Alexander, Lugar drop out of GOP campaign
By John Digrado
Daily Bruin Staff
In the wake of GOP front-runner Sen. Bob Dole’s commanding
victory in eight presidential primaries Tuesday evening, former
Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander and Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar both
announced the end of their candidacy and pledged their support for
Dole yesterday.
"The apparent nominee is a man for whom I have great admiration,
Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, and I look forward to his nomination,"
Lugar said at a press conference announcing his exit from the
race.
Alexander, the moderate conservative who, according to some
experts, was the only candidate who could beat President Clinton in
November, also bowed to the pressures of the contest yesterday.
Alexander, also a former Secretary of Education, claimed he went
across America, asking if Dole was the man Republicans want to
oppose President Clinton.
"What I discovered is the answer of most Republicans is ‘yes,’"
Alexander said, as he was warmly cheered by a roomful of Tennessee
residents. Dole "has character, he has dignity," he added. "We gave
it our best shot."
With both moderate candidates dropping out of the race and
Dole’s impressive victory over the rest of the field on "Junior
Tuesday," experts believed that the race for the GOP nomination has
all but ended.
"It’s over – that’s all there is to it," said UCLA political
science Professor Thomas Schwartz. "Buchanan and Forbes were never
live options. It was always clear that the Republican party, if
only in late primaries, would never nominate them," he added.
Though both Buchanan and Forbes may stay in the race right up to
the August nominating convention, Schwartz claimed that neither
candidate has a realistic chance of winning the nomination due to
their relative lack of experience when compared with Dole.
"You can’t be taken seriously by the time that you get to (next
week’s) Super Tuesday (contest) if you just don’t have any visible
qualifications to do the job. Unless the candidate has some
relevant experience, he’s not going to be nominated (for the)
presidency," Schwartz said. "Voters are smart."
Other experts voiced similar doubts over Buchanan and Forbes’
chances of winning the nomination, saying that each of the
remaining candidates has quite a bit of ground to make up if they
are to knock Dole from his lead.
"He’s got 279 delegates (out of the necessary 996). I don’t
imagine where (the remaining candidates are) are going to make up
that ground," said Franklin Gilliam, a political science professor.
"My guess is that (they) will have a hard time stopping Dole" in
the remainder of the primaries.
Gilliam attributed Dole’s success Tuesday evening to his
superior campaign organization in multiple states. Though his
campaign stumbled early on in key states such as New Hampshire,
Gilliam predicted Dole will continue his march to the August
convention.
"It’s clearly the case that Dole has the organization to run
this sort of mass campaign," Gilliam said. "Candidates have to find
a way to (effectively) campaign in multiple states. We all know
that Dole has very deep organizational roots, and that if he could
weather the early storm" he would pull ahead, he added.
With Dole in the proverbial driver’s seat, his campaign is now
poised to take aim at the GOP’s real target – President Clinton.
After weeks of intra-party mudslinging, party leaders and Dole
campaign officials finally seem ready to tackle general election
issues.
"There’s no need to keep fighting among ourselves," said Dole
supporter Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar, urging others to bring an end to
months of Republican bickering. "The real opponent is Bill
Clinton."
Dole himself seemed newly confident of his party’s ability to
defeat Clinton in the general election.
"Pretty soon we’re going to reunite and find one purpose: to
defeat Bill Clinton in 1996," Dole said Tuesday night at a party to
celebrate his eight-state victory. "I will be very proud to carry
that banner."
Analysts remarked that Dole may not represent enough of a change
from the incumbent Clinton to bring about a resounding Republican
victory in November.
"I think (Dole is) going to have a hard time with Clinton,"
Gilliam said. "I would imagine that if I were the Clinton people,
Dole would be the one candidate I would want to see. He’s
essentially run on experience (to) this point. I don’t know what
sort of message he will put together to appeal to the
general-election voters," he said.
Depending on the state of the economy and voters’ perception of
Clinton at election time, experts said that the Republican party
may have a difficult time reclaiming the White House from the
Democrats.
"We’ve never had a case where the incumbent party was thrown out
of the White House unless there has been a high rate of inflation
or an economic recession," Schwartz said, a condition that
contributed greatly to former President Bush’s loss in the 1992
presidential race.
With reports by The Associated Press.Comments to
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