The New Plan

MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE: A day after his presidential hopes were set back in New Hampshire once again, Bob Dole set about the work of salvaging his campaign by depicting the election as a contest between himself and Pat Buchanan. "This now is a race between the mainstream and the extreme," the Dole said. "It is a race between hope and fear. It's about freedom and it's about intolerance, which I will not tolerate." While Dole on the stump takes Buchanan to task, National Political correspondent Michael Duffy says that Lamar Alexander is the real target. "It's important now to pay attention to what Dole does, not what he says. Dole's strategy is to attack Buchanan in public, and attack Alexander in his ads. Buchanan's base is small enough that it will take care of itself. It's Alexander that Dole is really worried about. He has to take Alexander out in the next 10 to 12 days, and he'll try to do it through the airwaves." Buchanan, playing the GOP leadership versus the people angle for all it is worth, said that the Republican leadership would unite to try to deny him the nomination. "I think they will rally around Bob Dole and I think they'll make a terrible mistake," he said. "They'll all start calling me names. You can hear them right now. The fax machines and the phones are buzzing in Washington, D.C." Meanwhile, Alexander continued to press the case that he was the only acceptable alternative to "a weakened Senator Dole" and an overly divisive Buchanan. But with third place finishes in both Iowa and New Hampshire, Alexander acknowledged, "I've got to start winning soon."