Right-wing squabble risks senate seat.

RIGHT-WING SQUABBLE RISKS SENATE SEAT

A CRUCIAL CONTEST IN the Republicans' uphill battle to retain control of the Senate this year will be over the seat of retiring Senator James East of North Carolina. But Republican prospects are being endangered by intraparty squabbles.

Democrats regarded this seat early on as a promising chink in Republican armor. Then the two strongest potential Democratic candidates, former Governor James Hunt and Duke University President Terry Sanford, both declined to run. (Sanford has since rejoined the race.) That made things look good for the Republicans until an exceptionally bitter fight for the Republican nomination divided not only the North Carolina GOP and North Carolina conservatives, who dominate the party, but conservative activists in Washington as well.

The two Republican contenders are Representative James T. Broyhill, a popular veteran, and David Funderburk, a college professor and former ambassador to Rumania. The Congressional Club, a well-funded and powerful PAC with strong ties to Senator Jesse Helms, not only supports Funderburk; it is trying to turn the contest into an ideological struggle, promoting its candidate as the true conservative and strongly, some would say viciously, attacking Broyhill as a moderate or even liberal Republican. Yet Broyhill, the founder of the modern GOP in North Carolina, whose entry into the House in 1962 made him the first Republican to crack the Solid South, has a conservative voting record and the support of many important conservative leaders and groups.

Broyhill's career rating from the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action is 88 per cent; the National Taxpayers Union gives him a career score of 88 per cent as well, the American Security Council gives him a 96, and the AFL-CIO's political arm, the Committee on Political Education, rates him at only 9 per cent. He also has the support of the Fund for a Conservative Majority, the nation's second largest PAC. In response to criticisms of Broyhill, FCM chairman Robert Heckman argues: "It is important that we nominate not just conservatives but strong conservatives with proven legislative experience, candidates who have the best chance of winning.'

Funderburk has no experience in elective politics. That weakness showed when he confounded his own conservative supporters by answering a question on abortion with the remark that "every individual has to draw his own conclusion' and "it's something we shouldn't impose on other people.' Later, after protests from pro-life leaders, he clarified his remarks, assuring them of his pro-life stance.

If Broyhill is clearly the best bet politically, and probably more conservative than the average GOP senator, why the fight? It may be that the Funderburk campaign's prime purpose is to give the Congressional Club a vehicle to reassert its waning influence over the North Carolina GOP. In 1982, congressional candidates backed by the Congressional Club almost invariably were defeated. In 1984, Ronald Reagan took the state with nearly 60 per cent of the vote, and the GOP picked up more House seat there than in any other state except Texas. But Senator Helms, a two-term incumbent and the man most visibly tied to the Congressional Club, lagged behind in his race for months and barely pulled out a narrow victory at the last minute. (Helms has reamined neutral in the Broyhill-Funderburk fight.)

So, as things stand now, the GOP may lose one of the most important 1986 Senate races because of an allconservative faction fight over control of the North Carolina GOP. But these things don't go unnoticed. In the long run, the Congressional Club's attention to its own self-interest may do it more harm than good.