Dole Comes Out on Winning End of Bitter Fight for Foster Nomination : Politics: Senate leader uses position to his advantage. Despite loss, President also appears to gain some points.

By ROBERT SHOGAN

June 24, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES POLITICAL WRITER

WASHINGTON —

By the time it reached its climax this week, the bitter controversy over the nomination of Dr. Henry W. Foster Jr. as surgeon general had more to do with the practice of politics than the practice of medicine. And there were plenty of political points to gain and lose for partisans in both parties.

As the battle ended Thursday when his Senate supporters for the second consecutive day fell three votes short of forcing a vote on Foster’s confirmation, by common agreement the big net gainer was Bob Dole, the Senate majority leader. Dole, the front-runner in the 1996 Republican presidential race, once again demonstrated he also is the master of the Senate.

From the time he launched his presidential candidacy this spring, it was clear Dole’s greatest asset--as well as his greatest burden--was his cherished position as the GOP Senate leader. Holding that post gave him power and prominence, but it raised the question of whether Dole could handle his responsibilities on Capitol Hill without interfering with his candidacy.

The fight over Foster provided the severest test yet of that, and Dole passed with flying colors.

By agreeing to give Foster’s backers two now-or-never shots at invoking cloture to break the threatened filibuster on his nomination--which he correctly calculated they lacked the 60 votes to pull off--Dole earned the respect of social conservative activists who play a major role in the GOP presidential race and aroused the envy of his political rivals.

“So far so good,” said Charles Black, senior adviser to the presidential campaign of GOP Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas. “He’s run a good campaign so far.”

“I thought it was pretty slick,” said Charles Jones, a political analyst at the Brookings Institution. “The ability to recognize an opportunity and mobilize the resources to carry it off is the sort of thing we define as leadership.”

On the other side of the political fence, the results were mixed for President Clinton. He was faulted for once again failing to adequately prepare and scrutinize a nominee in advance. Indeed, the confusion over the number of abortions Foster had performed recalled similar controversies about the thoroughness of the background checks of Zoe Baird, Clinton’s first choice for attorney general, C. Lani Guinier, his initial selection as assistant attorney general for civil rights, and others.

But Clinton also wound up getting some credit. His willingness to stick by Foster until the final tally showed a firm resolve that critics have often found him lacking. More specifically, the President’s support for a nominee who had come under fierce attack from abortion foes helped strengthen his own ties to the other side in that continuing debate, support that his strategists are counting on heavily to boost his reelection chances.

Ann Lewis, an official with Planned Parenthood in Washington and a longtime Democratic strategist, claimed that the Senate vote against Foster would “ultimately turn out to be an expensive political victory” for the GOP because it would remind women “that their right to choose is not secure.”

But for the time being, most of the attention in the wake of the Foster fight is focused on the Republican camp and how the outcome affects the constant competition between Dole and Gramm for conservative backing.

Gramm backers claimed that their man would get extra credit from conservatives because of his early opposition to Foster and vow to filibuster against the nomination. “In terms of folks who follow this kind of issue closely, they know that Gramm has been there from the beginning,” said Black.

“I believe that if four months ago I had not stood up and said I would filibuster this nomination, Dr. Foster would be at the tailors today being fitted for [the] uniform” of U.S. surgeon general, Gramm said after the vote.

But Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition, the most politically potent organization of religious conservatives, said he thought there was credit enough to go around. “I think Bob Dole is a winner because he presided over a process that put an end to a nomination that we think was divisive,” Reed said. “ I think Phil Gramm is a winner because he indicated that he would filibuster and that helped change the dynamics of the process.”

That verdict is undoubtedly satisfying for Dole and frustrating for Gramm. “If Dole hadn’t had the votes to defeat cloture and Gramm had been leading a filibuster, [Gramm] would have been the hero of the day for conservatives,” said David Keene, a Dole adviser and chairman of the American Conservative Union. “This way, [Dole] kept Gramm from becoming a champion of the cultural right and of accusing Dole of screwing up” the fight against Foster.

None of this was achieved without the intense calculation typical of Dole’s performance in the Senate. After Foster made a favorable impression in testimony before the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee and won the committee’s endorsement, Dole agreed to meet with him and then arranged for this week’s faceoffs.

Some conservatives grumbled about Dole permitting the cloture votes and running the risk that a confirmation vote--which Foster was expected to win--would make it to the floor.

But Gary Bauer, head of the Family Research Council, an influential conservative group, disagreed. “I really thought it was right to force the votes and make the senators earn a living,” he said. “Sen. Dole was very adept at handling this.”

While Dole’s backers had plenty to cheer about, they also realized that as long as he maintains his Senate post, his candidacy will face more risks. Referring to the Foster votes, Keene said: “If you have to do this every week, you lose a lot of fingernails.”