Lifted by Louisiana Win, Buchanan Makes Hay in Iowa

With polls indicating that his victory in Louisiana is boosting his prospects elsewhere, Patrick J. Buchanan hammered away Thursday at his hard-line themes of economic nationalism--hoping to repeat in the prairies his upset along the bayous.

“What we need is a president of the United States who’s gonna tell the Europeans, ‘Listen fellas, you’re going to play fair or we’re going to play rough,’ ” Buchanan declared in tiny Creston, in western Iowa, where his touring Winnebago--dubbed the “Go-Pat-Go-Express”--paused for a press conference.

“And that’s what we’re going to do to open up foreign markets to American products,” he said.

Buchanan urged Democrats and independents to show up at the caucuses to vote for him--taking advantage of Iowa rules that allow people to vote in the caucuses if they register Republican at the door.

While Buchanan felt ebullient enough to declare himself the “temporary front-runner,” Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, who by most accounts remains the leader at least here, evidently felt secure enough about his prospects to spend the day in New Hampshire, where his chances are currently more questionable.

In a series of appearances there, Dole fielded questions about his finances and those of his wife, Elizabeth Hanford Dole, and tried to turn questions about his family’s taxes into an opening to attack his rival, magazine publisher Steve Forbes.

Asked by a reporter if his use of tax shelters raised a “negative perception,” Dole replied: “I think the negative perception is of those who don’t release their tax returns”--something Forbes has refused to do.

With Dole in New Hampshire and Forbes taking a day off from the trail, the other candidates scrambled across this state, each doing his best to try to establish an identity for himself that might allow him to break out of the pack.

So far, however, the latest poll here shows little signs of that happening. The new polling data, assembled for a group of Iowa television stations, did hearten Buchanan, showing his support moving into double figures here for the first time. The overall impression, however, could not have been cheering for the GOP. The results indicated that after months of campaigning, none of the party’s contenders, not even Dole, who has long been familiar here, has made much of an impression on Republican voters in this state.

Dole led the way in the new poll, but with only 20% of the vote--a figure perilously close to half the 37% he received here in his 1988 quest for the nomination. Forbes was second with 14%, followed by Buchanan with 12%, former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander with 9%, Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, the man Buchanan drubbed in Louisiana, with 8%, Alan Keyes 6% and Indiana Sen. Richard G. Lugar 2%. The poll, by Personal Marketing Research Inc. of Davenport, Iowa, surveyed 507 likely caucus attendees Monday through Wednesday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 points. A second Iowa poll, conducted for the CBS affiliate in Des Moines, showed a similar order but indicated a closer race between Forbes and Dole for the top position.

Two new polls in New Hampshire, which holds its primary on Feb. 20, also showed Buchanan moving up, although they disagreed on the relative standing of the candidates with one poll having Forbes out front and the other showing Dole in the lead.

Here in Iowa, which holds its caucus balloting on Monday, all the candidates say they have a chance to do well here because polls show a substantial number of potential voters--about a quarter of the likely electorate--still undecided. The pollsters who conducted the latest survey, however, believe that many of those voters “have in fact chosen a candidate but are unwilling to acknowledge a choice when polled.” One reason for this, they speculated, was the negative perception of an increasingly nasty campaign.

Despite that potential voter unease, the personal jousting continued unabated on the trail. Alexander, for example, who has tried to establish an identity as the “Mr. Nice Guy” of the field, drew a contrast between himself and Forbes in vividly personal terms.

“These are mud boots,” he said at a breakfast of the West Des Moines Optimist Clubs--referring to his chosen nickname for Forbes, “Malcolm the Mudslinger.”

“This is what I’m going to wear through the rest of the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire,” he said, adding that “if Malcolm Forbes Sr. could see how Malcolm Forbes Jr. is spending his money he might have put some restrictions in the will.”

For his part, Gramm continued to try to recover from his embarrassing setback at Buchanan’s hands in Louisiana by stressing the social themes he believes are crucial to earn him votes in Iowa’s caucuses.

Abortion and crime were the Texas senator’s chief topics in appearances at small-town rallies and before a handful of law enforcement officials throughout northern and central portions of the state. In a get-tough speech before a dozen officers of the Cedar Rapids Police Department--members of the media outnumbered the audience 2 to 1--Gramm said that as president he would stiffen penalties for gun-wielding criminals and press for the legalization of prison labor to boost the economy.

Later, traveling in his “Kitchen Table Express” bus, Gramm bore the indignity of appearing in Buchanan County to address about 30 people in the 5,000-person county seat, Independence. Gramm blasted the federal government, saying that for 40 years Washington had undermined the family by encouraging mothers to become dependent, driving fathers from households and rewarding births of children out of wedlock.

Times staff writers Henry Chu and Nancy Hill-Holtzman in Iowa and Bob Sipchen in New Hampshire contributed to this story.