Bush has big win in South Carolina

Press, 7 March 1988, Page 8

Bush has big win in South Carolina

NZPiA-Reuter ) Columbia, South Carolina . Vice-President George Bush trounced his Republican Presidential rivals, Robert Dole and Pat Robertson, on Saturday in a South Carolina primary he hopes will be repeated in the March 8 “Super Tuesday” voting. ! I

Mr Bush, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, ha> 49; per! cent of| the votes counted so far in a contest which the former television evangelist, Mr Robertson, once vowed to win. With | slightly more than -half of the votes I in, the Senate! minority I leader, Mr Dole, was second with 21 per cent and Mr Robertson was close behind with 19 per cent. The j New . York Congressman, Jack I Kemp, was fourth with 12 per cent. ' State party officials said the primary attracted a record; turnout of more than 200,000, surpassing the, previous high of 145,000 who voted in the state’sl 1980 Republican primary.- — ; Mr j Bush appeared likely (to win all 37 of South jCarolina’s national nominating convention delegates. i , More important than the delegates was the pyschological boost for the Vice-President just three days the Super Tuesday contest in which Republican voters in 17

states will choose 753 of ; their party’s 22771 national delegates. j A variety of; public opinion polls show Mr Bush leading more than ; two-to-one over Mr Dole, with Mr Robertson a distant third. ; ; Bush strategists have been counting onia win in South Carolina | and a powerful showing in the . 12 southern and two southern border states that vote on H Tuesday (Wednesday, ' New Zealand time); to-; jgive Mr Bush a giant step toward his party’s presidential nomination. | "The South is sending a message that says George Bush can win,” the South Carolina Governor, Carroll Campbell, a Bush supporter, told reporters in Columbia on Saturday night. If Mr Bush repeats his .South Carolina performance on Wednesday he could virtually I wrap up the nomination. Saturday's outcome was a bitter disappointment for Mr Robertson, who i

has referred to South Carolina as “my backyard” and once thought he could pull off a major upset there with the help of the state’s large evangelical Christian community. Mr Robertson, who was hurt badly by a series of controversial j statements, including a claim that the Soviet Union had placed nuclear missiles in Cuba and that he once knew the location of American hostages in Lebanon, said last week he would be satisfied to finish second place. South Carolina's Democrats indicate their Presidential preferences at next Saturday’s local party caucuses. There was a minor Democratic contest in Wyoming on Saturday and the Tennessee Senator Albert Gore, eked out a 27-26 per cent victory, his first, over the Massachusetts Governor, Michael Dukakis. The Missouri Representative, Richard Gephardt, was third in the contest for the state’s 18 national convention delegates.