Alexander Campaign Takes Root, Begins to Bear Fruit

After a year’s submersion under the top tier of Republican presidential hopefuls, it’s only natural for former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander to relish the fresh air that attention brings.

So, with signs that Alexander is starting to move up in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, it is not surprising that an invigorated Alexander greeted the breakfast crowd at the Davenport Holiday Inn on Friday with a particularly peppy version of his standard campaign speech.

Crowd is the operative word here--the right crowd--both voters and media. It’s the third group of 200 or so that Alexander has had in less than 24 hours, each of them peppered with folks wearing copies of his trademark red-and-black flannel shirt.

And the press entourage following him is such that you can spot him from afar by the boom microphone hanging over his head, another indication that Alexander is emerging as a serious contender in Iowa’s caucuses, which will be held Monday.

All of this is a major change. For months--ever since early last year--Alexander has campaigned through Iowa and New Hampshire and other early primary states. He has drawn favorable reviews for having hired a staff of well-regarded professional campaign operatives. He has raised a reasonable, although not overwhelming, amount of money. And he has honed a relatively effective stump speech.

The only thing he hasn’t done is attract many voters. Now, at the last minute, the polls indicate that may be starting to change. But after months of obscurity, Alexander is frank in assessing what it’s been like spending more time in Iowa than any other candidate in the past year for--until now--little gain.

“Swimming underwater all year, you build quite a set of lungs doing that,” said Alexander in an interview aboard his monogrammed campaign plane--a 17-seater festooned with a giant red decal exclaiming “Lamar!”

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But serious contention is one thing. Clear sailing is something else again.

Alexander’s candidacy still runs the risk of being overshadowed by a continuing face-off between the cash-rich campaigns of publishing magnate Steve Forbes and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole. And the mild-mannered ex-governor and former secretary of education has prospects that still hinge on a number of tumblers falling into place.

Alexander has to hope that support for Sen. Phil Gramm continues to drop following the Texan’s loss to Patrick J. Buchanan in Louisiana and that Forbes also shows a leveling-off or even a drop in his attraction to voters here.

In addition, with polls showing a large number of GOP voters in Iowa undecided--and also showing Alexander has a far more positive image among Republicans than his main rivals--Alexander must convince voters to accept him as the “none-of-the-above” choice for those put off by the negative campaigning of his rivals.

To drive home that point, Alexander has taken to carrying around a pair of “mud boots” to protect him from the potshots being taken at him by Forbes, although his aides welcome the shots as a sure sign that Forbes now perceives him as a serious rival.

Voters, Alexander says, are starting to believe the nasty barbs that Forbes and Dole have exchanged in television ads. “That’s where I come in,” he said.

Alexander has even expanded his “ABC” (for Alexander Beats Clinton) slogan. Using a Thursday night suggestion from a Waterloo, Iowa, resident, Alexander now tells listeners: “Alexander Beats Clinton, Dole and Even Forbes and Gramm.”

There’s good news in New Hampshire too, where Alexander’s campaign is also gaining steam, drawing crowds of 350 and 225 one day last week, said Tom Rath, Alexander’s New Hampshire campaign chairman.

“We’re coming right up the middle,” said Alexander consultant Mike Murphy.

That may be an overstatement, but an independent poll in New Hampshire does provide some cheering news for Alexander’s campaign. While the poll has found a steady increase in the negative feelings toward the other candidates in the field, Alexander seems to have retained a largely positive rating, says independent pollster Dick Bennett. As a result, Bennett said, Alexander’s support has considerably more “room to grow” while rivals like Forbes, Dole and Gramm have more restricted prospects.

Alexander is philosophical about the relatively last-minute blooming of his candidacy, noting that his strategy up to now has been “to get on the stage.” Faced with better known Washington senators and a magazine millionaire willing to spend seemingly limitless resources to promote himself, that’s taken some doing, he says.

“We’re doing as well as we possibly could now,” he said. “The only way I could have been better known by now is if the national media had started covering the national presidential campaign in the fall, which nobody did.”

Although not a showstopper on the stump, Alexander is smooth, folksy and earnest. He’s comfortable whether speaking to a large group or gazing into a potential voter’s eye. To the delight of his consultants, Alexander nearly always stays “on message” while still answering far-ranging questions directly.

“He can roll with the punches,” said Stan Drewelow, 63, of Waterloo, an independent who decided after Friday’s breakfast--and after much indecision--to vote for Alexander. The message he stays on is electability in a race with President Clinton, who he says is the best Democratic campaigner in 25 years.

“In the final five, there are only two people who have any real prospects of both being nominated and elected,” Alexander said, referring to himself and Dole. “It’s obvious to me.”

As Alexander sees the field, “Dole is dropping pretty rapidly.” Forbes, “is failing the first character test of the presidency, which is the George Washington test--telling the truth. . . . Buchanan is still taking extreme positions and Phil is lying back in a Louisiana bayou somewhere.”

In the bunched up Iowa field of contenders, Gramm’s loss in Louisiana was Alexander’s gain, giving him a shot at a third-place finish to launch him to New Hampshire.

With the situation so fluid, and the caucuses quirky to start with, the outcome is anyone’s guess, Alexander says cheerfully. “The truth is I don’t have any idea how I’m going to do and neither does anyone else.”

The one thing he wants voters to know is that he’s “more prepared that Mr. Forbes and has better ideas than Sen. Dole,” whom he refers to as “our legendary engineer, not our visionary architect.”

Alexander did take heart Friday is his first victory in Iowa, as one constituency went for the Alexander message in a big way. In a mock Kiddie Caucus of 41,000 students Thursday, Alexander beat both Dole and Clinton. It wasn’t even close.

“If the young people in Iowa can sort out the truth,” Alexander said, “maybe their parents and grandparents can too.”

* RELATED STORY: A2

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Poll Watch

New polls of Republicans likely to vote in Iowa’s caucuses on Monday disagree about Steve Forbes’ strength in the state but concur on three other points. First, a substantial share of the voters remain uncertain about whom they will support--a finding that pollsters think may be connected to the high level of negative advertisements in this year’s campaign. Second, two candidates appear to be moving up--Patrick J. Buchanan, getting a bounce from his victory Tuesday in Louisiana, and former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander. And third, the man Buchanan beat in Louisiana, Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, has slipped to the back of the pack. Gramm has said repeatedly that there are “only three tickets out of Iowa” and has counted on his strong statewide organization to turn out his supporters, but the polls indicate that he has a long way to go.

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WHO-TV MOLINE DISPATCH DOLE 20% 24% FORBES 14% 22% BUCHANAN 12% 11% ALEXANDER 9% 9% GRAMM 8% 6% LUGAR 2% 4% KEYES 6% 2% DORNAN 2% 0% TAYLOR 1% 1%

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Why the differences? Beyond the routine errors that can afflict any poll, surveys that try to predict an election can vary depending on how well they determine which people are likely to vote. Many ostensible Forbes supporters, for example, are people who have not voted before in Iowa caucuses, and pollsters--along with everyone else--are uncertain whether they will actually turn out Monday. Both polls were conducted Monday through Wednesday and have a margin of error of plus or minus 4 points.