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| POST-AMES ANALYSIS | |
 August 16, 1999 
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As a result of the Iowa straw poll, Lamar Alexander becomes the first Republican presidential candidate to drop out of the race. After a background report, Washington Post reporters Dan Balz and Kevin Merida assess the weekend's winners and losers.
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MARGARET WARNER: Joining me to explore the impact of the straw poll
are two Washington Post Dan, we heard Lamar Alexander say he had to get out because he just couldn't raise any money. Was it really that hopeless for him? |
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| Alexander bows out | |||||||||||
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DAN BALZ: I think that it probably was. He had spent, as the piece
said, more time and energy trying to organize MARGARET WARNER: Even from the outset. Kevin, Dan Quayle, who did worse
than Lamar Alexander, says he's come, though, to a different conclusion.
What are he KEVIN MERIDA: Well, they are trying to present themselves as the mainstream conservative, the one conservative that can unite the Reagan coalition, and essentially what they're doing is looking for, as they say, a moment of vulnerability. They think that Bush will slip somewhere, somehow, and that they have the record to step into that. They say that Steve Forbes, you know, that the last time the party nominated an untested fellow he happened to win a war, you know, and that was General Eisenhower, and they're not going to nominate a guy who has never served office anywhere. And so they're holding on to that thin shred of hope. It looks pretty bleak for them right now, because you see that Dan Quayle gets 916 votes in the straw poll, not even, you know, 400 more than Orrin Hatch, who just got in the race and is essentially making a similar claim, that he's a distinguished senator with a long track record of experience, and he just got in and he gets, you know, almost what Dan Quayle gets. So it's very difficult for them to make the case. One other point I'd make, Margaret, about Quayle is that a former Quayle staffer was saying to us last night, it's the one thing that's hard to overcome in American life, and that is ridicule. I mean, you can - you can come back from anything - you know, robbing banks - you can come back and make a case for yourself, but ridicule is a very difficult thing to overcome, and you see that constantly with Dan Quayle, him fighting that and people say, yes, we like his message, he's a nice guy, he's not the dunce, the bumbler that the media, you guys, portray him as, but they say, we don't think he can quite make it, and they don't want to risk a vote for him. |
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| An underwhelming victory for Bush? | |||||||||||
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MARGARET WARNER: All right. Dan, George W. Bush, now, of course, he won, but as all the other candidates pointed out - seven out of ten people there - said they wanted someone else. What's the thinking inside the Bush campaign now? I mean, what do they think the message of Ames was for them?
MARGARET WARNER: Are they troubled by the rise in criticism - and we heard it again from Lamar Alexander today - that he is untested; that he tends to be vague or superficial in his answers. It takes different forms, but, I mean, are they troubled by that? Do they think they have to address it? DAN BALZ: I think they know they have to address it. I think what they hope to do is address it on their own time, rather than the other candidates' time or on the media's time. They've said repeatedly, and Gov. Engler of Michigan, who is one of Bush's leading supporters, told reporters yesterday in Iowa that they would begin to lay out more specifics about his positions on things but not necessarily on the timetable that the media wanted. MARGARET WARNER: All right. Kevin, let's turn to Steve Forbes. Now, as we pointed out, he's spent more than anyone else. Did he get what he paid for?
MARGARET WARNER: We should point out, Kevin, that this was while Forbes was trying to give a speech; you couldn't hear a word. KEVIN MERIDA: Exactly. You couldn't hear a word. But the thing about it - a more skilled politician, perhaps, would have turned to self-deprecating humor, would have deflected it and made it an asset and Forbes just kind of kept talking along and people kept laughing. And so he's a lot better than he was in '95 when he first started his race, but he's not quite as gifted a politician and you wonder if that's going to - if he's going to be able to do better as we go along. |
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| On the heels of the front-runner | |||||||||||
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MARGARET WARNER: And Dan, didn't the Forbes people think that they might even come closer to Bush than they did?
MARGARET WARNER: All right. Now, Elizabeth Dole, how does her campaign expect to capitalize on everyone, suddenly saying, wow, she - DAN BALZ: I think they were probably the happiest campaign coming out of Ames because a lot of people had said she started with great promise and had not seemed to be able to capitalize on it. So what they are hoping is that the third place finish revives her candidacy and more important brings in fundraising help that they've been unable to get. Their real problem at this point in their own mind is money, and they need more of it fast. MARGARET WARNER: Kevin, let's turn to the special conservatives - and I don't know if you could hear my piece - Gary Bauer saying I think some of the other conservative candidates should get out. There had been talk that the social conservatives should start to coalesce behind someone. I know you spent a lot of time out there. Do you see any move in that direction, the social or Christian conservatives moving behind one candidate? KEVIN MERIDA: No, I don't see that yet. I think Gary Bauer is making
that -- Steve Forbes hopes to make that claim. The fact is, is that
between - among Buchanan, MARGARET WARNER: And speaking of Pat Buchanan, Dan, did he later rest or did he clarify at all what he's going to do, all the speculation that he might leave the party, that he might run on the Reform Party ticket? DAN BALZ: Quite the opposite. I think he's continuing to feed the speculation that he could well abandon the Republican Party at some point next year. I talked to him yesterday. He was disappointed in his finish in Iowa, but he thinks there may be ways that he can improve on it. He's going to go down that road for a while, but he's made very clear in a way he didn't four years ago that he may be looking at the chance to run for the Reform Party nomination. |
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| McCain's no-show | |||||||||||
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MARGARET WARNER: Kevin, finally, the guy who stayed out of this, of course, was John McCain. What are his people thinking now?
MARGARET WARNER: So you would you agree, Dan, that the field of sort of mainstream alternatives to Bush remains very crowded even with Lamar Alexander out? DAN BALZ: I think you have what Tom Rath, who was an adviser to Alexander, said today, and that is that you have two races at this point: You have a race to become the alternative to George Bush. Now there are people in the establishment wing of the party vying to be that person, and there are people in the social religious conservative wing vying to be that person, but Tom Rath said in addition to that you have a second race, and that is for that alternative to persuade people that he or she is able to defeat Bush. So you've got a tough fight ahead for all of the people chasing George W. Bush. He came out of this not necessarily strengthened but still a strong front-runner. He has things to prove, but they do too.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And for more on the Iowa straw poll you can turn to the Washington Post and the NewsHour Web sites. |
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reporters
who were also in Iowa for much of the past week: Dan Balz and Kevin
Merida. Their appearance here tonight kicks off a special association
between the NewsHour and the Washington Post for the 2000 presidential
campaign. Members of the Post political team will be joining
us periodically to report on campaign developments.
Iowa
than any candidate has done, and he's run for six solid years. I think
he came up against the straw poll, saw the result, and realized there
was no point in going on. I think it's a demonstration first that this
contest is much more accelerated than any we've seen in the past. Usually
people don't leave the race until the Iowa caucuses. They're now leaving
after the Iowa straw poll. He's the third candidate already to drop
out of the race. I think it was an acknowledgment of Gov. Bush's great
strength at this point as a candidate, that he is a dominant front-runner.
But I also think it may signal, as one his advisers told me today, the
end of what we've seen as a 20-year model of running for President,
that you could go to Iowa and invest time and do campaigning face to
face and emerge, if you were a dark horse, as a national candidate.
I think we now have a much more national race, and that old model doesn't
work as well.
and
his people banking on? Why do they think they can continue?
DAN
BALZ: I think the message for them or their sense at this point is that
they got out of this and did pretty well but they're very glad it's
over. They debated long and hard whether to get into this because Gov.
Bush arrived at this campaign on the trail late, even though he had
a lot of advantages. Iowa is a state that demands organization, and
they had, as they say, 63 days to do it. I think they're happy with
the result. It was a good victory, but, as you say, it was not an overwhelming
victory. It did not measure up to the dominance he has either in the
polls or in his campaign war chest.
KEVIN
MERIDA: Well, he's certainly spent a lot. He had some great stilt walkers
and mountains - inflatable mountains - and quite a festival. I think
they feel that they got what they wanted, and they're going to continue
to present themselves as "the" conservative alternative, and
they like the fact that Liddy Dole, at least for now, finished third,
that Bauer wasn't close, because they can - it buys them some time they
think, to present the case that it's a two-man race, that they have
the money, that they have the message. But the thing about Forbes that's
interesting is that he still was not comfortable in the political arena.
I mean, you saw that with the balloon drop scenario where balloons were
flying down into the Hilton coliseum and people are popping them. I
think Al Franken had said something like it sounded like he was in a
microwave oven. I mean, and popcorn's popping everywhere - and -
Bauer,
and Keyes, they basically matched Forbes' vote. That's 5,000 votes right
there, and I think those votes are still up for grabs, and actually
Gary Bauer - the early word was that he was going to do much better
than he did, and I think that a lot of people were surprised that he
didn't do - he just barely finished above Pat Buchanan, which allowed
him to say we survived. And so I think that vote is very much up for
grabs.