Buchanan Vows to Stay in Race Despite Odds : Politics: Challenger admits that he needs a victory soon. But he says his crusade is pushing Bush to right.

Patrick J. Buchanan said Friday he intends to press on with his presidential campaign, even if it becomes clear that he cannot wrest the nomination from President Bush, because he hopes to fulfill broader goals.

Buchanan conceded that his chances for ousting Bush will be almost nil unless he can win an election in the next 10 days. But he pledged to “go the distance” because his campaign is “making gains and winning every day.”

Making clear for the first time that he would fight on through the California primary on June 2, Buchanan said his candidacy would give the state’s conservatives “a way to express their frustration with a President who’s walked away from them and a governor who’s walked away from conservative principles.”

“The nomination is the big pot of gold,” Buchanan told a radio interviewer earlier in the day in San Antonio. “There are smaller pots of gold available to us. We’ve got other objectives. One is bringing the party to a conservative base. I want to redefine conservatism.”

His new pledge to press on with a conservative crusade even if he cannot claim his party’s mantle reflects the growing confidence of a challenge that has already forced Bush to take abrupt steps to the right.

Buchanan had hinted only two weeks ago that he would consider dropping out of the race if his support began to dwindle. But he made it clear Friday that he had undergone a change of heart in large part because his unexpectedly strong showing to date had forced Bush to “begin moving in our direction.”

“I think this candidacy is now driving the national debate,” Buchanan told reporters after a rally at the University of Dallas. He said his candidacy was forcing the Administration and the nation “in a more conservative direction.”

Both in rhetoric and doggedness, the new Buchanan stance bore an uncanny resemblance to that taken by the Rev. Jesse Jackson four years ago in claiming to be “winning every day” as he refused to give up his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

In this year’s Republican race, a prolonged Buchanan candidacy would extend by months what has already been a nasty family fight, and it presents the now all-but-certain prospect of a bitter California showdown in a state where the GOP is already at odds with itself.

With his sharp references to Bush and Gov. Pete Wilson, Buchanan left no doubt that he intended to inflame that squabble. He said his decision to remain in the race was motivated at least in part by “the character of some of the assaults (leveled) upon me personally” by the Bush campaign and its lieutenants.

Buchanan, whose strong second-place finishes through three rounds of primaries have netted him just 20 Republican delegates to Bush’s 148, continued to hold out hope for the victory that might set his campaign afire. Looking beyond the nine Republican primaries scheduled for today and Super Tuesday, he pointed to Michigan and Illinois as states whose March 17 primaries offer prospects that are “better than anticipated.”

Among the steps Buchanan has begun to cite as evidence of his effect have been Bush’s dismissal of John E. Frohnmayer, the controversial head of the National Endowment for the Arts, and the President’s acknowledgement that he had been mistaken in breaking his “no new taxes” pledge.

The challenger now gloats that Bush has taken to talking “like Patrick Buchanan.” But he complained anew that Bush “still governs like Nelson Rockefeller,” the late scion of moderate Republicanism.

“He broke faith with us,” Buchanan told a crowd in San Antonio. “George Bush talks one way and he governs another, and that’s not good for America.”

He also touched anew on an emotional Southwestern issue as he scorned Bush for failing to erect strong barriers against illegal immigration. “I don’t understand a President who can send half a million troops around the world to defend the borders of Kuwait but leaves untended the borders of his own country,” he said.

In vowing to continue his fight until the final Republican primary, Buchanan gave no indication that he might resume his bid with a third-party candidacy in the fall. He has said that he intends to support the nominee of his party--though he has noted pointedly that his enthusiasm is by no means guaranteed.