MISSOURI COMMENTARY: FROM BURNT TOAST TO BAKERY FRESH

A couple of weeks ago the pundits declared Bob Dole to be "burnt toast." Today, he's bakery fresh. It wasn't that Dole suddenly found a compelling message. It wasn't that he suddenly became a persuasive platform orator or an aggressive campaigner. It wasn't that he began to look younger than his 72 years.

Like it not, Dole was the best of the lost to challenge Bill Clinton in November. His obvious limitations were less overwhelming than those of his competitors.

Pat Buchanan's success became his failure. His considerable platform prowess in uttering extremist views began to worry both mainstream Republicans and even many conservative Republicans. His views were deemed to outside the mainstream as to make him unelectable.

Without question, Buchanan was the only crowd pleaser of the group. He was the most talented in turning a phrase, in energizing an audience. But it became clear even to many conservative Republicans that a presidential candidate with Buchanan's marginal viewpoints could not be elected president.

In American presidential politics, the race in November is to the middle. One third of the voters are automatic Republicans and one-third are automatic Democrats. It's the middle one-third that picks the winner. Dole knows this as well as anyone and once the burdens of the primaries are behind him, he will inch toward the center.

We don't have political "machines" any more. The days of Mayor Daley, Mayor Hague in Jersey City, Tammany Hall, Ed Flynn in The Bronx, Boss Crump in Memphis -- those days are history. But there are still "organizations" where people in the political establishment can help turn out the vote for favored candidates. Not every state or locality has an organization, but where there is one in place it can be of enormous help to a candidate -- especially in presidential primaries where the voter turnout is light.

Bob Dole, floundering after new Hampshire and Arizona, relied on a strong organization in South Carolina to turn things around. A small state with a handful of delegates became the turning point of the 1996 Republican presidential primary campaign. Dole had to have a win before going into Junior Tuesday with its eight primary elections.

In politics as in other endeavors, nothing succeeds like success. Dole's success in South Carolina triggered an avalanche of victories scattered from east to west with Georgia in between. In each state, most every Republican of substance -- state-wide or local -- did what he or she could to help Dole. Wherever there was a Republican organization, the word went out that "Dole's the man." New York state, wit it bizarre presidential primary election laws and its lighter-than-light vote, had the most far-reaching political organization of all.

Steve Forbes proved that money can work some of the time as in Arizona ($4 million), but even his massive wealth can't cope with eight primaries in one day. A neophyte candidate with no organizational support cannot function in multiple simultaneous elections, especially with New York coming only two days later.

Forges is the messiah of the flat tax. He has increased the prominence of that issue with massive coverage from national print and television. Forbes has the financial wherewithal to stay in the race to the end. But one has to believe that somewhere along the line he will be satisfied with the exposure he has given to his pet cause, and will not feel compelled to squander additional millions of his children's inheritance on what is now an obviously lost cause.

Buchanan's end game objective is different from Forbes. "Bitter end" is an essential, positive part of the Buchanan political psyche. He wants to influence the Republican platform and shove it as far right as he can. He wants another prime-time appearance before the convention where, he believes, his forensic skills will outshine Bob Dole's, just as his skills outshone those of George bush in 1992. If Dole eventually goes down the tube, Buchanan will claim "I told you so" and will be positioned, so he thinks, as next century's king of the conservative Republican hill.

Tom Eagleton of St. Louis is a former U.S. senator from Missouri.