Powell Debate Stirs Bitter Feud Among Conservatives : Politics: General’s potential candidacy and moderate views at issue. Critics outnumber his supporters on right.

The prospect of a Colin L. Powell bid for the Republican presidential nomination has set off a bitter war of words among conservative activists, exposing divisions about the quality of the GOP presidential field, the party’s commitment to the anti-abortion cause and the health of the Republican revolution in Congress.

The escalating debate over Powell crackles with personal rivalry and struggle for influence within the conservative movement. But the dispute also embodies larger choices facing the GOP and the conservatives as the 1996 campaign approaches and points toward the fireworks looming ahead if Powell, who has described himself as a moderate, actually joins a GOP presidential race. Powell has said he would announce a decision in November.

The feud involves some of the most prominent figures in the conservative movement that captured power in Washington in last year’s elections.

Leading social conservatives Paul M. Weyrich and James C. Dobson are fuming at former Education Secretary William J. Bennett--who many cultural conservatives once hoped would run for President--for indicating he might support Powell. Dobson, a prominent radio personality and president of the group Focus on the Family, has accused Ralph E. Reed, the executive director of the rival Christian Coalition, of virtually abandoning the anti-abortion cause by not denouncing Powell more forcefully. The Weekly Standard, a new conservative magazine, is promoting the Powell boomlet, while its more established competitor, the National Review, is already leveling its guns against the former general.

“Powell has become the crucible in which your conservative manhood gets tested,” says David Tell, the opinion editor at the Standard.

Rippling just beneath the signs of enthusiasm on the right for Powell are doubts that GOP front-runner Sen. Bob Dole can unseat President Clinton next year--and that any of the other nine announced GOP contenders can swipe the nomination from Dole.

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“This does signal an unhappiness with Dole as front-runner,” acknowledges Grover Norquist, a leading conservative strategist critical of Powell. “And also with any of the other guys as candidates who could jump up and beat Dole.”

At the same time, the debate over Powell has rapidly become the arena for debating a much more fundamental issue: What is the best way to enlarge the historic breakthrough Republicans made in the 1994 election? On one side of the divide are those who argue for accelerating the ideological revolution against government that the congressional election set into action. On the other side are those raising warning flags that the party may be pressing beyond the country’s tolerance for rapid change.

Conservatives attracted to Powell generally believe that Republicans must broaden their base of support to win the White House in 1996 or to consolidate a stable era of conservative political dominance.

“1994 was a big breakthrough, a possible watershed for conservatives,” says Bill Kristol, a conservative strategist and publisher of the Weekly Standard. “But there are lots of moderates and independents out there who voted Republican in 1994, who are well-disposed toward the Republican agenda, but need to be reassured. . . . Powell offers that possibility.”

The price of a Powell presidency might be to “slow down . . . and take off some hard edges” from the GOP drive against government, Kristol acknowledges.

Conservatives resistant to Powell take the opposite view, arguing that the greatest risk to the party would come in alienating its base support by turning back toward the center, as it did the last time it nominated a general--Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952. “Powell’s people shouldn’t be under any illusions,” says Norquist. “The party is not in trouble. This is not 1952. We don’t need a savior.”

At its annual dinner in Washington Tuesday night, the board of the American Conservative Union echoed that sentiment. “Powell is no doubt a fine man and was an able general who served his nation well, but his views thus far expressed put him outside the mainstream of the party,” the statement declared.

So far, critics outnumber supporters on the right for Powell. The conservatives encouraging Powell have all been intellectuals, writers, and politicians--including Bennett, Kristol and former Cabinet Secretary Jack Kemp.

Though none of these figures have formally endorsed Powell, all have signaled they might do so if he stressed a socially conservative message of individual responsibility and self-discipline that included efforts to discourage, if not ban, abortion. During a recent appearance on the “CBS Morning News,” Powell nodded in their direction, indicating opposition to federal funding for abortion even as he reaffirmed his belief that abortion should remain legally available.

Already arrayed against a Powell candidacy are several key figures with more direct ties to grass-roots conservative activists, including Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, which coordinates some 800 local anti-tax organizations around the country; Dobson; and his ally, Gary L. Bauer, president of the Family Research Council.

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Reed, whose nearly 2-million member Christian Coalition is a potential key to the GOP nomination process, has also sharpened his criticism of Powell. “Although it is not our policy to endorse candidates,” Reed says, “there is no question that Colin Powell’s views on a wide range of issues . . . run counter to the vast majority of pro-family, conservative Republican primary voters.”

Much of the argument surrounds abortion. Many social conservatives, led by Dobson and Bauer, argue that nominating a presidential candidate such as Powell, who supports abortion rights, would be tantamount to abandoning the anti-abortion cause. Those willing to downplay efforts to ban abortion “would . . . sacrifice millions” of unborn infants, Dobson wrote earlier this month in a searing five-page letter to Reed that he also sent to Bennett.

For his part, Bennett argues that Powell could do more good for the anti-abortion cause than a candidate with more ardent rhetoric. Conservatives agitating for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion are holding onto a “chimera” that has no “chance of seeing the legislative light of day,” Bennett wrote in a reply to Dobson first published in the Wall Street Journal.

But the dispute over Powell also reflects the anti-Establishment, populist stance of at least some elements of the conservative movement.

In a letter to Bennett earlier this week, Weyrich painted Powell as “the ultimate insider” and a creature of the Washington Establishment.

“If you liked George Bush, you will love Colin Powell. Like Bush, he stands for very little and believes in very little, except that he would enjoy sitting in the big chair,” wrote Weyrich. “The ongoing conservative revolution in this country is a revolution against the Colin Powells of this world.”