Steve Forbes
Re “Forbes’ Corporate Style Points to Cautious Manager,” Jan. 19: The Times and other media are scrambling to learn more about Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes. After dismissing Forbes’ chances for months, you’re suddenly discovering that Forbes is the main challenger to front-runner Sen. Bob Dole.
Forbes’ popularity was no secret to those of us at CityVote. Last Nov. 7, 18 cities across the U.S. conducted presidential preference balloting, in an effort to draw the candidates’ attention to urban issues. Over 225,000 votes were cast that day, by citizens representing a wide cross-section of political beliefs and values. The voting was far more representative of true public sentiment than the small and meaningless “straw polls” where, in many cases, GOP partisans paid to vote.
Had you paid attention to CityVote’s results, you would have discovered that Forbes was already a much stronger candidate than Sen. Phil Gramm, Pat Buchanan and the others.
Colin Powell, who was on the ballot, finished first in the GOP tally with 40% of the vote. Dole was second with 26%, and Forbes third with 10%. No other Republican earned more than 6%. With Powell out of the race, it was obvious to us that Forbes was the candidate most likely to attract the Powell voters.
STEPHEN C. SMITH
Irvine
Get the L.A. Times Politics newsletter
Deeply reported insights into legislation, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond. In your inbox three times per week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
