"ALEX HAS A CRISP, CLEAR WAY OF GOING FOR THE JUGULAR"

By Michael Duffy/Washington

Working for Phil Gramm last winter, Alex Castellanos spent a lot of time figuring out ways to force Bob Dole into early retirement. But Gramm fizzled out early, and although Castellanos maintained good relations with the Dole camp, he figured he was finished for the rest of 1996. Then last week Dole tapped him to lead the advertising war against Bill Clinton. "It all proves that old Cuban saying," he said last Friday. "Never spit straight up in the air." And he never did.

Castellanos is no stranger to exile. Born in Havana, he fled Castro's revolution with his parents in 1961 at age 6. They settled in Coats, North Carolina, which had 1,000 residents and one stoplight with only two colors. Castellanos attended the University of North Carolina but dropped out in his final semester to work on Ronald Reagan's 1976 campaign.

Ever since, Castellanos has worked with dozens of take-no-prisoners campaigns. He is widely credited with inventing a lucrative direct-mail operation for Jesse Helms in the late 1970s. By 1978 he had become an apprentice to Arthur Finkelstein, the shadowy Republican consultant who favored scathing attack ads. He worked for Helms in 1984 and again in Helms' successful 1990 race against Charlotte's black mayor, Harvey Gantt, creating the controversial ad in which a pair of white hands are shown crumpling a pink slip as a narrator puts the onus on racial quotas. "The ads were race baiting and untrue," said Mandy Grunwald, Gantt's media adviser. "Alex has a crisp, clear way of going for the jugular." Castellanos believes in finding what he calls "the truest thing you can say about someone. If you find the truest nugget, it will resonate." But Castellanos knows how hard Dole can be to please. He worked for Dole twice during the 1988 primary campaign--once until Dole fired him and once a few months later, when Dole brought him back from exile.

--By Michael Duffy/Washington