Alexander Drops Out After 6th-Place Straw Poll Finish
After six years of canvassing Iowa failed to earn him better than sixth place in Saturday’s straw poll there, Lamar Alexander ended his campaign for the White House on Monday. And as further evidence of the poll’s shakedown of the crowded Republican field, several supporters of Dan Quayle defected to the camp of rival Sen. John McCain.
Alexander, the 59-year-old former Tennessee governor and 1996 presidential candidate, said in Nashville on Monday that, lacking cash and support, the 2000 Republican nomination is out of reach.
“My heart tells me to keep going,” he said, “but there is no realistic way to do that.”
The nonbinding vote in Iowa on Saturday revealed to Alexander a “powerful force,” he said, for the nomination of front-runner and Texas Gov. George W. Bush. But Alexander said he feared the GOP might discover “during a debate with Albert Gore Jr. that we’ve nominated someone who is not ready to be president.”
Alexander said he would not endorse another 2000 GOP candidate.
Quayle, the eighth-place finisher in Iowa on Saturday, lost four of his organizers in South Carolina on Monday to Arizona Sen. McCain, who chose to skip Saturday’s straw poll.
“The rats may be jumping off the ship, but the ship isn’t sinking,” said Jonathan Baron, Quayle’s press secretary.
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