Campaign ’96 / CONSULTANTS : Gramm Hopes That the Light at End of the Tunnel Is Black

On the stump, GOP presidential hopeful Phil Gramm likes to talk about the “bright line of distinction” he wants to draw between Republicans and Democrats, between himself and President Clinton.

For that bright line, Gramm often sees Black.

That’s Charles Black, an old pal and political comrade who helped propel Ronald Reagan and George Bush into the White House and Gramm himself into the Senate, representing Texas. Now, the seasoned operative is trying to vault Gramm into the presidency, a task that is daunting under any circumstances and even more difficult in the last few days.

With the loss of this week’s caucuses in Louisiana--which were engineered expressly to showcase Gramm’s supposed strength in the South--Black has watched Gramm’s campaign increasingly deteriorate into a longshot bid. That has been especially disappointing for Black because he worked out the carefully scripted game plan that Gramm has been following in his quest for the GOP nomination.

It is a comparatively rare setback for the 48-year-old Black, who has enjoyed extraordinary success as a political consultant and a founding partner of one of Washington’s most influential lobbying firms--Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly. But if panic has set in, the tall, trim, unruffled native of North Carolina isn’t about to show it.

While acknowledging that he had underestimated the turnout of religious conservatives who voted for conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan in Louisiana, Blacks insists that “you’re not finished after one state.”

He said that “the next mission is to finish in the top three in Iowa,” whose influential caucuses take place Monday.

Polls show that goal is far from a sure thing. But Black has helped beat the odds before, starting with his first big campaign.

At 25, he joined Jesse Helms’ initial Senate bid in North Carolina in 1972. At the race’s start, “everybody knew he was too conservative, he’d never run for office, and couldn’t win,” Black said. “But it was a good conservative cause, so I went down and worked on his campaign for the last six months. And lo and behold, we did win.”

Now, with five presidential elections under his belt--three of them successful--Black is hoping to work the same magic for Gramm.

In Gramm’s favor is a ground organization in Iowa that observers rank as second only to Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole’s. Among the forces against him is the overwhelming financial advantage of publishing magnate Steve Forbes, who has spent millions of dollars portraying both Gramm and Dole as “Washington insiders” in a slew of negative ads.

But Black, despite his courtly Southern demeanor, knows a thing or two about hardball campaigning.

Remember Bush’s notorious Willie Horton television ads in 1988? Black was a senior advisor to the Bush campaign that year and in 1992. How about the late Lee Atwater, for years the GOP’s attack dog? He was Black’s business partner.

“He’s very folksy, but he’s tough,” an associate once said of Black. “Charlie will pat you on the back one moment, stab you in the back the next.”

Not so, says friend and admirer John Buckley. “Charlie would never stab you in the back. You would be gutted from the front. You just wouldn’t know it until you’re dead.”

“I probably learned as much working against Charlie as working for anybody else,” said Democratic strategist James Carville, who went up against Black in a 1984 Texas Senate race.

“I tell people I went into that race a boy and came out as close to a man as I’ll ever get. . . . They stayed tough; they stayed on message.”