Buchanan Opens California Drive With Vow to Fight on to Convention : Politics: The Republican rival says his campaign is holding Bush to the party's 'landslide' ideas. He addresses conservative group.

Buchanan Opens California Drive With Vow to Fight on to Convention : Politics: The Republican rival says his campaign is holding Bush to the party’s ‘landslide’ ideas. He addresses conservative group.

By BILL STALL

April 4, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES POLITICAL WRITER

NEWPORT BEACH — Conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan brought his protest presidential campaign to California on Friday with a vow to keep on fighting through the Republican National Convention in August.

Buchanan, who addressed a convention of the conservative California Republican Assembly, has rejected calls from national party officials to give up his presidential primary battle with President Bush because they say it is hurting the President’s chances for reelection and hurting the Republican Party.

But Buchanan maintained that his campaign, in which he has received up to 37% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary, has helped both Bush and the party.

“How do you hurt the Republican Party if you bring it back to the ideas and ideals that gave it three straight national landslides?” Buchanan asked those in attendance.

“George Bush is a stronger candidate today than he was when he was floundering about in New Hampshire in December and January,” he said.

And now, Buchanan added, there are “small signs of waffle” in the Administration’s position on “the all-important issue of right to life.”

Buchanan pledged that he would fight with every resource he has at the national convention in Houston “to do everything to keep the Republican Party the party of life.”

The approximately 400 people at the dinner Friday night stood and applauded.

Earlier in the day, Buchanan also voiced criticism of California Gov. Pete Wilson. He said at a news conference in Los Angeles: “I’m offering my campaign as a way for voters of California to conduct a referendum on the leadership of Mr. Wilson and leadership of Mr. Bush and the direction of our country.”

When Buchanan introduced his sister, Angela (Bay) Buchanan, at the dinner Friday night, he referred to her as “my candidate to succeed one-term Pete.”

Buchanan omitted the criticism of Congress that had been part of his remarks earlier this week in Wisconsin and Minnesota and instead concentrated his fire on Bush and Wilson.

At the news conference, he outlined a three-point plan of attack he intends to employ in California: taxes, which he said both Bush and Wilson promised not to raise but did; Bush’s foreign policy, which Buchanan says is hurting Americans at home; and illegal immigration.

On immigration, Buchanan sounded an old theme. “I can’t see how President Bush can send an army overseas to secure the boundaries of Kuwait when he can’t secure the boundaries of his own country.”

California is one of the states most affected by illegal immigration, and Buchanan said it is adding to the “social and economic disasters in California.”

Buchanan forecast that, because of the pressure he was already applying on Bush in that area, “you will find Mr. Bush taking action on illegal immigration in California before June 1.”

Buchanan was introduced at the dinner Friday night by state Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) as “our friend and our hero.” But one California Republican Assembly official said the conservative group was not likely to endorse him in the June 2 primary.