The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, Buchanan and other political stories as seen by our regional commentators and Mark Shields & Paul Gigot, and two reports from the West, Spencer Michels on a failed housing project in California, Rod Minott on a new kind of night school in the state of Washington. It all follows our summary of the news this Friday. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The Commerce Department reported today the nation's economy grew by 2.1 percent last year. That's the smallest increase in the Gross Domestic Product since 1991.It was blamed on the partial federal government shutdowns that occurred late last year. The GDP measures the nation's economic growth rate. President Clinton spoke about the economy and free trade today in California. He went to a McDonnell-Douglas plant to watch the Air Force take delivery of its 24th C-17 cargo plane. He said he saved the C017 from congressional budget cuts. Mr Clinton told McDonnell-Douglas workers the United States should be pushing for free, tough, and fair trade.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: If you want your country to lead for peace and freedom and prosperity, the answer is neither to be uncritically in favor of free trade, nor to be for pulling up the rug and closing our borders. The answer is to be for trade that is free and fair, so everybody has a fair chance to grow in the global economy. That is what our country should stand for.

MR. LEHRER: Later today, the President will have his first meeting with Prime Minister Hashimoto of Japan. They will discuss trade and reducing the American military presence on the island of Okinawa. The Republican presidential primary in Delaware is tomorrow. Twelve delegates are at stake. Only Steve Forbes is campaigning there, but the other candidates are on the ballot. Most of the other campaigning today was in Arizona and South Dakota, where there are primaries next Tuesday. We'll have more on the Republican Presidential race after the News Summary. In Philadelphia today, a former National Security Agency employee was arrested for selling U.S. secrets to Russia in the 1960's. Robert Lipka allegedly took cash from the KGB in exchange for classifieddocuments. A U.S. attorney provided the details.

MICHAEL STILES, U.S. Attorney: Our complaint charges that Lipka, while in the United States Army during the years 1965 to 1967 and assigned to the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland, conspired with officers of the KGB to transmit national defense information to the Soviet Union. It is charged that Lipka, employing a common espionage technique, i.e., a dead drop, would hide pilfered documents in designated places for later pick-up by the Soviet agency.

MR. LEHRER: A federal prosecutor at the news conference said Lipka had access to the highest secrets and even supplied Moscow with some of the same data the White House received. In Bosnia today, the reunification of Sarajevo officially began, but a Muslim-Croat police team found a ghost town where a Serb suburb had been. Some Serbs refuse to live under the new coalition government, saying they fear reprisals from their former enemies. We have more in this report from Robert Moore of Independent Television News.

ROBERT MOORE, ITN: The police force walked in at dawn, the Bosnian government gaining in peace what they could not achieve in four years of bitter fighting. It was a moment for Sarajevo of enormous importance, the first Serb area to be handed over, the first step to reunifying the city. As the government takes over here, so the Bosnian Serbs are fleeing. This morning, the very poorest, those who could not even afford a lift, simply walked out of their homes and into the blizzard. The suburb of Vogosca now stands abandoned, a ghost town that signals how deep is the hatred and the suspicion. Vogosca is just the first of five Serb suburbs to be handed over. NATO forces are patrolling in increasing numbers, promising security and trying to persuade the Serbs they too have a future in a Bosnian federation.

MR. LEHRER: In Moscow today, Russian President Yeltsin went ahead on his own to suspend economic sanctions imposed on the Bosnian Serbs. At the UN, a U.S. missions spokesman said Russian's action was premature. Yesterday, the commander of the multinational peacekeeping force in Bosnia decided against lifting the sanctions now. Earlier in the day, Yeltsin gave his annual State of the Nation Address. He said he was ready to compromise in order to bring peace to the breakaway Chechnya region, where separatists and military forces have been in conflict for 14 months. Yeltsin also said he would soften the blow of economic and democratic reforms, but Russia would stay on the path toward capitalism. Yeltsin is running for reelection. The vote is in June. From Iraq, there is a report that two defectors who returned home from Jordan this week have been murdered. Iraqi Television said the men were killed in Baghdad by their own relative. The former head of Iraq's secret military program and his brother were married to daughters of President Saddam Hussein, but they defected to Jordan six months ago. They were reportedly pardoned by Saddam on their return. The Iraqi embassy in Jordan also reported that the men had been killed. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to how this tumultuous week of politics looks to our regional commentators and to Shields & Gigot, a failed housing project, and a new wrinkle to night school. FOCUS - CAMPAIGN '96

MR. LEHRER: Presidential politics is first tonight. Elizabeth Farnsworth starts us off.

MS. FARNSWORTH: In the aftermath of his upset victory in the New Hampshire primary, commentator Patrick Buchanan's fiery brand of social and economic conservatism has drawn attack from many quarters and especially from fellow Republicans. At his victory celebration last Tuesday, Buchanan actually predicted what the week ahead would sound like.

PATRICK BUCHANAN, Republican Presidential Candidate: This is not a victory for man again. This is a victory for cause. It is the cause of a brand-new bold conservatism in American politics, conservatism that gives voice to the voiceless, that speaks up for the right to life of the innocent unbor--[applause]--a conservatism, the conservatism that looks out for the men and women of this country whose jobs have been sacrificed on the altars of trade deals done for the benefit of transnational corporations who have no loyalty to our country and no loyalty to anybody. [crowd cheering and applauding] It is a victory, a victory for the good men and women of middle America who cannot understand why there is deafness in Washington and silence about the fact the standard of living our working men and women and middle class have been stagnating while profits have been soaring. They call me names. Somebody tonight called me a socialist. They call me the right. They can't figure out where we are, right, left, New Deal, where is that fellow? All the forces of the old order are going to rally against us. The establishment is coming together. You can hear 'em right now. the fax machines and the phones are buzzing in Washington, D.C. Well, you got to get together. Somebody's got to get out and take on this guy. We've got to have one guy take him on. But I'll tell you what. We don't have time. We need the troops.

GEN. COLIN POWELL, Former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff: [Wednesday] Pat sometimes gives out messages of intolerance which I think are very unfortunate, and I think what he is going to have to do if he wants to remain a viable candidate in the weeks and months ahead is to convince the American people that he is not giving out a message of intolerance.

TOM BROKAW: You're a Republican now. Could you vote for Pat Buchanan for President?

COLIN POWELL: No.

BILL BENNETT, Co-Chairman, Alexander Campaign: [Yesterday] I think Pat is mistake. I think that he's just flat wrong on a lot of issues. I don't care about who he associates with or who he might associate with or who he sent a letter to or who sent him a Valentine's card. I think his views are wrong. I think they are ignorant. I think they are based on a misreading of history.

DAVID KEENE, Chairman, American Conservative Union: [Yesterday] Conservatives are in a quandary, I believe, at this particular point, particularly with regard to the presidential race. We have one candidate, Pat Buchanan, who has an impeccable conservative pedigree but who is articulating policies that are more reminiscent of European than American conservatism, who is challenging many of the economic foundations of the conservative movement and philosophy and who, therefore, is a disquieting figure to many traditional conservatives.

SEN. ROBERT DOLE, Republican Presidential Candidate: This now is a race between the mainstream and the extreme. That's what it's all about. It's a race between hope, which I will talk about, and fear, hope and fear. It's about freedom, and it's about intolerance, which I will not tolerate. It has no place in our party. It's about maintaining the Republican Congress. That's what it's about. I want to be the majority party for the right reasons, because we have the vision, because we have the ideas, and because we look to the future, not to the past. This is not the 1930's. We're getting ready for a whole new century, and this is a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party.

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Republican Presidential Candidate: [Last Night] Pat, I'm not going to let you hijack our party. I'm going to debate with you on the ideas. Buchananism is wrong for our country. It's wrong for our party. We need a rising, shining America, not a divided, pessimistic America as we go into the next century.

PATRICK BUCHANAN, Republican Presidential Candidate: [Last Night] Lamar did make a very good and frankly, Bob Dole made a very good point when he said this is a battle and a struggle of the heart and soul of our party, and indeed it is. You know, Woodrow Wilson said in 1912 that a great political party is truly serving the nation only when it becomes the instrument of some great and good cause. Let me try to outline to you the cause I believe in the post-Cold War era my party should represent, is the cause of what I call the new conservatism of the heart. That is not a conservatism of the board room or the business round table. It is a bold and unapologetic conservatism that speaks up for those who have no voice, that speaks up for the right to life of the innocent unborn in this country--[crowd cheering]--and that speaks up, speaks up for those working men and women in this country betrayed by trade deals, sold out for the benefit of big corporations. We're going to speak up for them, my friends. We need to speak up really as leaders in the Republican Party for those who have no voice. And I want to bring 'em all home to this Republican Party. I'm asking the GOP, please, keep the door open, I'll bring these good people home. Thank you very much.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Now our regional commentators assess Campaign 1996 thus far. They are Lee Cullum of the "Dallas Morning News," William Wong of the "Oakland Tribune," Patrick McGuigan of the "Daily Oklahoman," Mike Barnicle of the "Boston Globe," and Cynthia Tucker of the "Atlanta Constitution." Cynthia, are you seeing this kind of criticism from Republican leaders in Georgia?

CYNTHIA TUCKER, Atlanta Constitution: Oh, yes, absolutely. The mainstream Republicans in Georgia are just as worried as mainstream Republicans are everywhere about Pat Buchanan's meteoric rise in the Republican presidential campaign primary so far. Georgia Sen. Coverdell, who had been a Gramm supporter earlier on, has now announced his support for Bob Dole. I suspect there will be other leading Republicans who will very clearly announce their support for either Dole or Alexander in an effort to slow down the Buchanan movement. But I still suspect that there will be a lot of support for Pat Buchanan among rank and file voters in Georgia. Our primary here is on March 5th. Pat Buchanan got 36 percent of the vote in Georgia in 1992 against George Bush. I suspect he will do well in Georgia again.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Bill Wong, how about in California, do you see a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party?

WILLIAM WONG, Oakland Tribune: Yes, we are, although it's interesting that Gov. Wilson, who is a moderate Republican and a strong supporter of Gov. Dole--of Sen. Dole has been distracted by the, the death penalty case of this Bonnen fellow, as well as spearheading the campaign to get rid of affirmative action, so he has really not come out yet to give an assessment of the New Hampshire results, but I suspect that California mainstream Republicans are quaking in their boots at this moment at the prospect that Pat Buchanan has thrown into the mainstream Republican Party?

MS. FARNSWORTH: And PatMcGuigan, in Oklahoma, do you think Republican leaders are making a big mistake in attacking Pat Buchanan the way they are?

PATRICK McGUIGAN, Daily Oklahoman: I think the nature of the attacks is a mistake, attacking his character, questioning his virtues on matters of race. I think they're unjustified. Having said that, I think it's fair game to criticize Buchanan's views on trade issues.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Excuse me for interrupting, Pat. I just want to ask you, when you say that the attacks are unjustified, do you think it's a risk that this could drive people into Patrick Buchanan's arms?

MR. McGUIGAN: Oh, absolutely. For example, here in Oklahoma, Buchanan performed very well in his long shot candidacy in 1992. I think he got about a quarter of the vote, if I remember right, perhaps as much as 27 percent. In this year, I think by March 12th, when we are part of the Super Tuesday scenario, that the field will still be at least chopped up among three, leaving a very clear scenario for a Buchanan victory with the third of the vote or more. And my point is that in November, make no mistake, no matter who the Republican nominee is, Republicans are going to have to be united. If the nominee is Bob Dole, which I kind of still expect, he's going to need the Buchanan brigades in order to win. And the divisiveness of recent days has not come from Pat Buchanan, other than the edge of his message on substantive issues. The divisiveness is coming from the Dole campaign and the Alexander campaign buying into the national media's spin on the character and nature of Pat Buchanan and his support. I think it's a mistake, I also think it's unfair and doesn't fit the actual man, Pat Buchanan.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Mike Barnicle, what do you think about that?

MIKE BARNICLE, Boston Globe: Well, I think that, you know, to refer to anyone as a leader, Republican or Democrat, merely because they're in office is, is to miss the point. It's as if voters I think around here, and I think probably around the country as well, have one of those V-chips already implanted in their brain, and they're managing to exclude a lot of the stuff that they're hearing from Mr. Buchanan that has been referred to as the extremist stuff in the newspapers and on the editorial pages, and they're honing in on a specific message that they're hearing from him and they're not hearing from him, and they're not hearing it from anyone else. And it's a message, I think, aimed at people between the ages of 40 and 55 years of age who have worked cases for ten, twelve, fifteen years, thinking that they were working there with some sense of economic security, and now they're unsure. I think the seminole event of this decade, when it's written, is going to be the day AT&T, the phone company, a great place to work, that's what we were told, laid off 40,000 people, and their stock went up. Watching Buchanan against this field is a little like watching Gregg Mattox against a AA ball club. I mean, he's in the zone, and he's throwing it right across the plate, and people are seeing it and hearing what they want to hear.

MS. FARNSWORTH: So you're saying, Mike, that it doesn't really matter what the so-called Republican leaders say. They can just be tuned out by people who are, are receptive to Buchanan's message?

MR. BARNICLE: Well, I think if you hear poor Bob Dole, if you heard him up in New Hampshire, you would have to say this fellow has absolutely no conception of what's going on in this country. Lamar Alexander was playing catch up. He was sort of, you know, trying to hear what Buchanan was saying with one ear and sort of filter it out into his own language, but it was too late for him when he caught onto it. But the point is they had to catch onto it. I don't know whether Pat Buchanan does his own grocery shopping or not, but he's heard this language out there, and it's cultural, as well as political, and he's repeating in terms that people understand and applaud.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Lee Cullum, how does it look to you in Texas, an Republican leader sniping at Buchanan?

LEE CULLUM, Dallas Morning News: Well, there's great concern among Republican leaders, and I want to say that Mike Barnicle certainly has a point. I think the fear down here is that the trade economic program would cause a great contraction of the economy, not an expansion of it. It would cost jobs. It would create great suffering. I spoke with a pollster in Houston named Mike Basilese, who does Republican polling, and is not working for any candidate at the moment, and he says that from the figures that he has seen from precincts around the state, if the election were held today, Dole would do very well, indeed. He would get close to a majority, if not a majority, certainly a very solid plurality. Buchanan would be second, with a third of the vote, and Alexander, a somewhat distant third unless he can do very well in South Carolina and unless he can raise some money. Now, Alexander does have some support in Texas. His campaign chairman is Rob Mosbacher, who's the son of the former Secretary of Commerce under Bush. There is some talk that Gov. Bush might come out for Alexander. I heard that view from a staff member in the State Republican Office today. Now, I did talk to somebody in the governor's office, the press office, who's said that he's not going to endorse somebody for a while. He's going to wait to see how things go. Alexander's wife is from Texas. She's from Victoria, Texas. Nonetheless, he remains somewhat unknown here, and the state is still pretty solid for Dole, but he would be wise to take nothing for granted, and that's certainly what Republican leaders are realizing.

MS. FARNSWORTH: And you think it could change in time?

MS. CULLUM: Of course, the vote isn't until March 12th, of course it could.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Lee, do you think that Pat Buchanan's success is a wake-up call for Democrats?

MS. CULLUM: A wake-up call for Democrats. Yes. I think it certainly could be. I would imagine they're taking notice of the issues that he is finding resonate with the people, and certainly there's this issue of this great disconnection between success of the company and the situation of the workers has got to be addressed. I think it needs to be addressed by the companies, themselves. I think it needs to be addressed by the government encouraging the creation of new companies. That's where new opportunity comes from. But these issues do need to be addressed by both parties, no doubt about it.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Mike Barnicle, the primary in your state, in Massachusetts, is less than or just a little more than 10 days away. How do you see it turning out at this point?

MR. BARNICLE: At this point, I would think Sen. Dole would be ahead. If Democrats could vote in the Republican primary, Pat Buchanan would win. His message is, it's got wide acceptance among working class Democrats in this state, and if there were cross-overs he would win, he would beat Bob Dole, despite Gov. Weld having endorsed Sen. Dole. His message that part of it that I've been talking about in terms of people being afraid of what's going to happen, losing hope, losing hope in terms of what they're going to be able to do for their children five and six years down the road, that part of his message is tremendously powerful, and we've had people in Washington, the Speaker of the House, the President of the United States, Senators on both sides of the aisle in the Senate, talking for eight or nine weeks about are we going to use Congressional Budget Office numbers or OMB numbers? It's meaningless to people who live real lives. Buchanan comes along and says you've been working at a place for 11 years, the Edison, the phone company, whatever, they're going to sell your company, you're going to lose your job, you're going to be 51 years old making $18 an hour and you're going to be suddenly looking at maybe making $6 an hour if you're lucky. They don't like you; I'm your guy. And they're saying, hey, Pat, pop 'em.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Bill Wong, how about that in California? Some of the critics in the Republican Party of Buchanan says he sounds like a liberal Democrat. Is that going to resonate among Democrats in California?

MR. WONG: Well, it certainly is. I had a chance to talk to some labor leaders in the Bay area here, and what was ironic about their point of view is that they like part of his message. They like the fact that he is pointing out the economic insecurities and bashing corporate America for downsizing and taking the profits or exporting jobs, but they really hate the messenger, and I think the labor leaders I talked to were basically more angry at the Democratic Party and as I noted on a recent show, that President Clinton's State of the Union Address seemed to really sound more Republican than Democratic and avoided the job insecurity issue which is a very huge issue that Buchanan had been able to tap into, so there is a concern among Californians who are progressive that he's coopting a Democratic message.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Cynthia Tucker, what about Alexander? Do you think that he is going to move up? He's from a state bordering your state.

MS. TUCKER: Alexander may a bit, a little bit better known in Georgia, because he's a former governor of Tennessee, than he is in Texas, for example, but the Alexander campaign is already beginning to run out of money, and he's got some primaries he's got to compete in before he gets to Georgia on March 5th, so I'm not sure that he's going to have the financing in place that he needs to compete effectively in Georgia. Pat Buchanan, on the other hand, has a message that is so resounding with so many people that interestingly enough he doesn't need that much money. He does well, despite running a shoestring campaign. I think there's something else noteworthy about Pat Buchanan. It is absolutely true that both mainstream Republicans and mainstream Democrats have failed to take note of the economic anxieties of voters, and Pat Buchanan is capitalizing on that. But it is fascinating to me to watch these mainstream Republicans in such fear of a Pat Buchanan candidacy when, in fact, Pat Buchanan is in large part their creation. They gave him a major platform at the GOP convention in Houston in 1992 in which he gave this really frightening hate- mongering speech about cultural warfare that sent chills up and down my spine, and Republican delegates applauded him heartily. It is also true, while Pat Buchanan is the person who goes after the jugular on attacking immigrants, for example, as contributing to the economic woes of native-born Americans, in fact, many respectable Republicans have been pandering to those fears as well. They've all bashed immigrationto some extent or the other. They have all bashed affirmative action to some extent or the other. And so it, it is interesting to now watch them look around and say, well, where does Pat Buchanan come from? He came out of the heart of the Republican Party.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Patrick McGuigan, do you have anything to say about that?

MR. McGUIGAN: Well, first of all, they didn't give Pat Buchanan a forum in 1992. He earned it by the number of delegates he gained through the fair process of the Republican primaries. The second thing is I want to propose for everyone to contemplate playing off of something Bill pointed out the last time we were together, when he talked about this anxiety in the middle class and among the working people in America, there are two highly trusted groups that I think are going to help decide the outcome of this election for the Republicans. They are small business and farmers. Both of them score unusually high with fellow citizens as being trusted groups of people. The battle for small business where 2/3 of all new jobs are created--in a state like Oklahoma it's actually 90 percent of all new jobs--I think the battle for the hearts and minds of Main Street business people, small independent businesses, is going to be a crucial part of this, as well as how this farm issue plays out here in the West. I want to propose that for everybody to think about because I think Buchanan does have some vulnerabilities in appealing to farmers because of his protectionist ideas, but he resonates with farmers and with small business because of his views on moral issues.

MS. FARNSWORTH: Okay. Thank you all very much.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, Shields & Gigot, a failed housing project, and night school. FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

MR. LEHRER: Now how all of this looks this Friday night to Shields & Gigot, syndicated columnist Mark Shields, "Wall Street Journal" columnist Paul Gigot. First, Paul, what do you think of the Mike Barnicle V-chip theory that there, that the voters, at least the ones he's observed, just tune out of the part of what Pat Buchanan says they don't like and they just listen to what they do like?

PAUL GIGOT, Wall Street Journal: Some people use the V-chip and some don't. I think that there are a lot of Republicans who remember what Pat Buchanan stood for in 1988--in 1992. His views are actually fairly well known. I do think, though, that this campaign, there is no comparison with Pat Buchanan to the last one. He's so much better. I mean, he's running with little money; he's running like Stonewall Jackson against the Union Army. He's running circles around 'em. He's going to, flying out of New Hampshire, flying to Mount Rushmore, standing in front of the Presidents and quoting all four Presidents support my policy. He's running a much better campaign, and those messages that he's hitting are resonating better, and he's more optimistic about 'em in many respects. So in some respects, it's not that people are tuning out the other stuff; it's he's running a better campaign.

MR. LEHRER: What about Cynthia's point, Mark, that he, the Republican establishment, says, hey, where did this guy come from, she says, hey, he came from the Republican Party?

MARK SHIELDS, Washington Post: Well, Cynthia is right. I mean, Pat Buchanan's credentials as a Republican certainly are stronger and longer, or strong and long as most people in the field. He worked for Richard Nixon. He was a loyalist right to the end. He worked for Ronald Reagan, and he's been an ardent polemicist for the party for a long time and the conservative positions within the party. They are making an enormous mistake, the Republican establishment is, in my judgment. They are turning Pat Buchanan into a sympathetic underdog, irrespective of positions. It's Goliath. They're piling on. I mean, suit, after suit, after suit, after suit stands up there and uses adjectives in attacking him, ignorant, stupid. That's known in the business, Jim, as blame the customer. That's telling the voters who voted for him they're dumb. All right. There have been four contests; he's won three and had one second. All right. Lamar Alexander who's a wonderful governor and a splendid candidate, this isn't the Olympics. I mean, a third place doesn't get you a Silver Medal here. I mean, he started telling Bob Dole to get out of the race, and he hasn't even finished better than third. I mean, I honestly think that they're making an enormous mistake. It started with the Huntley--the Brinkley Show last week when Sam Donaldson and George Will, who don't agree on anything, jumped on Pat Buchanan, and Frank Fahrenkopf, Ronald Reagan's Republican national chairman, said he had never seen anybody handle negative attack better in his life than Pat Buchanan, which reinforces Paul's point.

MR. LEHRER: But what about, what about some of the issues that these folks are raising? Mayor Guiliani of New York said that he's raised serious questions about anti-Semitism, anti-Semitic views that Pat Buchanan has, bigotry as it relates to race and all of that, shouldn't that--shouldn't those questions be raised of somebody? is that piling on, Paul, or is that just a legitimate thing to raise?

MR. GIGOT: I think those, that is well known about Pat Buchanan, and I don't think that it really helps Republicans now to--I agree thoroughly with Mark on this point about calling him names and using adjectives and using--you can't beat him with epithets. You can't beat him by using the language of liberals in a Republican primary, the same language liberals use against Bob Dole, extreme.

MR. LEHRER: Extremist.

MR. GIGOT: And all that. You have to go after his arguments. Bob Dole spent in New Hampshire tens of thousands of dollars calling Lamar Alexander a liberal, and it worked somewhat. He ought to call Pat Buchanan a liberal, because despite the point about Republicans having created Pat Buchanan, on economics, he's pretty much gone to the other side of the fence. Buchanan is really doing some things with great skill. He's claiming the mantel of Goldwater and Reagan, and he's running on the economics of Dick Gephardt and David Bonior. And I think that's--

MR. LEHRER: Do you buy that?

MR. GIGOT: Well, it's got him 27 percent. It hasn't won him the nomination. What Republicans have to do is they have to go and some of them are starting to, some of the cooler heads, is to say, look, Pat Buchanan has hit a nerve; his diagnosis is right, but he's selling snake oil as a remedy, he's selling something that isn't going to raise the incomes like he says. In fact, it's going to lead to decline and hurt your incomes.

MR. LEHRER: Now, what about Charles Krauthamer's point, a columnist in the "Washington Post" this morning, said that essentially what Buchanan has done is kill the Republican Revolution because he's out there saying these guys in Washington can't be trusted, and these guys in Washington are not--listening to these guys in Washington won't take of your problems and his point is, hey, hey, it's our guys, the Republicans, Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress, and he's blown the whole deal.

MR. SHIELDS: Pat Buchanan didn't do that. He was the Paul Revere. He announced that it was over. I mean, Phil Gramm ran on the Republican Revolution. Phil Gramm was the distilled essence of the Republican Revolution, and Phil Gramm's back in Texas now, trying to scramble to run for reelection to the Senate. I mean, it was, it was over, Jim. There's no question about it. What Mike Barnicle said, I think, Pat Buchanan stepped into it, Paul says he's identified a problem, there's a problem there, and people are upset but he's got the wrong remedy. Well, what are the other remedies? A balanced budget amendment, that's a remedy for people's flat incomes? A flat tax? I mean, people look at that and say, wait a minute, at least one guy in the whole race that isn't on the Democratic side, on the Republican side, who's talking about the problems that we face, that three out of four American males who did not graduate from college who've seen their lives flattened.

MR. GIGOT: And you can't do it by raising taxes on the border. I mean, that's one problem with Buchanan, but Mark is right in the sense that what's happened in the Republican Party, it's been true for a long time, it's been true really for a number of years, there has been a gap--the growth wing of the party, the Jack Kemp wing, has really not had a candidate in this race. Steve Forbes tried it, and when he came in with a flat tax, offering it frankly as something that would promote growth and spur the economy, a flat tax as a tax cut, the other Republicans chewed him to bits.

MR. LEHRER: They really went after him.

MR. GIGOT: And they used Democratic arguments to do it, giving Buchanan an opening as the only one who was speaking to these concerns. Now, Newt Gingrich issued a memo today, in fact, that said, well, maybe we ought to start thinking about growth, and one of the mistakes the Republicans made, the whole last year, was they only talked about the balanced budget. They never put it in a broader context that said we can help you grow the economy.

MR. LEHRER: Where does Pat Buchanan fit into the Republican Revolution that we've been talking about on this program for the last year?

MR. SHIELDS: The Republican Revolution, Jim, is--is a congressional experience.

MR. LEHRER: You're saying--

MR. SHIELDS: That's right. This is a Presidential election. I mean, both parties, I mean, our parties are sort of these great large vessels and whoever fills them up defines which way they're sailing and who becomes the Presidential nominee. It isn't a congressional agenda. I mean, Newt Gingrich, in fairness to Newt Gingrich, he was the one who attacked and was probably the most devastating in the attack upon Steve Forbes.

MR. GIGOT: I agree with that. I agree with that.

MR. SHIELDS: But what Pat Buchanan is riding is the same anti- establishment, anti-Washington volatility that has shaped and directed American politics of the '90s. It elected Bill Clinton in 1992 and it unelected George Bush. It unelected Bill Clinton's Democrats in 1994, it elected a Republican Congress. It's about to dis-elect a Republican Congress in '96.

MR. LEHRER: But that's my point, which I'm not making very well here. Paul, why is it that when Buchanan makes that statement to a group of Republicans that hey, the guys in Washington can't be trusted, whatever, that they don't say, hey, those are our guys now, why don't they respond that way? I mean, why is that message not gotten over to rank and file Republicans?

MR. GIGOT: Well, one of the interesting exit poll numbers in New Hampshire that wasn't widely publicized was that of the voters in that primary 48 percent said the Republicans in Congress hadn't gone far enough. They hadn't really done much at all to--and certainly they hadn't passed a good deal of their agenda. I mean, it's been stalled. It's been stopped by a President who vetoed these things, and that's the kind of thing--that's the kind of case that Bob Dole in his--

MR. LEHRER: So it may have looked like a revolution here, but it doesn't look like a revolution out there--

MR. GIGOT: It certainly doesn't--

MR. LEHRER: --is what you are saying?

MR. GIGOT: --out on the ground. No, that's absolutely right.

MR. SHIELDS: There's a widening gap, Jim, between the party establishment and the grassroots, there's two on the Democratic side, there's two on the Republican side, it's becoming acutely visible in this campaign. I mean, the enthusiasm, the passion, the zeal in Texas is in the Buchanan campaign. The entire establishment is with Bob Dole, and it's a question, I mean, whether, in fact, they're going to be able to deliver.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Quickly, what kind of marks do you give Sen. Dole on how he's conducted himself since Tuesday and those results? We're sitting here three days later, four days later.

MR. GIGOT: Well, the remark of make an extreme point, that was a mistake, calling him extreme, I thought. I thought it was a mistake to skip the debate.

MR. LEHRER: The one in Arizona last month?

MR. GIGOT: The one in Arizona. Pat Buchanan might win Arizona. I think he's probably the favorite to win in Arizona right now. And that would certainly hurt Bob Dole going into these Southern primaries, particularly because one of the problems, the doubts about Bob Dole that a lot of Republicans have, is can he make the case, and if he shies away from getting into a position where he can make the case, it just feeds those doubts.

MR. LEHRER: And does he have to make the case? Is he stuck with making the case for the revolution, the congressional case, is that--

MR. SHIELDS: No.

MR. LEHRER: No?

MR. SHIELDS: I think what he--what the Pat Buchanan candidacy has given the Dole campaign finally a sense of mission and a sense of vision, I mean, he wants the Republican Party that isn't Pat Buchanan's Republican Party, I think that's what he can do and make the argument against him, and I think that's what he has to do. I think Pat Buchanan made a serious mistake--Paul disagrees with me--by going to South Dakota. It is a photo opportunity, Jim- -

MR. LEHRER: You mean, Mt. Rushmore?

MR. SHIELDS: --that no Presidential candidate can resist, all right. They all want to go to Mt. Rushmore and be seen and when they look at it, people look at it and they say, wait a minute, there's Jefferson, there's Teddy Roosevelt, there's Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, I don't care who it is, I don't care if it's Franklin Roosevelt, he doesn't stack up, but they, they all love to do it, they love to go. Now if he wins the South Dakota primary, I will eat humble pie.

MR. LEHRER: Okay.

MR. GIGOT: If he comes close.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Before we go, Pat Brown, former governor of California, died since we last spoke. What is his legacy? How should we remember him politically?

MR. SHIELDS: Well, as a good and decent man first of all, but when Pat Brown was governor of California not only was it a time of unlimited possibilities in this country, I mean, it was 1958 to 1966, he built the water projects that made California the agricultural giant in the country, he built the public college and university system that made California the model for the rest of the country, built the freeways. It was a time of "can do." When Pat Brown was governor of California, every Monday morning was like a new city of 50,000 people, people were just streaming in--

MR. LEHRER: Coming in there.

MR. SHIELDS: Coming in. I mean, there had to be schools, there had to be roads, there had to be recreation for all of them, and it was, it was a time of unlimited growth, unlimited optimism, and California then is probably the golden, golden era of California.

MR. LEHRER: Symbolized everything in terms of the future.

MR. SHIELDS: No question about it. I mean, the home office of American optimism was in California when Pat Brown was governor.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Anything you want to add?

MR. GIGOT: His slogan in 1962 running against Richard Nixon was "Think big," and in a way, he represented, he was--he presided in California in the heyday of liberal government and possibility, when government was seen as an agent of progress, an agent of creating opportunity. Yet, he also in the course of that, by creating entitlements and by spending so much did create the--the environment for a backlash that Ronald Reagan capitalized on to become governor in 1996--1966--I'm sorry. And his own son, who became governor--

MR. LEHRER: Jerry Brown.

MR. GIGOT: Jerry Brown, instead of saying, think big when he was governor, said this is an era of limits.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Okay. And speaking of limits, we've reached ours tonight. Thank you both very much. FOCUS - MOVING OUT

MR. LEHRER: Now what happens to the tenants when a public housing project fails. Spencer Michels reports from San Francisco.

SPENCER MICHELS: In a little-visited part of San Francisco, hard by the Southern City limits, Geneva Towers rises above Visitation Valley. Built privately in the 60's as housing for airport workers, the developer soon realized he couldn't rent the twin 19-story towers to middle class tenants, so he turned the building into low- income housing and obtained federal mortgage insurance designed for that purpose. Geneva Towers soon became a ghetto for the poor. Nice at first, it deteriorated quickly. Souriya Johnson moved in with her mother 25 years ago.

SOURIYA JOHNSON: Noise, crime, drugs, fighting. Put it this way. When you left in the morning, you, you were gone all day, and you came home and you were in your house and you locked the door, and you didn't want to have anything to do with whatever was going on outside your door.

MR. MICHELS: Inside, elevators often didn't work, causing 20- minute waits. The plumbing was dreadful. Heat was spotty, electricity sometimes shutdown.

MAN: You're going to have a new room to take care of temporarily.

MR. MICHELS: Johnson has her own two children today, and they were among the last residents to move out of Geneva Towers. HUD, The Department of Housing & Urban Development, which insured the mortgage, took over the building in 1991 because of the poor conditions, the first time the Department had ever done that. Major improvements were made, but now the government is preparing to tear it down. Local HUD Director Art Agnos is a former San Francisco Mayor.

ART AGNOS, HUD Director, San Francisco: Over the last three and a half years or so, we've had to spend an average of $600,000 a month to make this safe and secure, not to mention over $6 million just to bring it up to a habitable standard. We simply can't afford to do that for this building and, therefore, we made the tough decision, in cooperation with the people who live here, to tear it down and rebuild the kinds of units that really would be appropriate for the people who live here, as well as the neighborhood.

MR. MICHELS: HUD and the city decided to replace both buildings with low-rise housing, provided a non-profit developer can find a way to finance it. More homes for low-income tenants are planned across the street from the Towers. Former residents will have first crack at them.

SPOKESPERSON: This fence is a new fence. It was put in by HUD after they took up. Prior to the fence going in, there was a fair amount of drug dealing from this building to the building several blocks away.

MR. MICHELS: Ted Dienstfrey directs the mayor's Housing Office, which is working with HUD to relocate Geneva Towers' tenants.

TED DIENSTFREY, San Francisco Housing Director: This housing does not fit into the neighborhood as it currently stands and has caused all types of problems. It has isolated the residents in the buildings.

MR. MICHELS: But no one is sure how long it will take to build new housing or if federal money and other incentives to build low- cost housing will still be available. So the top priority has been moving two to three thousand people out . HUD is spending up to $3,000 per resident in relocation, finding new homes and promising to pay most of the rent with federal vouchers.

ART AGNOS: We just got in under the wire with existing funds that are locked away in the bank that can't be taken away by any Congress. We can't do what we saw in the 50's, where neighborhoods were bulldozed by the federal government and people just told to get out.

MR. MICHELS: In fact, the federal government has even paid for taxis for residents and relocation workers as they searched for replacement housing. While a few residents protested the demolition plans as an attack on the black community, most others appear satisfied with what the city and HUD are doing.

SOURIYA JOHNSON: That was a positive move for them to provide the cabs, to provide people whose job eight hours a day is to find you some place to live, some place acceptable where, and some place where you're comfortable.

MR. MICHELS: Why do you need this kind of help?

SOURIYA JOHNSON: Well, everybody needs help sometime or another. You know, you can't play super woman all the time.

MR. MICHELS: Finding a new place was difficult, but with the help of relocation workers, the family finally found a pleasant townhouse to rent within sight of the doomed Geneva Towers. The demolition plans mean a loss of jobs for 103 maintenance workers in a community where jobs are scarce. Many of them lived at Geneva Towers, including 25-year-old Stephanie Burch, who was making $15 an hour. Until she finds another job, she will require more subsidy from HUD to pay rent at a new rental home she has found with a San Francisco Bay view. Stephanie grew up in the Towers with her mother, Linda, and her sisters and brother. She now has three children of her own. At Geneva Towers, she didn't have to worry about paying for garbage collection, water, or electricity, so she has mixed emotions about leaving, although she likes her new home.

STEPHANIE BURCH: I like the place. I like the view. I like my neighbors. I was spoiled at Geneva Towers, and now it's like teaching me better. Geneva Towers, we were in our own little world. Now we're, we're hitting the real world.

MR. MICHELS: Even with a HUD voucher, called a Section 8, to pay most of her rent, Stephanie Burch had a hard time finding a place.

STEPHANIE BURCH: A lot of people do not want to rent to people on Section 8.They, they say that they tear their places up. They don't like people with Section 8. They don't like--they don't want anyone in their house with low income.

MR. MICHELS: Stephanie was happy to find a sympathetic landlord. In her new townhouse, she currently pays $457 of her $1100 a month rent, about normal in high-cost San Francisco.

TED DIENSTFREY: We're an enormously generous society, which is something we should all be pleased about, that we continually try to find ways to assist people who have not been able to yet join the economic mainstream of the society.

MR. MICHELS: Dienstfrey believes the big federal and city effort being made here is an experiment.

TED DIENSTFREY: We're also committed to trying to coordinate the housing with social services and job training, so that--to see whether we're clever enough or imaginative enough to improve the social and economic conditions of the whole neighborhood.

MR. MICHELS: Housing replacement is only one part of the plan. Geneva Towers was a community center, as well as a living space. Children at Geneva Towers heavily attended a recreation room on the premise, with a senior center in an adjacent room. Classes in dance were held on the first floor next to a health center for the residents. The Towers served as a distribution point for free food every month, and in the fenced-in field next to the building, coaches tried to teach sports skills and raise youngsters' self- esteem. With the Towers gone, a nearby housing project, Sunnydale, which is in horrible condition, has what few social services are available in Visitation Valley. Officials admit it is a needy and neglected part of San Francisco. Now, the city has allocated $600,000 to move many of those services to this empty building and add more in an attempt to unite and serve the community that is left.

ANTHONY LINCOLN, San Francisco Housing Official: [talking to children outside] Now, I'm giving you this because you're going to work hard in school, right?

MR. MICHELS: Anthony Lincoln, who grew up poor in Sunnydale, is coordinating those efforts. He sees something positive coming from the demolition.

ANTHONY LINCOLN: What's nice about it coming down is that I think that it's going to bring many different facets of this community together, and, you know, something that actually is a tragedy in terms of coming down, now we're looking at bringing the community together to talk about what's going to come in place of that, and I think that's a positive.

MR. MICHELS: Another goal of the city is to break up the large concentration of very poor people, according to Ted Dienstfrey.

TED DIENSTFREY: If we rebuild housing on this site and on the site across the street, we will not have economic segregation, we will have a mixture of very low-income houses and moderate income households.

MR. MICHELS: But whether all those plans ever come to fruition depends upon financing and that depends upon Congress.

TED DIENSTFREY: The future is not clear. We don't know what Congress wants to do, and we have not really convinced the majority of the voters in this country that we can do the job well.

MR. MICHELS: Geneva Tower residents like Souriya Johnson trust that things will work out.

SOURIYA JOHNSON: This is a growing thing. It's a growing thing for me. It's a growing thing for my children. We've had our rough times, our good times, and our bad times, but this is a good time, and I want it to continue to be a good time.

MR. MICHELS: City and HUD officials are optimistic also that despite the mood in Congress, they will find the money to rebuild and revitalize this neighborhood. FINALLY - NIGHT SCHOOL

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, a new twist on the old idea of night school. Rod Minott of KCTS-Seattle reports.

ROD MINOTT: These high school students in Lacy, Washington, start school when most other classes have ended. New Century is Washington States' only public evening high school, where classes begin at 2:30 PM and end at 8:40 PM. Sixteen-year-old Jessica Stockdale is one of 230 students who have volunteered for the night shift.

JESSICA STOCKDALE, New Century Student: Most of my day school friends are like, well, how can you stay up so late and do all that so late at night? Well, like, how can you be up so early in the morning and do your school work in the morning, that's the point I bring up, is that I just work better at night and--

MR. MINOTT: During the day when most of her friends are at school, she goes to work, a part-time day job as a clerical assistant.

JESSICA STOCKDALE: I mean, right now it's really good experience for me, and it will help me get a job, a better job in the future than just working at a fast food restaurant, because I'll have clerical work, secretary work, on my resume, and that'll look better than a fast food restaurant.

MR. MINOTT: New Century, which shares its space with a normal day school, was started in part because of overcrowding at neighboring schools. Washington ranks third among states with the most crowded classrooms, and projections show it will get much worse. According to the U.S. Department of Education, Western states will see a 40 percent jump in high school enrollment. Gail McBride is new Century's principal. She says the night school has helped alleviate overcrowding since opening its doors six years ago.

GAIL McBRIDE, New Century Principal: At the time, there were two large high schools that were built for approximately 1200 students, and they were housing 1700. That changes things quite a bit, and the halls get very crowded, and the resources are stretched thin. It's a very cost-efficient program. It's used the facility twice, we have no construction costs that go into the millions of dollars over a series of years.

MR. MINOTT: Saving money on schools seems essential at a time when bond issues for education are routinely being defeated. So New Century offers a no-frills education. The only physical education class is night jogging. There are no sports teams and no school band. But some students seem to prefer this environment, according to principal McBride.

GAIL McBRIDE: They want a small school environment, and they want an education. They want a good education. They want to focus on academics. Some come because it's a refuge from the pom-poms, the athletics, the social pressure that those activities put on young people.

MR. MINOTT: In fact, standardized test scores show night school students doing better than their daytime counterparts. New Century math and science teacher Rosalind Phillips sees night school as an essential part of the education wave of the future.

ROSALIND PHILLIPS, New Century Teacher: I think this idea of having schools be open for longer periods of time and using facilities more wisely is one that's going to happen, and whether it's two separate schools like New Century and River Ridge, or whether it's one school with an extended day that goes from 7 in the morning to 9 at night, I think we're going to see that, particularly when we look at the fact that how we finance schools in the state. I think that rather than continuing to build new buildings allthe time, we are going to have to look at some more efficient use of our space.

MR. MINOTT: But not everybody is convinced about night-schooling. In Puyallup, Washington, where three bond issues for a new high school have failed in the last two years, overcrowding has reached a crisis point, according to Stan Cross.

STAN CROSS, Rogers High: Our facilities currently are so overcrowded now we've been just kind of cramming the kids in each year.

MR. MINOTT: As an example, Cross says at Puyallup's Rogers High, 1800 students now squeeze into a building designed for 1400.

STAN CROSS: And you try to put 34 student desks into these small classrooms that are designed for 26, it is wall-to-wall student desk and it is--it is almost impossible for a teacher to get around and work one-on-one with any of the kids in their own classroom. And it gets miserable day in and day out to teach in that kind of a facility.

MR. MINOTT: High school senior Ann Erickson, who sits on a special committee charged with finding a solution to overcrowding, says the board considered adding a night school but decided not to.

ANNA ERICKSON, Rogers High School Student: Mostly for the reason of a disruption. It's hard to schedule. Also from an activities standpoint, it's really difficult to schedule football practices and basketball practices, and the facilities, and also if you have the demand of, you know, 4,000 students all wanting to use the same practice field, that, that has become a problem as well, as well as other extracurricular activities such as music and band and using the performing arts at night if you have classes going on, and things, there's just no time.

MR. MINOTT: Instead, Erickson says Puyallup likely will extend the school day by adding classes earlier in the morning and later in the afternoon. Dick Williams of the University of Washington sees all these solutions as temporary and inadequate.

DICK WILLIAMS, University of Washington: Maybe we should be re- thinking the way we fund our schools, but as long as we are doing it the way we do on the basis of property taxes and the like, you know, we're just going to keep bumping against this, and yeah, it bothers me. I think we should be building facilities to house our children. It's a wonderful investment. It's an important investment, and we seem to be backing away from it and trying the other systems.

MR. MINOTT: By 9 PM, Jessica Stockdale, the New Century senior, heads home, but her night shift is far from over. There's still homework to be done, at least two more hours of study time before her school day ends. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday, the Commerce Department reported the nation's economy grew by 2.1 percent last year. That's the smallest increase in the Gross Domestic Product since 1991. In Philadelphia, a former employee of the National Security Agency was arrested and charged with selling secrets to the Soviets in the 1960's, and in Bosnia, the reunification of Sarajevo began, but a Muslim-Croat police team found a ghost town where one Serb suburb had been. The Serbs left, fearing rule by their former enemies. We'll see you on Monday night. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.