BIO: Senator Phil Gramm, a man who flunked three grades, a former Democrat-turned-Republican, deficit hawk and tax-cut fanatic, is currently the candidate with the best chance to beat out Senator Bob Dole for the Republican presidential nomination. A Ph.D. who taught economics at Texas A&M; University, Gramm has largely made his name championing economic and budget issues.

"I did not come to Washington to be loved," Gramm has said, and no one doubts him. Just three years after his election in 1978 as a Democratic Congressman, Gramm cast the die for his cantankerous reputation by betraying his party and sponsoring Ronald Reagan's very un-Democratic 1981 budget in the House. Gramm then built on the national attention he received for his defection and won the admiration of Texans by resigning his seat and running for re-election as a Republican. He won handily, and in 1984 was elected to the Senate.

That Gramm was willing to defect from his party over the budget was a fitting sign of things to come. Since coming to the Senate, he has continued to make his name on budget issues. Most prominent was his co-sponsorship in the 1980s of the Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction act which was considered by many to be one of Congress' most responsible attempts to rein in the ballooning budget deficit that Republicans are now trying to fix with harsh cuts. Gramm has continued to hammer these themes as a candidate. The deficit and taxes continue to be the foundation of his conservative campaign. He also supports massive tax cuts and a welfare reform more drastic than the one passed by the Senate.

Gramm's campaign got off to a fast and early start, and until recently, his fund-raising machine was the stuff of legends. Still, he seems to have cooled off somewhat, partly due to setbacks like the revelation that the family-values oriented Gramm invested in a sleazy B-movie years ago, and the anger of crucial New Hampshire voters over Gramm's flirtation with the idea that Delaware, and not New Hampshire, ought to hold the nation's first primary. Gramm's best hope for the nomination is in Southern states, but he still doesn't match up well against President Clinton in national polls.

Gramm has enjoyed consistent success in hounding Dole in the Senate. While Dole is forced to compromise and hold coalitions of votes together to pass legislation, Gramm can gleefully stake out popular conservative ground and paint a damning picture of Dole as a squishy moderate. Here's a look at some of the issues.

TAX CUTS: Gramm likes to say in all the jobs he's had, he was never hired by a poor person. His point is the familiar one that tax cuts for the wealthy create jobs at all levels of the economy. And Gramm wants to cut away. Gramm has regularly castigated Dole for equivocating on tax cuts, and prefers the larger, House-passed cut to the $245 billion compromise reached with the Senate. Gramm is unlikely to be successful in boosting the tax cut, which is part of a budget reconciliation bill now in a House-Senate conference, but he seems just as happy to bolster his conservative credentials by blasting moderates who would limit the cut.

WELFARE REFORM: Gramm is a classic proponent of the pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps brand of personal responsibility. He thinks the welfare system wastes taxpayer money by encouraging a destructive dependency. Gramm would have preferred a tougher welfare bill than the one passed by the Senate last month, but liked many of its core principles such as returning welfare responsibility to the state level and placing a stronger emphasis on work. Gramm suffered a defeat when his "family cap" provision -- which would cut off benefits to unwed mothers who have children while on welfare -- was struck down. But again, even in defeat, Gramm can pound his fist and argue that he wanted to go farther than Dole, who cut several deals with moderates and Democrats to get the bill passed.

FEDERAL BUDGET: A staple of the Gramm stump speech is "Dicky Flatt," a hard-working friend of his in a Texas printing shop "who can never quite get the ink off the tips of his fingers." Gramm says that any federal program should be subjected to the "Dicky Flatt test": an evaluation of whether the program is worth taking tax dollars from Dicky's pocket. In many cases, including most social programs associated with the liberalism of the last several decades, Gramm feels they are not. Gramm was one of the Senate's most vocal supporters of a Balanced Budget Amendment, which failed to pass by a single vote. And while the current Republican budget now being negotiated in conference would balance the budget in seven years, Gramm has promised that if he does not do so in his first term as president, he won't seek re-election.