GOP Candidates Vie for Wilson Backers in State : Politics: Dole, Gramm and other presidential contenders campaign via telephone at party convention just days after governor ends his bid.

Sensing renewed opportunity in the largest electoral state, a clutch of GOP presidential candidates vied Sunday for the substantial bloc of voters left in the lurch three days ago when Gov. Pete Wilson shut down his troubled and bankrupt campaign.

Wilson’s decision Friday to withdraw from the presidential race could leave the state’s winner-take-all March 26 primary wide open--particularly if a candidate other than front-runner Bob Dole, the Kansas senator, can consolidate Wilson’s supporters.

That possibility led Dole, former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, Texas Sen. Phil Gramm and former State Department official Alan Keyes to tout their campaigns and blast their opponents before about 2,000 party activists gathered here for the final day of the semiannual state GOP convention.

Keyes appeared at the convention, while the others were piped in by telephone. And not coincidentally, all sought to assume the mantle not of Wilson but of the man whose shadow still looms largest to California Republicans: Ronald Reagan.

Dole said he had talked to Wilson after the withdrawal announcement and had offered to help the governor pay down his debt. The debt has been estimated at about $1 million, although federal matching funds due Wilson may erase most if not all of that amount.

“One thing about Pete Wilson--he’ll be out there fighting for the Republican nominee,” Dole said. “That’s what this election is all about: beating Bill Clinton.”

Dole argued that he is best suited to that task. He told the delegates that he would cut the size of government, reform welfare and reassert the nation’s role in the international community--as, he said pointedly, Reagan had done when he took over from Democrat Jimmy Carter.

“We need to reconnect this government of ours with the values of the American people,” Dole said.

In recent polls, Dole held a 2-1 advantage over Wilson in hypothetical primary matchups for the state’s 193 GOP delegates, 16% of those needed for the nomination.

With the other candidates running well behind them in the polls, it came as no surprise Sunday that they took none-too-subtle shots at Dole.

Gramm called himself a “foot soldier” in the Reagan revolution and contended that naysayers who call him too conservative to win the nomination said the same thing about the former President.

“I don’t believe we’re going to change America by cutting deals with Democrats in Washington, D.C.,” he said, in a clear jab at Senate Majority Leader Dole’s negotiating. “And I will cut no deals for America’s future.”

Alexander also indirectly criticized Dole, saying that the 800-page GOP welfare reform bill backed by Dole “ought to be about 10 pages long.”

“They ought to send . . . all the dollars back to the states and let us make the decisions,” Alexander said.

Alexander equated Reagan’s battle against the “evil empire” of the Soviet Union with his effort to rid America of an “arrogant empire” in Washington.

Keyes exhorted the crowd with his trademark rhetorical flourishes, railing against declines in family life and opposing abortion.

“We’re going bankrupt because we’re allowing our families to fall apart, generating expensive problems we can’t afford,” said Keyes, a State Department official during the Reagan Administration. “If we’re going to solve our fiscal problems, we’d better solve our moral problems.”

Unlike all of the other candidates, Keyes also lashed out against Colin Powell, the former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who is considering a presidential run. He took particular umbrage at Powell’s backing of abortion rights.

“Good leaders are all well and good,” said Keyes, who like Powell is black. “But you put a good face on bad policy, you put all that sterling leadership ability in the service of leading this country down the road to hell and we’ll just get there faster.”

Apart from the presidential interlude, the convention was heavy with celebration of the party’s recent victories and light on the infighting that can mark such state gatherings--just as party Chairman John S. Herrington wished.

While Wilson’s actions dominated discussions, attention also was paid to the upcoming California campaigns. Dole won perhaps the biggest applause of the day when he vowed that his first step, after winning the presidency, would be to “eliminate” Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer in 1998.

During the weekend, Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren also publicized his plan to run for governor in 1998, at one point donning sunglasses and singing along with an Elvis impersonator, if only passably.

One man who may give Lungren competition, former Senate candidate Mike Huffington, also was omnipresent at the convention, along with his wife, Arianna.

In keeping with Herrington’s attempt to quell disputes, conventioneers Sunday guaranteed that there will be one less opportunity for brawling at their next convention by changing the rules and adopting their platform now rather than in February, when it was due for consideration.

The move had the effect of canceling what could have been a raucous debate over the party’s anti-abortion plank during a presidential campaign--in fact, just six weeks before the state’s March 26 Republican primary.

Before the platform was adopted, Herrington said he wanted to pass it Sunday to avoid a “very bloody” party split later.

“There is no reason for this party to tear itself apart right before the presidential election,” he said.

By reaffirming a platform containing the anti-abortion plank, however, the party turned its back on Wilson’s request that it be stripped from the party’s guiding principles.

“As we seek to build on the historic gains our party achieved in the 1994 election, we must continue to emphasize the issues that united us,” said Wilson, who generally favors abortion rights.

“If we allow our party to be divided by a single issue, instead of uniting behind the issues on which the vast majority of Republicans agree, it would be a terrible mistake.”

The convention also expressed its continuing distaste for Orange County Assemblywoman Doris Allen by endorsing, on a virtually unanimous voice vote, an effort to recall her from office.

Allen angered Republicans by entering into a deal with Democrats that resulted in her election as Assembly Speaker. Faced with the recall, she resigned the office last month, but that did not still the rancor of Republican activists here.

Her fellow Orange County assemblywoman, Marilyn Brewer, encouraged support for the recall by blunting Allen’s assertion that she was targeted for defeat because she is a woman.

“It is not a gender issue. It’s a Republican issue,” Brewer said.