Forbes Deals Blow to Dole, Wins in Delaware

WASHINGTON —  Publishing magnate Steve Forbes won tiny Delaware’s Republican presidential primary Saturday, tightening the squeeze on the beleaguered candidacy of Bob Dole, who finished second.

Complete returns showed Forbes with 33% of the vote while Dole, who just Tuesday lost the New Hampshire primary to Patrick J. Buchanan, trailed with 27%. He was followed by Buchanan with 19% and Lamar Alexander with 13%.

Forbes clearly benefited from being the only major candidate among those still running to personally campaign in Delaware. The other candidates stayed away in deference to New Hampshire GOP leaders, who vigorously objected that the Delaware primary was less than a week after the Granite State’s first-in-the-nation contest.

But for both Forbes and those who ignored it, the Delaware vote should help shape the rest of the Republican campaign.

Forbes’ victory in the winner-take-all contest not only gave him all 12 of Delaware’s convention delegates, it provided a much-needed psychological boost to his self-financed candidacy. Forbes had thrust himself into prominence with a massive ad campaign promoting his flat-tax proposal and attacking his rivals, only to stall during the past month amid charges that his negative tactics had poisoned the campaign environment.

In the view of some analysts, without a Delaware victory he could not have remained a force in the race.

“You’re going to see in the days ahead this Delaware primary does count,” Forbes said Saturday night while campaigning in Arizona, where he predicted he would do “very well’ in Tuesday’s primary.

His newly named campaign manager, former Sen. Malcolm Wallop of Wyoming, claimed that with the Delaware win, Forbes had shattered “the glass ceiling” over his candidacy after his fourth-place finishes in the Feb. 12 Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire.

“Our biggest problem has been for quite some time the voting public loved the message but was not persuaded Steve Forbes could win anything,” Wallop said. “But that’s gone for good.”

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Overall, Buchanan leads in the GOP delegate count with 27, followed by Forbes (17), Dole (16) and Alexander (9). Needed for the nomination are 996 delegates.

Dole, whose grip on the nomination was once seen as almost unshakable, tried Saturday night to make the best of running second in Delaware.

“We never had a chance to campaign there,” the Senate Republican leader said as he stumped in Arizona. “I think if we place second there, we did pretty well.”

But Dole’s decision not to contest Delaware and make it easier for Forbes to win there could turn out to be a fateful blunder. With his personal fortune, Forbes alone among the remaining GOP candidates has the financial resources to confront Dole on even terms, or better, in the contests ahead.

This takes on extra significance because an analysis of Federal Election Commission reports last week showed that Dole seemed likely to reach the $37-million spending limit on primary spending within the next two or three weeks. Forbes, because his campaign is self-financed and does not accept federal matching funds, can spend as much as his checkbook allows.

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This looms as a particular problem for Dole in New York’s March 7 primary, where 102 of the 996 delegates needed for GOP nomination are at stake and where Forbes and Dole are the only candidates on the ballot in all 31 congressional districts.

Dole has the backing of New York’s GOP leadership, and his aides expected to take the vast majority of the delegates there. But Forbes and Buchanan, who is on the ballot in some of the state’s districts, together could transform Dole’s dream of a huge victory into a nightmare.

Buchanan, who also was campaigning in Arizona on Saturday, termed his showing in Delaware “astounding since we haven’t visited” there.

And despite finishing third, he could be counted as a big winner. The revival of Forbes’ candidacy means that the publisher, along with Alexander, can continue to draw moderate votes away from Dole, keeping him vulnerable to Buchanan and his fervent supporters on the GOP’s right wing.

Indeed, results of exit poll interviews of Delaware voters showed Forbes and Dole splitting the support of those who described themselves as moderates or somewhat conservative, while Buchanan got most of the voters who called themselves very conservative. He also ran strongly among the roughly 255 voters who described themselves as members of the religious right.

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Of primary voters who backed independent presidential candidate Ross Perot in 1992 when he got about 20% of the Delaware vote, by far the biggest single bloc went to Forbes.

Dole spent Saturday in Arizona hoping to alleviate resentment at him for spurning a primary debate in the state last week.

Buchanan, who has been stumping relentlessly in Arizona since last week, did his part to keep the issue alive. Posing on a soaring ridgeline in northern Arizona and decked in Western wear, Buchanan derided Dole as “Beltway Bob” and said his rival “knows every restaurant on K Street [in downtown Washington] but he hasn’t been in your state since October.”

He also made a caustic crack about the 72-year-old Dole’s age, suggesting the Kansas senator avoided the debate because it “was past his bedtime.”

Scott Reed, Dole’s campaign manager, admitted to reporters that he had “heard some snide comments” from Dole’s own supporters in Arizona about the candidate’s absence from the debate. Reed added:”I don’t believe our not appearing will hurt us in Arizona.”

But Dole woke up Saturday morning to a blistering editorial in the Arizona Republic, the state’s largest newspaper, calling the senate leader’s campaign “faltering” in Arizona. “Dole’s falling like a rock,” the editorial said.

At stake are 39 delegates in a winner-take-all contest that represents the largest bloc in the campaign’s early rounds.

As Buchanan has campaigned in Arizona, he has been more the combative antagonist of old and less the economic populist of recent weeks--a calculated move in a state where rock-ribbed conservatives have long been a potent political force.

He continued his tough talk Saturday. Before a gathering of property rights activists in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe, Buchanan mocked Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as Bruce Babbitt, a former Arizona governor who serves as Interior secretary. “We’ll put the Arizona Babbitt on the endangered species list and the Arkansas Clintons--male and female species--too.”

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Alexander, who campaigned in Colorado on Saturday, said in an interview that he intends to support the GOP’s ultimate nominee--even if that turns out to be Buchanan. But Alexander quickly added: “I don’t think Pat will be the nominee. . . . And I intend to lead the fight to reject Buchananism.”

Forbes had targeted Delaware from the beginning, hoping to take advantage of the absence of the other candidates. Initially he aimed for a second-place finish. But Forbes’ weak fourth-place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire made victory here for him almost imperative. After being severely criticized for his barrage of ads attacking other candidates, Forbes’ final efforts in Delaware relied on commercials that boosted his programs for tax reform and health care.

“He has saturated the airways,” said GOP state Chairman Basil Battaglia.

On election eve, Forbes was the only candidate to address a dinner of about 500 GOP leaders and activists in Georgetown, in southern Delaware. “He was a big hit,” said one local official who attended. “In fact, I decided to vote for him myself.”

Dole’s only message at this event came from a phone call piped in by a backer who had previously supported Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, who had campaigned actively here before he dropped out of the race and endorsed Dole earlier this month.

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Still, moderate party leaders rallied around Dole, hoping to slow Buchanan’s surge. Last week, Dole was endorsed by Delaware Republican Sen. William V. Roth Jr. at a news conference. Dole phoned in a message to the event from his campaign plane.

However little Dole did in Delaware, it was more than Buchanan, whose only effort to boost his candidacy came from phone canvassing. But his candidacy was expected to get support in Sussex County, in the southern part of the state--where some residents complain about the recent influx to the area of Central American immigrants--because of his strong opposition to illegal immigration.

Times staff writers Stephen Braun, Edwin Chen and Sam Fulwood III contributed to this story.