Bush Visits Georgia Church as Gesture of Contrition to Conservatives : GOP primary: The President makes a point of being among Baptists as he seeks to soothe an angry right and blunt the effort by Buchanan to woo them.

As Daniel in a Southern conservative den, George Bush did his best Sunday to soothe an angry right.

A fundamentalist preacher could not resist the allusion as Bush took his seat in a Baptist pew among the kinds of voters conservative challenger Patrick J. Buchanan has done his best to rile up.

Bush was true to verse and form as he sought to mollify those who might otherwise bite, spending a final campaign day in Georgia casting himself as a pro-family reformer whose candidacy would “send a message to Washington.”

The President did not speak at the morning church service in Atlanta’s First Baptist Church. But his presence alone sent a gesture of contrition to conservatives whom Buchanan claims Bush has abandoned.

Buchanan, too, attended fundamentalist churches Sunday--first a private prayer service at Christ the King Cathedral in an Atlanta suburb, then the Mt. Parran Church of God.

As Bush moved on to a campaign rally here, his biggest of the political season, he stressed conservative themes and the need for change in a bid to tame the ire of voters galled by the economy, Congress and his own performance.

Conceding that hard times were keeping voters awake at night, Bush nevertheless pronounced himself “blessed” three times in this conservative riverfront city and said he stood for “a great new beginning” and “the values you believed in.”

With as many as one half of all Georgia voters affiliated with the Baptist Church, the tailored appeal underscored the last-minute importance here of a battle between Bush and Buchanan, a Catholic, for the religious right.

Worried about the numbers of Democrats who may cast crossover votes for the challenger, the White House this weekend turned back to conservatives in a bid to stop Buchanan short of a showing rivaling New Hampshire’s, where Buchanan won 37% to Bush’s 53%.

Televangelist Pat Robertson on Sunday urged his followers to stand behind Bush. But some of those who supported him in his 1988 bid for the presidency are now working for Buchanan, and fellow television preacher Jerry Falwell is among those who have spoken out in praise of the Republican insurgent.

Bush campaign Chairman Robert M. Teeter told reporters the President will do “pretty well” in Georgia. But White House Chief of Staff Samuel K. Skinner said it has become obvious that Bush will need to confront the challenge from Buchanan at least “for the next several weeks.”

After tentatively planning to dispatch Bush, an Episcopalian, to Presbyterian services, the Bush campaign was “grateful” to Bush’s longtime friend, the Rev. Charles Stanley, for inviting the President to the Sunday service of his First Baptist ministry, campaign spokeswoman Torie Clarke said.

There were no overt political references during the service, which is broadcast on cable television across the South. But Stanley turned to the Bible for lessons that carried a message of support.

He told the virtually all-white congregation he had shown Bush a work of art showing Daniel unmolested by lions. He went on in his sermon to speak of Joshua, whose followers unfaithfully questioned his leadership. By coincidence or by design, an in-house television camera at that moment panned over President and Mrs. Bush.

The Bush campaign continued to be met by worrisome signs even as it arrived here for the sun-dazzled riverfront rally, where the President spoke to several thousand supporters with a bunting-decked riverboat as his backdrop.

An editorial in Friday’s editions of Savannah’s morning newspaper, the News-Press, urged readers to vote for Buchanan as the best way to send a message to Bush. A Savannah crowd estimated by the White House at more than 10,000 gave Bush an enthusiastic greeting, but its response to his family values-laced stump speech was considerably more restrained.

Most of those interviewed said they intended to vote for Bush but also expressed reservations about his performance. Dick Williams, a man in his late 30s, said he liked Buchanan’s conservative message but feared he was too close-minded to be President.

Williams sounded a note of uncertainty, however, when asked whether Bush was conservative enough for his taste. “He always seems to be saying what he thinks people want to hear,” he said. “I think he ought to be a little more like Harry Truman and say what he thinks.”

Bush used the speech once again to cast aspersion by implication on Buchanan with critical references to advocates of protectionism and to those who opposed the Gulf War.

“America is first as long as the family is first,” Bush said, adding his own caveat to Buchanan’s “America first” campaign, which the challenger uses to urge limits on imports and reduced foreign aid.

With his appeal to the Georgia right, Bush took another step toward what now seems a deliberate transformation from incumbent to outsider.

He pledged if elected to “take a message to the United States Congress for change.” He referred last week to members of his traveling party as “you Washingtonians” and donned a map-of-Texas belt-buckle to tell a Houston audience: “It’s a joy to be out of there--that’s Washington.”