
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, April 11, 1994                   TAG: 9404120014
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: George F. Will
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

LAMAR ALEXANDER

LAMAR ALEXANDER was a two-term governor of Tennessee and U.S. secretary of education, but more to the point he was president of a university (the University of Tennessee). Having dealt with faculty parking and football boosters, the U.S. presidency hardly seems daunting, so he probably will seek the Republican nomination for that office, sounding an anti-Washington theme with which Americans usually agree: ``Leadership cannot come from Washington because solutions are not in Washington.''

Because senators work where television cameras are concentrated - in the capital, in the Capitol - their prominence lends them an aura of presidential plausibility. But the last two serving members of the national legislature to win presidential nominations - McGovern and Goldwater - carried a combined total of just seven states. Kennedy, Harding and Garfield are the only presidents elected while serving in Congress.

Americans may think Congress is no place to prepare for the presidency, perhaps because the capital's political culture is unwholesome. Another reason may be that legislators specialize in coalition-building and difference-splitting, whereas presidents should be prepared to take polarizing decisions. Governors take them. Alexander did, overcoming the public education lobby's resistance to reforms, including pay differential based on teachers' merits.

``I assume,'' says Alexander dryly, ``the Republican Party was voted out of office for a reason.'' The reason, he thinks, was that the party ``could not say what the promise of American life is in the '90s.'' To have his say about that, he has organized a continuing series of cable and satellite Republican ``meetings,'' featuring Republican luminaries (including his rivals for the presidential nomination) and watched by the party faithful at about 2,500 places, from Big Dog's Sports Bar and Grill in Las Vegas to the house with a satellite dish in western Nebraska where four women gather. This is, he knows, preaching to the choir, but, he says, ``the choir needs practice.''

Alexander dismisses Clinton's ``credit-card security blanket'' view of America's future and sounds a theme he acquired from Howard Baker, for whom he worked long ago, the theme of ``the citizen legislator.'' Congress, he says, should convene in January, pass the authorization bills, and be back home by the beginning of the baseball season. It should reconvene after Labor Day, pass the appropriations bills, and adjourn ``by Thanksgiving, maybe Halloween.''

Congressional salaries should be cut ``at least in half'' and all the so-called ethics rules, except those requiring full disclosure of income, should be abolished, so legislators could hold jobs and lead normal lives. New Hampshire, he notes, pays its state legislators $100 a year and that state (which he is not reluctant to flatter) has no scarcity of legislative candidates, and has low taxes, perhaps because the legislators lead normal lives among normal people.

The 1996 primary season will be so compressed that there will be virtually a national primary in March. About 70 percent of the Republican delegates - and probably the nominee - will be chosen by the third week of that month. This may mean a huge advantage for the well-heeled, such as Bob Dole. However, it is conceivable that a fresh face making a strong early showing could be propelled through March by the ``slingshot effect'' of free media - remember Gary Hart's giddy weeks after beating Walter Mondale in New Hampshire in 1984.

Alexander believes that if he runs he will be able to supplement any slingshot effect with hefty spending. His first electoral challenge may be to finish second to Dole in Iowa, but his immediate challenge is to start finding the $22 million to $25 million that he thinks a candidate will need to have raised before armageddon - California's winner-take-all primary, set for March 26. (California, which used to vote in June, has moved its primary to make it more decisive. It may have to be even earlier to matter: By the evening of March 19, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Tennessee and others, perhaps including New York and New Jersey, will have voted.)

Alexander believes a candidate will need $10 million in the bank by the end of 1995. ``I'm going to be prepared to do that. I've had some practice.'' He has raised $4 million for his television operation and expects to pick up the pace.

Alexander, who is 53, says he is getting ``intellectually, physically and financially prepared,'' adding, ``It's like a country music singer who's been slogging out there for 25 years and is suddenly discovered - here comes the spotlight.'' Spoken like a man who lives in Nashville but might want a change of scene.

Washington Post Writers Group

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB