Iowa GOP Holds Straw Poll Today on Presidential Race : Politics: Touted as the first real test, lax rules allow candidates to import supporters from other states. Dole, Gramm, Alexander plan to do so.

Leaders of the Iowa Republican Party are touting the presidential straw poll they host in the state today as the first real test of the 1996 presidential campaign.

But, judging from the advance maneuvering, what is mainly being tested is sheer, unadulterated chutzpah.

As the large crop of Republican candidates competes for support in the straw poll--in hopes of demonstrating strength in a state strategically important because it kicks off the delegate selection process next February--at least three of the leading contenders are shamelessly importing voters from elsewhere.

This is possible because the Iowa party, eager to promote the event and raise as big a kitty as possible, requires only that those trooping to the nearby city of Ames to cast a ballot present a $25 admission ticket and proof that they will be 18 years old by the day of the presidential election in November, 1996. Thus, the straw poll balloters need not be registered voters in Iowa, or anywhere else.

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, the acknowledged front-runner for the GOP nomination and the heavy favorite to win today’s contest, is among those whose campaigns are taking advantage of the lax rules and going the extra mile--literally--to make a strong showing. Dole supporters are being bused in for the straw poll from his home state and nearby Minnesota.

“The road to the White House starts in Iowa,” declares a flyer distributed by the Dole forces in Minnesota. “Join busloads of Minnesotans as we travel to Ames, Iowa, to deliver a victory for Bob Dole.”

Dole’s partisans at least can argue that residents of Kansas and Minnesota share the same Midwest concerns of Iowans. No such defense can be made by former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, who is flying in voters from his home state and Georgia. Nor is Alexander apologetic about his efforts.

“There may even be paratroopers coming in from somewhere, for all I know,” he quipped.

Alexander is viewed as locked in a battle for second place in the straw poll with conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan and Texas Sen. Phil Gramm.

The Gramm campaign, not to be outdone, is busing in managers from eight plants of the IBP meatpacking company in Iowa, Nebraska and Illinois. Gramm’s wife and his campaign finance chairman serve on the board of IBP, which sent its managers a memo urging them to attend the straw poll and noting that the senator’s campaign is providing transportation as well as the admission tickets.

Alerted to this cozy relationship by a Wall Street Journal story, Angela (Bay) Buchanan, the campaign chairman for her brother, called it “a crass example of how big money and corporate power are corrupting American politics.”

But Gramm’s organization shrugged off the protest. “Those who are beginning to whine before they lose get no sympathy from me,” snapped Gramm adviser Charles Black.

Others in the contest contended that one reason Buchanan is not striving to recruit out-of-state supporters is because he lacks the financial resources to do so.

Gramm is counting on other assistance too. A letter from his campaign to potential supporters promised appearances by “Mike (Da Bears) Ditka” and “Charlton Heston (Moses).”

*

The straw poll comes exactly a week after the same group of candidates traveled to the “national issues conference” in Dallas hosted by Ross Perot, an event criticized by some as an exercise in pandering, manipulated by the Texas billionaire to boost his political clout.

In the case of the Iowa poll, critics contend that the state Republican Party is doing the manipulating and that the motive is money.

State party Chairman Brian Kennedy predicted a crowd of 8,000, which would gross $200,000. Even before the proceeds were tabulated, Republican Gov. Terry E. Branstad hailed the event as “the biggest political fund-raiser in Iowa history.”

Although California Gov. Pete Wilson has spent several days campaigning in Iowa of late, his forces are not planning a major push in the straw poll. Referring to the efforts by some of the other campaigns, Wilson said, “The straw poll, it appears, is not going to be a straw poll of Iowans.”

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, a long shot in the GOP presidential contest, earlier this week pulled out of the poll. He will, however, participate in the speechmaking that precedes the vote.

“The straw poll is no longer a measure of grass-roots support but it is now an exercise in big money manipulation,” said Specter’s campaign chairman, Roger Stone.

The other candidates scheduled to give 10-minute speeches to the evening gathering are Indiana Sen. Richard G. Lugar, Rep. Robert K. Dornan of Garden Grove, former State Department official Alan Keyes, and businessman Morry Taylor.