POLITICS : Poll Finds Gramm Withering in Arizona : As West’s first primary nears, he’s running well behind Forbes, who’s in a virtual tie with Dole.

For months, Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas has sought to make Arizona’s Feb. 27 Republican primary the political equivalent of the upcoming Super Bowl at Sun Devil Stadium here: A face-off between the two top contenders for the presidential nomination.

But a statewide poll to be released today not only casts doubt on Gramm’s chances of upending Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, the GOP front-runner, in the Arizona vote, it suggests that publishing magnate Steve Forbes may relegate the Texan to the bench in the West’s first major contest of the 1996 presidential bowl.

The sampling of Arizona Republicans found that among those who have either decided or are leaning toward a candidate, Forbes and Dole are virtually tied, 19% to 18%. Gramm ran a distant third, with 5%, followed by conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan, who had 4%. Roughly half of those polled remain undecided.

The survey, conducted by Arizona State University for public television station KAET, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, according to poll director Bruce Merrill.

Even as his rivals sought to discount the poll’s relevance, Forbes’ showing provided further evidence that the large sums of his personal fortune he has committed to his campaign--as well as his image as a political outsider--have made him a force in the GOP race. And the poll results are particularly bad news for Gramm in a state widely viewed as simpatico to him in style and substance and in which he has enjoyed unparalleled support from the Republican establishment.

No one here doubts that Forbes’ poll figures are clearly linked to another number: The more than $1 million he has spent on TV ads in the state. Similar sprees have sparked strong poll rankings in Iowa, with caucuses on Feb. 12, and in New Hampshire, with the nation’s first primary on Feb. 20.

“Forbes has bought his way into the race,” says Gramm senior strategist Charlie Black.

In Arizona, he adds, Forbes is “doing well in the polls because he’s had a monopoly on TV.” That will change, Black argues, when Gramm gears up his statewide media campaign.

But Merrill thinks Forbes’ big-bucks TV bet could pay huge dividends, given the state’s new role as the West’s first primary site.

“He’s going to be a serious player the day after the election if he wins,” Merrill says. “An upset in Arizona is worth $10 million in [national] media coverage.”

And as Gramm well knows, that coverage would come just a few days before South Carolina’s March 2 primary, the “gateway” to delegate-rich contests in the South and Midwest.

“A lot of people would like to think it’s over after Iowa,” says Arizona Republican Gov. Fife Symington. “That’s just not the case. The old paradigm was Iowa and New Hampshire. But the world has changed.”

Symington worked hard to land a place on the primary calendar that would give Arizona more clout. He makes no bones that part of his motivation was to aid his own candidate of choice: Phil Gramm.

Regardless of what happens to Gramm, though, Symington’s efforts to give his state more political clout are likely to pay off.

Dole, Gramm and Forbes have already set up campaign headquarters in Phoenix, with the requisite phone banks and pushpin-riddled precinct maps. Now, while steam-huffing volunteers in New Hampshire and Iowa jab campaign signs into snowbanks, tanned Arizona activists plant their advertisements beside cactuses, in xeriscaped front yards.

Symington grins just thinking about the national media’s juxtaposition of such Frost Belt vs. Sun Belt images--and the rush of new residents such coverage may portend.

And, says Symington, since his state is already home to so many folks who moved here from elsewhere, it’s a better barometer of the nation’s political mood than those states with a more deeply rooted populace.

But while Symington contends that the supposedly bellwether voters of Arizona will support Gramm’s social and fiscal conservatism, Merrill says his research suggests otherwise.

Arizona’s dominant mood, Merrill says, is “tremendous alienation.”

“People don’t think the system works any more,” he says, and he suspects that’s why Forbes--who doesn’t carry the inside-the-Beltway baggage of a Dole or Gramm--is gaining ground here. “My gut reaction is that he will do well--he could conceivably win.”

“The big potential loser,” Merrill adds, “is Phil Gramm. . . . If he loses to Dole or to Forbes [in Arizona], I think that’s pretty damn close to the beginning of the end.”

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Gramm’s national campaign manager, says such speculation overlooks the Texan’s “rock-solid” appeal within the state’s GOP and the ability of his political organization to get voters to the polls.

“I’m absolutely, totally convinced Steve Forbes will not do well here, or elsewhere, once people begin to focus on the candidates,” McCain says. And that, he adds, is unlikely to happen until mid-February, as Arizona’s other big head-butting contest, the Super Bowl on Jan. 28, recedes from memory.