Buchanan Attacks Bush on Family Issues : Politics: Harsh speech in Mississippi criticizes the President on abortion and a Mosbacher meeting with gay rights leaders.

Patrick J. Buchanan delivered an angry paean to family values Monday on a final march toward Super Tuesday, but as today’s Republican presidential primary voting across eight states approached, his campaign bore the scars of an insurgency forced to fight across too much terrain.

In a packed town hall here, Buchanan spoke in terms more harsh than ever before in the campaign, condemning legalized abortion as “the ugliest scar” on the nation’s face.

To sustained cheers, Buchanan demanded that the Bush Administration explain “exactly what they mean” concerning statements from Vice President Dan Quayle about possible compromise language on abortion in this year’s GOP platform.

He also attacked a recent meeting between Bush campaign Chairman Robert A. Mosbacher and gay rights leaders and called on Bush to repudiate the session.

Bush, however, spent the day in Washington, heeding those on his staff who have advised him to try to stay above the fray. Speaking briefly to reporters on the White House lawn, Bush said from now on he would “act, not react” as Buchanan campaigns.

Indeed, with fewer primaries coming up--and delegates likely lining up in the Bush column--the White House and the Bush campaign organization are crafting a less frenetic campaign pace for the President.

Under the new plan, Bush is likely to spend no more than a day or two each week on the campaign trail, making quick trips to individual states in the days before their primary elections.

On Monday, the President left the job of responding to Buchanan to a spokeswoman. “Mr. Buchanan is trying to incite feelings of fear and hatred that shouldn’t be part of the political process,” said campaign press secretary Torie Clarke.

Buchanan had hoped to stage lightning raids this past week, but instead, he has found his progress slowed by the kinds of misfortunes that strike an army that is too small.

Arriving in a state where his hopes for a good showing are highest, Buchanan found that Bush campaign attacks had clearly struck their mark. At a Farm Bureau forum in Jackson, Miss., for example, Buchanan stressed that he had supported the Persian Gulf War “once the first shot was fired.” But an audience already made edgy by his late arrival remained skeptical of his answers and fell silent as he restated his reasons for opposing Operation Desert Storm.

A photograph in Monday morning’s Providence (R.I.) Journal illustrated another of the problems that has plagued Buchanan of late. Displaying the candidate framed by two signs accusing him of anti-Semitism, the paper’s bold headline memorialized his visit to Rhode Island with the words “Scuffle Shortens Buchanan Visit.”

Behind the headline lay a chain of events starting last Saturday, when Buchanan and his band inexplicably permitted its newly chartered jet to take on another job, stranding them in Mississippi when the candidate had planned to be in Massachusetts and Rhode Island--the latter a state where some had thought Buchanan might score an upset today.

When Buchanan finally arrived in New England some 20 hours late, so few were the supporters who turned up at hastily rescheduled events that it was vocal Jewish protesters who dominated local newspaper and television coverage.

Throughout the day, Buchanan seemed determined to regain the initiative, shifting focus from the economic messages that have dominated his campaign until now to a sermon-like testimonial to traditional values.

In this small Bible Belt community, he told the several hundred people who squeezed into a courtroom-like space in the town hall that Bush had backed away from his vows “not simply on economic issues but on the family issues as well.”

Times staff writers James Gerstenzang and David Lauter in Washington contributed to this story.