Buchanan Says Attacks to Ease if He Can’t Win

A subdued Patrick J. Buchanan said Wednesday that he is prepared to mute his attacks on President Bush if it becomes apparent that Bush has locked up the Republican nomination, but nevertheless vowed to fight on with his insurgent presidential campaign.

Rejecting the pleas of party leaders, Buchanan said he still intended to carry his challenge to the Republican convention in Houston. But he conceded that he had his “butt kicked” on Super Tuesday and said he did not intend to undermine Bush’s chances for reelection.

“Pat Buchanan is not a rule-or-ruin type guy,” he said in Dearborn, Mich., appearing humbled at a morning-after news conference. “If I have lost something, you know, I don’t play dog-in-the-manger politics.”

But the Republican challenger was unclear about when he might change his tack. He told reporters in Michigan that he might forswear negative advertising and run an “all-positive campaign” in advance of California’s June 2 primary.

“If at some point you’ve lost the nomination to Mr. Bush, I wouldn’t want to do anything consciously to damage the chances of the Republican nominee and the Bush-Quayle ticket to be elected,” he said.

By day’s end, however, Buchanan appeared to have regained his pugnacity. “There aren’t any olive branches lying around,” he said, stressing that his campaign had no intention of adopting “a disarmament strategy” for California.

“We’ve been driving the debate, so why quit when you are winning the argument?” he told a news conference here. He immediately began a week of campaigning in Michigan, saying the state’s highest-in-the-nation unemployment rate of 9% would give him at least “a fighting chance.”

Buchanan planned to all but ignore a parallel primary in Illinois in order to focus sharp attacks on Bush and to focus his “America first” message on a depressed auto state.

Even so, the hints of conciliation were a new element in a Republican race that has been marked by confrontation.

Having earlier vowed to transform the California primary into a blood bath of Civil War proportions, Buchanan left little doubt Wednesday that he was at least considering a plan to make the fight more like a training exercise.

And, although both campaigns were expected to draw new battle lines in Michigan, Buchanan’s comments suggested that he was coming to regard the rest of the primary season less as a contest than as a forum.

“The battle is not simply about delegates,” Buchanan, who is trailing Bush in that category, 560 to 46, insisted before attending a fund-raiser here. “It is about the direction of the country and the future of the Republican Party.”

Angela (Bay) Buchanan, the candidate’s sister and chief strategist, said Buchanan now intends to wait until after the Michigan primary before considering whether it is time to abate his attacks on Bush.

“He wants to consider all the options open,” she said.

The campaign manager said Buchanan had become more combative later in the day at least in part as a response to criticism from Republicans, including House and Senate leaders who urged that he abandon his race.

Among those said to have most irked Buchanan was Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, who suggested that the commentator-turned-candidate would be permitted entry to the party’s convention only if he carried his own press pass.

“Why don’t they just kick us out of there then?” Buchanan said. “Why don’t they take their little closed party and tell (Buchanan supporters) that you really don’t belong in a party convention?”

Buchanan also lashed out anew at California Gov. Pete Wilson, saying the governor’s new criticisms of him were a mark of “semi-hysteria” and had simply reinforced his determination to “do battle out there.”

With the Michigan primary now emerging as a crucial showdown between Bush and Buchanan, advisers to both campaigns said they expected tensions between them to be heightened further in the next week.

Each campaign was expected to begin broadcasting television advertisements beginning today, with the Bush campaign understood to have prepared a commercial reminding the state’s auto workers that Buchanan owns a Mercedes.

And, although Bush campaign officials said they were confident of winning another victory, Republican National Committee Chairman Richard N. Bond quietly traveled to the state Wednesday morning to urge state legislators to rally behind Bush.

Buchanan vowed in a campaign stop in Lansing to “take the country clubbers and move them out” of the Republican Party in order to turn it into “a party of working-class and middle-class Americans.”

A measure of his resignation could nevertheless be heard in Buchanan’s message here.

With Bush now considered likely to lock up the nomination sometime in the next six weeks, Buchanan said the President’s lead would be “very, very tough to overcome.”

He was even more frank speaking to law students in a Lansing auditorium, thanking them for welcoming “a fellow who got his butt kicked in eight primaries yesterday.”

Acknowledging that his position had become problematic, he said that “a vote for Pat Buchanan in Michigan next Tuesday is a vote to continue the national debate.”