BUCHANAN'S CHARGE

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PATRICK BUCHANAN WAS ASKED THE other day how much money he had raised so far in his second quest for the Republican presidential nomination. Knowing that Bob Dole and Phil Gramm will each report totals close to $12 million this week, Buchanan replied, "Well, I think we've raised somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 million." Standing near by, his campaign chairman (and kid sister) Bay snapped, "We passed $2 million." Hearing that, the candidate brightened and said, "We passed $2 million? It's $2 million and 37 cents."

Pat Buchanan is the happiest warrior of the 1996 campaign. His poor mouthing last week masked the fact that he has made more of the past six months than any other Republican hopeful besides Dole. While his other rivals have stalled or stumbled, Buchanan has become the favorite of many conservative activists, and is running statistically even with, or ahead of the much better-financed Gramm in several early states-at one-fourth Gramm's cost. There may not be enough of them to win, but Buchanan's supporters, a Dole operative acknowledges, are the "most intense" of any current candidate's following. Explains Buchanan: "We're emerging as the authentic conservative in the race."

What was once a fringe crusade is now a real campaign. In his 1992 march against George Bush, Buchanan was in the race for 10 weeks, contested only a few states and never threatened his rival. He's been on the road full-time for six months, targeted the first eight states in the primary schedule, and holds as many fund raisers each month as he did in the entire 1992 campaign. He is enjoying himself more than when he earned his party's scorn for challenging a sitting President. "Last time I was a vehicle to state George Bush was wrong," he says. "Now I've got a chance to lay out my ideas a full year ahead of time."

Serving up a menu of untrimmed red meat, Buchanan's first goal has been to win over social conservatives who are pivotal in early-primary states. He promises term limits for federal judges, a Smithsonian Institution that respects American values and a no-exceptions ban on abortion. He has warmed up his rhetoric about tax cuts to woo the supply-side supporters of Jack Kemp and attacks Dole and Gramm as government huggers who won't go far enough in cutting the budget.

Beyond that, Buchanan is broadening his message to court voters whose wages have stayed flat or fallen while corporate earnings and executive salaries have soared. He claims both parties are too willing to "bow down to a gold calf" of free trade, sacrificing "American jobs on the altars of transnational corporations." He wants to repeal NAFTA and GATT, end foreign aid within five years, and slap across-the-board tariffs on Japanese and Chinese goods.

It is a nativist, isolationist message aimed at the angry white men who voted for Ross Perot in 1992 and at Reagan Democrats who Buchanan hopes will "cross over" to vote in Republican primaries and caucuses in closely contested states like Iowa, South Carolina and Georgia. Bay Buchanan admits that many of the economic nationalists her brother is courting are pro-choice or libertarian and "disagree with us on social policy." But she believes the shaky coalition will hold because both groups think Buchanan will fight for them.