race.

“There is too much collusion, collaboration and cave-ins between the liberal Republicans in Washington and the liberal Democrats on Capitol Hill,” Buchanan said at a rally in Perry, Ga. “We’ve got to break up that one-party government we’ve got in Washington. We’ve got to overturn it and the only candidate running against the Establishment of both parties is Pat Buchanan.”

Buchanan also pressed his attacks on Bush for signing a civil rights bill last year that was “written by Ted Kennedy,” the liberal Democratic senator who remains a favorite target of Southern conservatives.

Party and elected officials said they now believe Buchanan could claim as much as 39% of the Georgia vote, giving him an outside chance of equaling his surprising 37% showing in the New Hampshire primary.

In one sign of concern, Bush will attend services this morning at a fundamentalist Baptist church in a foray into what campaign officials feel may be in danger of becoming Buchanan country. Buchanan, meanwhile, will attend Roman Catholic services and will visit an Evangelical congregation.

Buchanan supporters were not in evidence amid those who paid $100 a plate to hear the President. But even some of the Bush loyalists made plain that they were less than satisfied with the President’s early campaign performance.

“I think Bush has to be more definitive and specific in what he’s saying, and say it more aggressively,” Mattingly said in an interview.

While he again was careful not to level direct attacks against his rival, Bush sprinkled his speech in Atlanta with coded phrases meant as reminders of Buchanan’s “America first” policies and his stance on the war.

He scorned the “patriotic posturing” of protectionists that he said were waving a “white flag of surrender,” and said his visits to Georgia Army bases during the Gulf War showed him that “military strength is nothing without moral support right here at home.”

As he spoke of the war again, however, in his visit to the American Legion post, some were not impressed. One woman, Faye Ireland, said she thought it was time to “stop talking about it” and address other concerns.

The sense of a campaign adrift was most indelible at the contractors’ convention in Dallas earlier in the day, where Bush delivered a halting, often redundant address littered with repeated phrases.

The audience greeted his anti-government remarks with enthusiastic applause, but remained silent at other central moments, including the reminder that the rebuilding of Kuwait had made the U.S. construction business rich.

Noting that he had placed a “top priority” on helping Kuwait recover from war, Bush said that contracts won by American firms would “pump an additional $5 billion into the American economy--and merchandise exports alone will create 60,000 new American jobs.”

Times staff writer Sonni Efron contributed to this story.