Buchanan Stumps Hard in Georgia, Invests in TV Ads : Republicans: The conservative’s inexperienced staff proves a problem when opposing Bush’s ‘armies.’

The campaign caravan swings up to the curb, somebody cranks up a patriotic march on the loudspeakers and the crowd gathers around the steps of the Houston County Courthouse to hear the candidate challenging President Bush for the Republican presidential nomination.

“Welcome folks,” says Rick Hanselman, a member of the executive committee of the local Republican Party. “Welcome to the Houston County rally for Pat Robertson!”

There is a moment of puzzled silence. “Saaay,” a voice from the crowd calls in a thick Southern drawl. “Ain’t this feller’s name Bu. . .chanan?”

Oops.

“Sorry folks,” murmurs Hanselman in embarrassment. “I’m kinda new at this.”

Part of Pat Buchanan’s problem as he stumps the Old South, seeking to unseat Bush for the Republican nomination, is that most of his staff is kind of new at this.

Young but eager, Buchanan’s mostly twentysomething volunteers have little or no experience running presidential campaigns, and they are far outmanned by what the candidate likes to refer to as “King George’s armies.”

Buchanan is campaigning hard in Georgia, outspending Bush on media advertising by a nearly 2-to-1 margin as the two candidates went head-to-head over the crucial weekend before the state’s presidential primary Tuesday.

He is also getting a lot of of free media attention as he appears before all-white audiences, attacking Bush for raising taxes, for signing last year’s civil rights bill and for encouraging “blasphemous and obscene” art funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.

These are all themes that resonate loudly among the conservative white voters, both Republican and Democrat, that Buchanan is trying to attract to his populist “America first” crusade.

But the Achilles’ heel of Buchanan’s campaign is organization. “We could have gotten the whole town out if we had been given some notice, but we only got the word he was coming last night,” said Judy Simpson, an elementary school teacher who was one of about 75 people attending a Buchanan rally in Tifton, Ga., over the weekend.

Her comment echoed what many supporters have said at town rallies across the South. Although the crowds--running anywhere from about 75 to 300 people--have not been overwhelming, almost everyone attending Buchanan’s rallies says that friends or relatives would have liked to come but got the word too late.

“In a general election, Buchanan would do very well here,” said Atlanta pollster Claiborne Darden. “His messages are viable, and he presents them in a very effective way.” But winning support in a primary, where voter turnout is traditionally low, requires more organizational muscle than Buchanan has, Darden added.

Greg Mueller, Buchanan’s campaign spokesman, vigorously denied that organization itself is the problem. “Our guys have done tremendously well in putting things together on what, in most cases, has been only 24 hours’ notice,” he said.

But Mueller acknowledged that timing has been a major problem. “We had two months to plan for New Hampshire. Here we have to do what we did there in a matter of days,” he said.

To compensate for these disadvantages, Buchanan has invested heavily in media advertising, spending $206,885 on television spots aired in the Atlanta area compared to $121,727 for Bush, according to figures compiled by the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.

His most explosive ad so far exploits the issues of homosexuality, pornography and race and appeals to the religious right by featuring a clip from an NEA-funded documentary depicting semi-clad gay black men dancing in the streets. The ad accuses Bush of sanctioning NEA support for this kind of “filth.” What it does not mention, however, is that the documentary from which the clip was taken was made in 1982--during the Ronald Reagan Adminis tration.

Paul Erickson, Buchanan’s national political chairman, defended using the old clip on grounds that subsequent “pornographic” art funded by the NEA during Bush’s tenure in office was too graphic to show on television. He also argued that the ad was not misleading, as Bush supporters have charged, because the NEA continues to subsidize “filthy” art.

Another politically potent ad Buchanan began airing over the weekend attacks Bush for signing the 1991 Civil Rights Act, suggesting that it will lead to reverse discrimination and hiring quotas.

Subtly but skillfully, the ads exploit the extremes of the message Buchanan is trying to convey in a bid to attract not only Republicans but conservative Democrats who can cross over and vote Republican in Georgia’s open primary and who may hold the key to a strong Buchanan showing in the state.

Whether he is posing on the well-worn seat of Bubba Goolsby’s tractor on a peanut farm in southern Georgia or addressing a well-heeled--and all-white--crowd from the colonnaded front porch oH. Massee’s antebellum mansion in Fitzgerald, Buchanan’s main message in the closing days of the Georgia campaign is that he is the only truly conservative candidate of either party in the race: the only one whose traditionalist morals, Christian values and right-wing political beliefs are most like theirs.

It is not clear whether that strategy will work. A telephone poll by the Mason-Dixon organization last week said Bush still led Buchanan 63% to 27% with 10% undecided.

But one early omen of the potency of the message came when Buchanan addressed the lopsidedly Democratic state Legislature last week.

Buchanan received a standing ovation--and the business cards of a number of Democrats who quietly suggested that the candidate call them to see if they could be of any help.