WASHINGTON INSIGHT

LONE STAR LOCK: Texas Gov. George W. Bush has a strategy for attacking President Clinton’s huge lead over Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) in California: Exploit Dole’s own enormous lead in Texas by locking up the state’s 32 electoral votes early in the campaign and using the time--and Texas fund-raising money--to pursue Clinton in the Golden State. With Clinton jumping to a huge lead in California, state Republicans are loudly worrying about how much their own election prospects will suffer if Dole yields the state’s 54 electoral votes without a fight. Bush is only too familiar with that issue. His father, President George Bush, trailed so badly in California in 1992 that he surrendered the state to Clinton by not mounting a vigorous campaign. The solution this year, says Gov. Bush, is for Dole to become strong enough in Texas to forgo campaigning there and instead try to chip away at Clinton’s 21-point lead in California. “My job as one of the leaders of this state is not to say [to Dole], ‘you have to come here for the sake of coming here,’ ” the governor said at a Dole campaign stop. “Other people say, ‘Well, you raised money here and you’ve got to come back and spend time.’ We will only say he needs to come down here if he needs, in fact, to win the state.”

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SHAMEFUL COMMENTS: Rep. Jay C. Kim (R-Diamond Bar), the only Korean American member of Congress, is not exactly winning rave reviews in North Korea these days. North Korea’s government-run wire service, the Korea Central News Agency, recently let loose a diatribe against Kim, calling him “foolish” and a “South Korean puppet.” At a recent congressional hearing, Kim argued that the United States should hold up on food aid to North Korea until the isolated Pyongyang regime agrees to begin talking to South Korea. Other conservative congressmen and foreign-policy experts have said the same thing. But, in a story headlined, “Ignorance of Political Charlatan Revealed,” the North Koreans singled out Kim, using language about as subtle as kimchi. “It is a shame of the U.S. Congress to have such a political idiot in the House [International Relations] Committee,” thundered the news agency.

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STAYING OVER: Although Clinton is adamant about his intention of withdrawing U.S. troops from Bosnia before the end of this year, U.S. allies are already beating the drum for a longer stay to give civilian reconstruction a chance to take hold. A stock question for Americans at embassy gatherings around Washington is: “Will the United States really pull out even if the job is not completed?” Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister who is in charge of civilian aspects of the Bosnia peace agreement, says political and economic problems will undermine the success of the NATO-led military force if it is withdrawn too soon. “In political terms, and also economic terms . . . there is no exit strategy,” Bildt said during a visit to Washington.

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RETURN TO SENDER: Even as Dole wrestles with Clinton for MTV-generation votes, the 70-something challenger is apparently willing to forfeit one group of voters to the baby boom incumbent: the Elvis bloc. Dole’s chance to move in on Clinton’s “President Elvis” territory came last week during a campaign stop in Memphis, Tenn. An executive with Elvis Presley Enterprises offered Dole a shiny Elvis jacket, a stitched image of the gates to the King’s Graceland mansion adorning the back. Dole’s look said it’s now or never, but he declined to put it on, saying only: “Thanks, Elvis.”