CAMPAIGN ’96 : Dole Gets Gramm Backing in Bid for Conservative Vote

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole on Sunday won a coveted prize in the scramble by GOP presidential candidates for primary-day standing: the endorsement of Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, who withdrew from the race last week.

Gramm’s endorsement was aimed to deliver critical support from conservative voters to Dole before Tuesday’s primary and to play on GOP fears that rival Patrick J. Buchanan’s campaign threatens to divide the party.

“I’m for Bob Dole because he’s the candidate who brings together the economic conservatives and social conservatives” within the GOP, said Gramm, smiling and seeming gracious as he stood with his former rival at a press conference. “He’s the candidate who can lead us to victory in November.”

Gramm’s conciliatory appearance did little to brighten the rancorous mood still hanging over the GOP race as it huffs and wheezes toward Tuesday’s primary. Polls show the race too close to call between Dole and Buchanan with former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander slightly behind.

Buchanan attempted to trump the Gramm endorsement by producing what he said were 18 former Gramm organizers from New Hampshire and Massachusetts who had come over to his campaign.

Later, at a raucous midday rally at a Nashua hotel, Buchanan basked in the success that his platform of trade protectionism and anti-big-business rhetoric has gained among fearful and economically disaffected voters.

“They are in a terrible panic in Washington, D.C.,” Buchanan said of the impact of his candidacy on the Washington establishment. “They hear the shouts of the peasants from over the hill.”

But he spent much of the day trying to deflect intensifying criticism over his policies and his associates.

The latter include Larry Pratt, head of the group Gun Owners of America, which opposes gun control, and who has addressed meetings organized and attended by white supremacists.

Pratt has taken a leave of absence as a co-chairman of the Buchanan campaign; he has said he abhors racism and was unaware of the role of the supremacist groups in meetings he addressed.

Buchanan, appearing Sunday on ABC-TV’s “This Week With David Brinkley,” insisted that the attack on Pratt is a proxy for an assault on Buchanan’s own candidacy.

“He’s a devout Christian who happens to be very strong in favor of gun ownership, and he’s standing with Pat Buchanan,” he said. “That’s why the dogs are on him.”

He acknowledged, however, that Pratt made a mistake in not leaving a meeting at which one participant embarked on an anti-Semitic tirade. “Obviously . . . he should have left there,” he said. “I would have walked out.”

Asked about his positions on issues, Buchanan also said parents “have a right to insist that godless evolution not be taught to their children or their children not be indoctrinated in it.”

Gramm, for his part, delivered another shot at Buchanan, linking Buchanan supporters to a racist slur that he said contributed to Buchanan’s upset victory over him in Louisiana’s Feb. 6 caucuses.

Recent news reports have revealed that some Buchanan supporters passed out leaflets criticizing Gramm for divorcing his “white” wife to marry an “Asiatic.” Gramm’s second wife, Wendy Lee Gramm, is a U.S.-born citizen of Korean descent.

“In the party of Bob Dole and Phil Gramm, there’s no room for racism,” Gramm said to loud cheers in the Dole for President headquarters in downtown Manchester.

Other candidates also tried Sunday to plant their flags among segments of the electorate where their standing might be questionable.

Alexander, in an appearance at a suburban Manchester bait-and-tackle shop, proclaimed his devotion to the environment and the great outdoors.

He also cited his solidarity with supporters of the Second Amendment--the right “to keep and bear arms” that is so ardently embraced by gun advocates.

The Alexander event was held across the street from a gun shop whose marquee bore Buchanan’s slogan: “Go Pat Go!”

Alexander stated that as president he would move to repeal the ban on assault weapons enacted last year. “In the past [it] hasn’t worked,” he said. “The right kind of gun control is strong families, good neighborhoods and severe penalties for anyone who uses a gun in the commission of a crime.”

During a half-hour television advertisement, magazine publisher Steve Forbes promoted his proposals for a flat tax and for privatizing part of Social Security. Earlier in the day, he turned his efforts to combating opposition from anti-abortion groups who distrust his position on the issue.

“Ask Forbes if he’s pro-life or pro-choice and he dodges,” read an ad published in local newspapers last week by the National Right-to-Life Committee.

At a public meeting Sunday afternoon arranged by campaign officials with eight social and religious conservatives at a Nashua hotel, Forbes said he does not support a constitutional amendment banning abortion, arguing that until the American public reaches a consensus on the matter, such an amendment would be divisive.

But he did say he believes that life begins at the moment of conception, a tenet of the anti-abortion movement.