Louisiana to Iowa.

PAT Buchanan's upset victory in the Louisiana caucuses shakes up an already unsettled Republican race. It severely damages the candidacy of Phil Gramm, until now the leading non-outsider conservative in the contest; it allows Mr. Buchanan to assert a claim to conservative pre-eminence for himself and his ideas; it paradoxically smooths the path to the nomination for front-runner Bob Dole; and it ensures a turbulent primary season in the meantime. We congratulate Mr. Buchanan on his success, but the fact is that it threatens to derail the GOP's progress to majority-party status.

The November elections had been shaping up to be a political realignment. But a realignment to what? Even a Republican victory would be undercut if it were achieved under the banner of a presidential candidate who was not a vigorous exponent of real-world conservative ideas. For this reason, NR has argued that conservatives should unite in support of the rightwardmost viable candidate. Ideally, that candidate would set bold economic goals, beyond balancing the budget. He would have a strong commitment to traditional virtues. His foreign policy would prudently but forcefully advance American interests abroad, steering clear of both isolationism and multilateralism. He would defend America's common culture and national identity from a host of solvents. And he would make the case for that agenda with energy, high purpose, and magnanimity.

As with any ideal, nobody hits the mark exactly. But some candidates come closer than others. Lamar Alexander has addressed the issue of national unity, but only rhetorically -- and even that rhetoric ("rising, shining America") lacks bite. He offers himself as a strong candidate in a general election -- yet much of that seeming strength derives from his willingness to duck the hard issues and avoid necessary confrontations. Finally, his conservatism is of such recent vintage as to cast doubt on its durability. He will have to stick with it for a term or two longer to earn wide conservative support.

What chiefly recommends Bob Dole to conservatives is his character: his valiant service to his country in World War II; a grim realism about life's tragedies; a certain Midwestern decency; an often-justified suspicion of big ideas and big projects; and a dry wit. And the Senate majority leader who in 1985 led the charge to cut Social Security COLAs plainly does not lack political courage. If the Right sees Dole not as a moderate Midwestern conservative but as an unreliable trimmer, that is mainly because he was in the minority party for most of his congressional career. His political experience is of cutting deals from a disadvantageous position. That, plus a pedestrian political imagination, explains why he has trouble making his case. But Senator Dole does, of course, have opinions. He is the candidate of the conservative side of the status quo at a time of upheaval and opportunity. Doubtless he would be a capable President, fiscally responsible, prudent in foreign policy, and, in comparison with Bill Clinton, an adult. But would he reform welfare, slim down government, restructure the tax system, and repair America's sense of its own identity to the extent made possible by the post-1994 political world?

Which brings us to the fervent candidates in the race. Pat Buchanan, the gumbo du jour, has been a strong and articulate advocate of vital conservative causes -- the right to life, restraints on immigration, judicial sanity, an end to racial quotas -- that other candidates either ignore or downplay. And all conservatives should feel regard for Buchanan for his years of service in the political trenches. For the last three decades no conservative polemicist has thrown or taken punches with the tenacity and street-smarts of Pat Buchanan. In recent years, however, he has forged an agenda increasingly at variance with that of most conservatives: notably, a foreign policy that would retreat from America's international commitments, and a trade policy that would levy tax increases on American consumers through higher tariffs. If these were marginal amendments to an otherwise Reaganite message, they might be overlooked. But Buchanan appears to be making them the centerpiece of his campaign. And this populism has moved him steadily leftward on other issues -- to the point where he echoes Democratic attacks on GOP Medicare reforms. Buchanan argues this left-populist case with his usual sharp wit. We have no quarrel with him but one: we don't agree with the main planks of his platform.

If Buchanan has, consciously or not, abandoned limited-government conservatism, there is no strong evidence that Steve Forbes ever adopted it. Forbes deserves immense credit for putting tax cuts and economic growth on the campaign agenda. They are an indispensable component of the conservative message -- but not its sum and substance. In the 1980s, they turned out to be compatible with government growth and cultural decay. For these dangers Mr. Forbes has a breezy contempt: given low marginal tax rates, his entrepreneurial America is a utopia secure against all hazards. Yet crime, illegitimacy, broken families, and multicultural dissolution are among the evils now threatening us. Steve Forbes has not yet found the problems, let alone the solutions.

And both Forbes and Buchanan threaten the GOP coalition. While Buchanan would detach free-marketeers from it, Forbes would do the same to social conservatives. For that reason among others (e.g., their never having held elective office), neither man would be likely to defeat Bill Clinton. Worse, they would shake the house that Reagan built.

AMONG all the Republican contenders, Phil Gramm has the most consistent conservative record on economics, social issues, and foreign policy. He opposed statist solutions to the "energy crisis" of the Seventies with the same fervor with which he opposed the Clintons' "health-care crisis" of the Nineties. Gramm is the candidate most likely to keep the GOP firmly anchored in a government-cutting consensus. Lastly and perhaps most importantly, Gramm has demonstrated a keen strategic sense of the structural changes in American politics that must occur as a precondition for a successful conservatism. Hence, for example, his passion for a balanced-budget rule. Often misinterpreted as the product of an accountant's vision, it is for Gramm a political mechanism to tame an overweening government that robs families of their autonomy and subsidizes social depredations.

As the Louisiana result demonstrated, however, Gramm has serious flaws. He is visibly uncomfortable addressing moral issues such as abortion -- a failing highlighted by his 2 to 1 loss to Buchanan among Religious Right voters. He is oddly detached from America's cultural crisis; alone among GOP candidates, he does not endorse an English-language amendment. Gramm took conservative support for granted when he began; his message -- narrowly focused until recently on government spending -- has been weaker than his record; and his campaign hasn't shown much imagination. It is soon or never for him. He must integrate his social and economic conservatism on the stump, take on gut issues like racial quotas, tackle his opponents' weak points (such as Steve Forbes's support for near-open borders), and find a way to express hard truths in uplifting language. After all, Phil Gramm is not without virtues. The same doggedness that has made for inflexibility until now would inform his efforts to enact his agenda once elected. There is no candidate less likely to "grow" in office, to be lured by the press and Washington establishment to abandon his rock-ribbed conservatism. With a wife who is also a committed conservative (Wendy is the perfect counter to Hillary), President Phil Gramm would relentlessly push against the inertial forces of Washington.

And, contrary to the conventional wisdom, he would make the strongest challenger to Bill Clinton in November. He has a proven track record of winning the votes of Reagan Democrats (he used to be one, after all), independents, and blue-collar workers. These are the legs upon which any Republican victory in November will rest. In 1990 Gramm won re-election to his Senate seat with 41 per cent of union voters, 56 per cent of voters making $15,000 to $30,000 a year, 60 per cent of Catholic voters, 50 per cent of Hispanic voters, 26 per cent of black voters, 57 per cent of voters with a high-school education or less. He won his first congressional race after switching parties in a district that had never been represented by a Republican. Indeed, much of the establishment disdain heaped on Gramm is prompted by his rough-edged rhetoric, which is part of his appeal to voters who, in his words, "get their hands dirty." Gramm is a tireless, focused campaigner who is uniquely qualified to demolish Bill Clinton in debate.

He is not perfect; no candidate ever is. But we endorse Phil Gramm because he is the best man in the race.