DOLE LEADS GOP CAMPAIGN, BUT PARTY REMAINS VOLATILE.

Byline: Dick Polman Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

With stunning swiftness, the Republican horse race is virtually over. But Bob Dole has only rounded the first bend in the track.

Now he must unify a fractious GOP, at a time when activists are increasingly heedless of threats and blandishments from the political establishment. Many believe that Dole will need all his fabled skills as a negotiator to tame the passions that have been unleashed, to broaden his appeal beyond the Republican loyalists, and to select a vice presidential candidate who can add ballast to the ticket.

Many question whether the skills of a Senate majority leader, and the perspective of a Washington insider, are well-suited to this challenge. Republican analyst Kevin Phillips said, "In a nutshell, the chance of Bob Dole reconstituting the old party coalition is basically nil."

With the splintering of that coalition comes a loss of common vision, something that Dole must address. It won't be easy. Start with the abortion issue. That one says it all.

The Pat Buchanan wing opposes abortions - no exceptions. It won't abide any changes in the GOP plank that calls for a constitutional ban. Buchanan has warned Dole, "If you think you're going to take that plank out of there . . . you're going to have to come over me and my people." He warns that if nominee Dole were to drop that plank or nominate a running mate who backs abortion rights, Buchanan voters would bolt the party.

But millions of moderate Republicans call themselves pro-choice. They want that plank removed. When they were rebuffed in 1992, many voted for President Clinton.

It is an unruly party, comprising subgroups that have little in common with one another and often little in common with Dole. But Dole would need them all - as well as independents and perhaps some conservative Democrats - in an autumn showdown with Clinton. Many Republicans argue that Dole's primary victories are deceptive, that his newfound mastery of the delegate count will do little to quell the restiveness in the party ranks.

"The big question now is, what exactly has he won?" says a well-connected Republican who is backing Dole because Colin Powell isn't available. "If he wins the nomination of a party that's splintered, then it's a Pyrrhic victory. Can he bring together factions that seem worlds apart?"

Tom Pauken, the Texas party chairman, said: "He especially needs to pick a vice president who can unite the economic and social conservatives. A professional like (former South Carolina Gov.) Carroll Campbell, or (Michigan Gov.) John Engler - people who won't make big mistakes on the trail. I'd rather see Colin Powell as secretary of state, where he can prove his abilities as a new Republican."

Jeffrey Bell, a conservative veteran of Republican presidential campaigns, said: "This is a very fragile situation. (Dole's) got to stop everyone from bolting to a third party - including leaders who might conceivably be interested in doing that - because you make Clinton more beatable if you can keep it a two-way race."

Dole's handling of the abortion issue, and his choice of a running mate, may determine whether he has appeal for swing voters. But first he must make peace inside the GOP. He must please, or appease, a Buchanan wing that wants to reduce the U.S. role in world affairs and slash imports. He must satisfy the Steve Forbes wing, which, while it tolerates abortion and supports free trade as Dole does, fervently seeks a flat tax. Yet Dole is wary of this tax.

Then there is the vaunted Republican Congress and its "Contract With America." During early primaries, nobody really addressed the provisions, although the contract had been ballyhooed by the newly invigorated GOP as its bible in 1995. The priority of Republican lawmakers was to balance the budget, and Dole still talks about it. But it rarely surfaced during the primary debates.

Nor does Forbes talk much about it; in fact, economic analysts say his flat tax would widen the deficit by perhaps $100 billion. Buchanan does not talk about the budget at all; instead, he stresses divisive social issues that were left out of the contract - issues like immigration - as well as middle-class wage stagnation. There is nothing in the contract about that, either.

Dole would be helped politically - and Republican voters might be less confused - if Buchanan and Forbes were somehow persuaded to quit the race. "But the problem," said Jack Pitney, former research director of the Republican National Committee, "is that these are two guys over whom Dole has no leverage. The days of strict party discipline are over."

POLITICAL UPDATE

Developments Saturday on the presidential campaign trail:

The Candidates:

Pat Buchanan: Campaigning in delegate-rich Texas, Buchanan accused Bob Dole of being a rudderless leader. "Where are we going, Bob? Where are you going to take us if you win, Bob?" Buchanan challenged at a fairgrounds rally in Fairfield. "The Bible tells us where there is no vision, the people perish." In an interview with the Associated Press, the commentator said he was not certain he would back Dole in the fall, derisively referring to the likely GOP presidential nominee as a hollow, duplicitous candidate who has no ideas and had sold out the middle class. "What does Bob Dole stand for that we all ought to get behind? The answer is: nothing."

Bob Dole: Hopscotching from Oklahoma to Mississippi to Texas, Dole said "I smell victory in the air" heading into Super Tuesday's primaries that award 362 delegates in seven states. Displaying his military past, he posed in Tulsa, Okla., before a World War II vintage B-25 bomber, the type flown in 1944-45 in Italy where he was wounded. He said he was better qualified to send U.S. troops to war, if necessary, than President Clinton.

Steve Forbes: Campaigning in Miami, Forbes resisted calls from former Vice President Dan Quayle and others that he drop out of the race. Quayle said the longer Forbes stays in, the more harm he will do to the flat-tax issue he holds so dear. Forbes replied, "It's not his decision to make, and I'm taking my message to the voters. If this campaign was simply about personalities, he'd have a point. But this campaign is about issues."

News of Note:

A new book on Whitewater says that James and Susan McDougal tried more than once to cut Bill Clinton free of his ties to an embarrassing Arkansas land deal gone sour, but Hillary Rodham Clinton refused each time. The book, "Blood Sport: The President and His Adversaries," by James B. Stewart, exposes no "smoking gun" in the Whitewater affair, but attempts to make sense of a series of arcane and confusing issues that have been reported in the press. Excerpts will appear in Time magazine's March 18 issue.

CAPTION(S):

PHOTO[ordinal indicator, masculine]CHART

Photo Republican presidential candidate Sen. Bob Dole speaks to supporters in a Tulsa, Okla., airplane hangar at a Saturday rally. Box POLITICAL UPDATE (see text) Associated Press