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

DATE: SUNDAY, May 1, 1994                   TAG: 9405010044
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: ATLANTA                                LENGTH: Short

`WE WANT TO BEAT CLINTON BAD'

The last roundup is still two years off, but the stirrings here this weekend were unmistakable. For Republicans hungering to recapture the White House from President Clinton, it amounted to the first cattle call for 1996.

Five prospective Republican presidential candidates trooped through Atlanta over the past two days to preen in front of party activists from across the South, a region crucial to GOP hopes in 1996.

"People are here looking over the flock," said Alec Poitevint, the Republican national committeeman from Georgia. "No one's in a hurry to pick someone. We want to beat Clinton bad and we want to do the right things to do it."

For now, Republicans are focused on winning more seats in Congress and the statehouses this fall.

There was much to choose from among the five who spoke here.

Senate Minority leader Bob Dole, R.-Kan., talked foreign policy and blasted Clinton's leadership. Former housing secretary Jack Kemp pleaded with Republicans to reach out to black and Hispanic voters and expand the party. Two native sons, former Tennessee governor Lamar Alexander and South Carolina Gov. Carroll Campbell talked old-fashioned values and virtues. Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Tex., decried virtually everything Clinton has done or is trying to do.

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB