In Michigan and Wisconsin Mr Buchanan did better capturing one-third of the vote but in both

In Michigan and Wisconsin Mr Buchanan did better, capturing one-third of the vote, but in both states the Kansas Senator topped 50 per cent.Though delegate tallies are notoriously inexact, according to CNN Mr Dole now has 1,000, four more than the 996 needed for an overall majority at the convention. That compares to 100 for Mr Buchanan whose aim now is not to unseat Mr Dole, a mathematical impossibility, but to to secure a speaking spot at the convention and force his populist pro-life and “America First” views into the party platform.But Mr Buchanan is merely a nuisance. The two men may be prime specimens of that reviled breed the “Washington insider”. But both are adroit politicians, and never before has an election been fought between an incumbent President and a Senate Majority leader of the other party.Mr Dole’s triumphs in the “Rust Belt” were comprehensive. In Ohio and Illinois he routed his only serious remaining challenger, the right-wing commentator Pat Buchanan, by a margin of three to one. Mr Dole will portray himself as a “common sense conservative” who could get things done, were it not for vetoes by Mr Clinton.The contest will be fascinating. Why? Because they were friends with the IngushFD, with whom the Ossetians fought a war in 1992.It was only after we found an Ingush policeman, armed with a semi-automatic rifle, as an escort that he agreed to go on.They are getting by here – miraculously well, in the circumstances – but it is hard to believe they will ever get along..

RUPERT CORNWELL

Washington
With the 1996 Republican presidential nomination now secure, Bob Dole yesterday embarked on the far tougher campaign to defeat Bill Clinton in the general election in November, a task which may be still further complicated by a repeat White House run by Ross Perot.After yet another Tuesday primary sweep, this time in the old industrial Midwest, the 72-year-old Senate majority leader only briefly savoured the prize that had eluded him for two decades, before plunging back into his preferred milieu of Washington, featuring a White House meeting with his future opponent, in search of a balanced budget agreement between the Republican Congress and the White House.Washington, indeed, is where the next phase of the election campaign will unfold, in complicated jousting over measures that include the budget, welfare and health-care reform, and proposed tax cuts for families with children. After passing the gun battle at the road-block, Said drove me to the airport at Vladikavkaz in the neighbouring republic of Ossetia. A few miles from our destination, he suddenly became agitated and sweaty.”I can’t go any further, it’s the Ossetians,” he explained. “They loathe us Chechens,” he said, putting his finger to his head and pulling an imaginary trigger. Most shops and businesses are destroyed, but you can still buy an embroidered dress or a pair of patent-leather high heels. There is clearly a demand: despite the thick mud and filth, many of Grozny’s women are as well groomed as Wall Street executives.Yet, for all this outward calm and resourcefulness, there are wells of hatred, scars too deep to justify any optimism about peace in the Caucasus.

Although Russians have lost hundreds of men in this war, their appetite for tales about weaponry and derring-do is mysteriously insatiable. The market was groaning with produce, from Snickers bars to lemons, tangerines, onions, potatoes, chicken, and legs of lamb. Where there is a shortage of essential goods, residents make them themselves. Along the roadsides there are large glass jars of home-made petrol on sale.At a kiosk next to the government building – which has been turned into a fortress, surrounded by dug-in armoured vehicles – there were copies of Soldier of Fortune magazine.