The Sudden Shining of a Dim Primary

As Iowans caucused Monday night, Assemblyman Brooks Firestone sat in his Sacramento apartment watching the returns on television. “I thought, ‘Whoops,’ ” he says. Firestone only recently had endorsed Steve Forbes and now the magazine mogul was finishing a disappointing fourth.

“I fell for it like everyone else,” concedes the Santa Barbara vintner, referring to the Forbes hype and the expectation that he would run stronger. “But I’m not discouraged. Everybody was piling on him. In New Hampshire, the attacks will be more divided.”

In London, wealthy investor Sam Bamieh of San Mateo was monitoring the caucuses on a hotel TV. A national finance co-chairman for Lamar Alexander, Bamieh said to himself: “This is the moment we’ve been waiting for.” The fund-raiser cut short his business trip by nine days to return home and take advantage of Alexander’s unexpectedly strong third-place showing.

“Right now a lot of people will want to contribute,” he says. “This is very exciting.”

State Sen. Richard Mountjoy of Arcadia, the California chairman for Patrick J. Buchanan, on Tuesday stepped up his phone calls to fans of Ross Perot. He reminded them of Buchanan’s impressive runner-up finish. “They’re on fire for this guy,” asserts Mountjoy. “We’re on a fast track to contact as many as we can before Feb. 26.”

That’s the deadline for registering to vote in the March 26 California primary--and thus the deadline for members of Perot’s new Reform Party to switch to the GOP so they can cast a ballot in the Republican presidential contest.

Gov. Pete Wilson is “general chairman” of Sen. Bob Dole’s campaign and--like other Dole backers--he watched nervously as the septuagenarian front-runner eked out a narrow victory. Then Wilson got on the phone to supporters of vanquished Sen. Phil Gramm, urging them now to endorse Dole.

Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle, for one, turned down the governor. He’d already backed one loser; best to be just a neutral spectator for awhile.

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A distant spectator is all California can be for another few weeks as the candidates fight it out in 30 other states, some of them pipsqueak. But Iowa’s results left many political pros thinking that the long odds against California’s primary counting for much suddenly have gotten shorter.

And--as illustrated by the likes of Wilson for Dole, Mountjoy for Buchanan and Bamieh for Alexander--the local pols are hustling to get ready, just in case.

Dole may not be able to wrap up the nomination early, as had been the conventional wisdom. Many Republican voters still are looking for a Washington outsider; roughly 6 in 10 Iowans chose a non-Beltway candidate.

Buchanan can run on little money with an army of enthusiastic volunteers. The articulate commentator’s appeal to social conservatives and economic populists will keep him in the race, even if he is considered too divisive to be nominated.

If Alexander can survive New Hampshire with a respectful finish--say, another third--he’ll be viewed as a credible alternative to Dole. The former Tennessee governor then can raise money to compete in the South on March 12. He’ll be appealing to the same ideological wing as Dole but be younger and fresher.

Forbes is in a similar position, but untested, more centrist--and rich enough to keep running on his own money for as long and wherever he wants.

So Alexander and Forbes siphon votes from Dole and prevent the veteran Senate leader from quashing Buchanan. That’s one scenario that gets the race to California.

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The consensus is that last month the odds were 100 to 1 against California’s primary being meaningful. Now they’re 10 to 1.

One veteran pol demurs, however. Republican consultant Sal Russo--who is neutral in the race--contends it’s now even less likely that California’s primary will be significant. Forbes is the best financed of Dole’s rivals, Russo notes, but he faltered in Iowa and may not recoup. Gramm, whose appeal should have been broader than Buchanan’s, self-destructed.

Alexander, says Russo, “neither has a compelling message nor the dollars--and Buchanan can’t beat Dole.”

But another neutral GOP strategist, Ken Khachigian, says, “Dole’s got to get the party’s partisan juices flowing. He’s got to say, ‘I want Bill Clinton. I’m going to take him down.’ ”

Alexander’s “very smooth,” Khachigian adds. “ ‘ABC--Alexander Beats Clinton’--is clever. ‘Let the future begin’ is a great line. He’s positioning himself as the alternative to Dole.”

Clearly, this isn’t settled. The odds still are Californians won’t settle it. But on Monday it became more conceivable they could.