Buchanan's victory rocks Republicans

Pat Buchanan's narrow victory in New Hampshire has thrown the contest for the Republican presidential nomination into complete turmoil, delighting only Democrats and plunging the party into an ideological civil war not seen since the heyday of Barry Goldwater three decades ago.

Far from performing its traditional job of clearing out the field, the first primary of the season has generated only confusion. Mr Buchanan's conservative "America First" populism carried the day here - but only because the opposition was so fragmented. Few believe he can win the nomination, let alone the general election, against President Bill Clinton.

Senator Bob Dole has been weakened but Lamar Alexander, Mr Dole's most dangerous rival for the moderate mantle, has still to show he is a winner. Far from giving up, the fourth- and fifth-place finishers, the publisher Steve Forbes and Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, vowed yesterday to continue the fight through the packed schedule of primaries ahead that promises to be a political bloodbath.

With all the votes counted, Mr Buchanan had 27 per cent, Mr Dole 26 per cent and Mr Alexander 23 per cent, far ahead of Mr Forbes with 12 per cent and Mr Lugar, who managed just 5 per cent. Not since President Gerald Ford edged out Ronald Reagan in 1976 by just 1 per cent has the New Hampshire primary produced so tight a finish - and never has the outlook been as murky.

At the centre of the Republicans' woes is Mr Dole, who for all his prestige, money, organisation and big-name endorsements was rejected by three out of four New Hampshire voters. For the moment he remains the favourite for the nomination but another stumble could be fatal, convincing a hitherto loyal party establishment that it is backing the wrong horse.

Just one more win, Mr Buchanan predicted yesterday, "and the Dole campaign will implode". Jubilant and revelling in his role as political spoiler, the conservative commentator urged supporters "not to wait for orders but mount up and ride to the sound of the guns". All barrels will be blazing in Arizona on Tuesday and South Carolina the following Saturday, the first Southern primary, which is shaping up as a vital test for the three top- tier candidates.

Behind the Buchanan braggadocio lies a hard truth - that for all his appeal to social conservatives and workers worried for their jobs, exit polls showed New Hampshire Republicans, by nearly two to one, believe he cannot beat Mr Clinton. Indeed, the bitterest struggle ahead will be between Mr Dole and Mr Alexander, the former Tennessee governor, to be the anti-Buchanan standard bearer. But both have problems.

Mr Dole's lumbering, lack-lustre campaign here suggests he may not have the stamina to survive. The obvious alternative is Mr Alexander, who yesterday called himself the "long-term winner" and urged Mr Dole to quit. He too, however, has major weaknesses. Not only must he win a primary soon to prove his credibility. Even more important, he is short of the organisation and money essential to compete in the 26 primaries crammed into the next month alone. By his own estimate, Mr Alexander must raise $3m (pounds 2m) in the next three weeks to stay a viable candidate.

Virtually brushing off the existence of Mr Alexander, Mr Dole depicted the contest as a race between himself and Mr Buchanan, "between the mainstream and the extreme, between freedom and intolerance, between hope and fear". He dismissed his setback, after 1980 and 1988 the third time he has failed to win here, as "a little bump in the road. Now I know why they call New Hampshire the Granite State - it's so hard to crack." But the struggle ahead was "deadly serious business ... a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party".

That battle horrifies the Republican high command, which believes that if Mr Buchanan is nominated, he will be the disaster for their party that George McGovern was for the Democrats in 1972, when he crashed to defeat against Richard Nixon. The Clinton camp is euphoric. Without a challenger here, the President scooped up 91 per cent of the Democratic primary vote as Christopher Dodd, the party chairman, gloated over the "march of folly" and "death-wish" of the Republicans.

Precisely these fears are leading some party strategists to reckon with the previously unthinkable: a pitched battle which nobody wins and a brokered Convention in San Diego, where a compromise nominee emerges. That scenario, though, was doubted by one Republican grandee, the former vice-president Dan Quayle, who noted that for all the fuss, Mr Buchanan won fewer votes here than the 35 per cent he took against George Bush in 1992.

News Analysis, page 17