DAVID NYHAN

Lamar Alexander's fate

By David Nyhan, Globe Staff, June 9, 1999

The red carpet, the ermine robe, and the sceptre of the conquering Caesar are being readied for the triumphal arrival of His Excellency and Omnipotency, the Great & Exalted Guv'nah of Texas, George W. Bush, who rolls into New Hampshire Monday like Julius took Gaul.

So lopsided is this front-runner's bandwagon that his handlers better steer carefully round the bends. "George W." as the insiders call this son-of to distinguish him from the father-of, hasn't trod New Hampshire soil for a Biblical span of seven years, it's said. But he's way out front of the presidential pack.

Bush's early success has cast a pall over all other candidacies, but none has been eclipsed more than that of Lamar Alexander, the second-time-around Tennessean. The conventional wisdom has Alexander croaking as Bush approaches the starting gate. The early reviews have Lamar expiring. Why?

From lack of a) oxygen (George W.'s front-running effort has sucked the oxygen out of the water, says one theory); b) money (Bush's endorsement-rich campaign harvests $1,000 checks like a grain combine); c) ideological edge (Forbes, Buchanan, and Dan Quayle fight over the bigger chunks of GOP red meat, while Bauer, Keyes, and New Hampshire Senator Bob Smith wrangle over the abortion scraps); or d) identity crisis (Bush is the guy for Republicans who are tired of losing, Senator John McCain is the one with the gutsy policy positions both foreign and domestic, and Elizabeth Dole is gambling there's a softer-gentler conservatism out there).

The conventional wisdom is that Alexander, a former Tennessee governor and US education secretary, is too bland, too blah, too plaid, too plodding, too folksy, too earnest. He hasn't "caught on" with the voters, pollsters, pundits, the public in general. Not one but two Globe colleagues needled me this week about my periodic prognostications, going back four years now, that Alexander should be taken seriously.

His money flow is crimped, his campaign staff has suffered resignations and reshuffles, the Bush ascendancy has blighted his prospects, and he lacks the ideological zealotry that is attracted by Forbes's cash, Buchanan's incendiary rhetoric, or the fractions of right-wing activism sliced by the fringe candidates.

A Manchester Union Leader editorial this week consigned Alexander's candidacy from the ER to intensive care. I see Alexander as wounded and laboring, but far from out of business. Busloads of journalists will trail in his front-runner's wake. Expectations could not be higher for Bush, or lower for Lamar.

One veteran New Hampshire handicapper, former Globe colleague John Milne, says, "Everyone is waiting for Bush. Alexander's money dried up as Bush surged. I think Lamar falls between the Republicans who just want a winner -- they're with Bush -- and the true believers, who lined up with the more conservative types like Quayle."

Milne says Alexander's embrace of the education issue misfired in New Hampshire. "New Hampshire believes schooling should be as local as you can make it, not federal. Lamar seems to be remaking himself as he came back the second time. If they want a conservative, they'll go for a real one, like Buchanan."

Alexander's fate now hinges on Bush faltering. McCain has staked out the high-risk positions: for ground troops in Kosovo, against Big Tobacco, for campaign finance reform in the party whose congressional majorities depend upon fighting it, and taking on the telecommunications lobbies. But Alexander is the conventional Republican's fallback candidate if Bush cracks.

Tom Rath, Alexander's top hand in New Hampshire, says the GOP delegate-selection process "is so front-loaded, a front-runner has no chance to recover" if he or she stumbles badly. The key "is to hunker down, cut spending, stay in this thing. On the ground, in Iowa and New Hampshire, we're better than anybody else." Alexander raised only $2 million this year, and has cut paid staff from 38 to 34, concentrating everything on Iowa and New Hampshire.

Rath likens his role to a sort of Casey Jones on a slowing-down locomotive, "We've run out of coal, and we're having to break up the furniture to toss the wood in the firebox." It's the Bush advantage over Al Gore in early matchups that dominate the Republican race today, he avers.

I cannot discount the low-single-digit poll readings registered by Alexander's effort to date; plaid, sad, and bad, those numbers don't lie. But Lamar is the best-organized candidate in the first two states. He got 40 percent of the Republicans who made up their minds in the last week of the New Hampshire campaign last time. He ain't dead yet. If he catches a break here or there, if Bush falters, Lamar is a factor again.

Five of the 11 Republicans running have never been elected to any public office; that's Elizabeth Dole, Steve Forbes, Pat Buchanan, Gary Bauer, and Alan Keyes. While nobody thinks Bauer or Keyes is out for anything but exercise, the Dole, Forbes, and Buchanan candidacies are treated seriously by the media.

For Forbes, Buchanan, Quayle, Bauer, Smith, and Keyes, my bet is the only way any of them will be taking the federal oath in January 2001 will be if they're called to jury duty.