THE GRAMMSTANDER

By Michael Kramer

After raising close to $20 million and spending almost all of it in pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination, Phil Gramm explains his single-digit standing in the polls this way: "The people don't know me yet."

He's lucky they don't. Watching Gramm maneuver, one easily understands why so many Americans deride the people they elect to office.

Gramm is often compared to the late John Connally, another brash Texan with a gift for gab. Yet that comparison ill serves Connally's reputation. Connally was the lousiest of candidates (his $12 million run for the 1980 G.O.P. nod netted him only one delegate) but nobody ever described him as too small for the presidency, which is exactly how many who know Gramm speak of him.

The Senate is a place where it is considered bad form for members to trash one another (except anonymously), but the word one hears most often when seeking an assessment of Gramm is shameless. Everyone, it seems, is familiar with the definition of "Grammstand:" to take undeserved credit for matters you opposed in the hope no one will notice.

Consider just one previously unreported recent example of the Grammstander at work:

It is Oct. 26, and the Republican members of the powerful Senate Finance Committee have gathered to divvy up federal Medicaid funds among the states. The House has already contrived a new formula, which the initial Senate plan fails to match. The committee has already promised Texas an additional $5 billion over seven years, but the state's other Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison, wants more. Unless an extra $158 million is allotted (which would equal the House sum), Hutchison says, she will vote against the vital reconciliation bill. "I really don't get it," says Gramm, peering over his gold-rimmed aviator glasses, his Muppet-like head bobbing plaintively, "but this is the be-all and end-all for Kay. I don't care about this Medicaid thing myself but I'm being made to look like a wimp. Me, Phil Gramm, a wimp. You've got to save me here. Talk to her; make her see it's not going to happen."

"Already have," says Bob Dole. Hutchison's vote is crucial, and her threat is serious, he says: "We have no choice. Find the money," Dole tells his aides.

Within hours, the essential Gramm springs into action. Preening like a proud papa, Gramm announces "a major victory" for Texas. "Texas had only one Senator in the room when the key decision was made," Gramm's spokesman Larry Neal tells TIME later. "That was Phil Gramm. He made it happen."

After cleverly engineering a string of 34 straw-poll victories throughout this year, Gramm hit a speed bump in Florida last Saturday at the single such contest he couldn't rig. His second-place showing (seven points behind Dole and only three ahead of Lamar Alexander) failed to meet his own hyped expectations and dents his overall strategy, which presumes his winning handily across the South. Now a Connally-size meltdown, while unlikely, cannot be ruled out.

But what if Gramm confounds the pols and pundits and captures the nomination? "Well," chuckles Dole, reflecting a view of Gramm shared by many of the Texan's Senate colleagues, "I wouldn't go out and commit suicide. But if I wanted to, I'd probably have to join a long line."