ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 13, 1996 TAG: 9602130123
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: DES MOINES, IOWA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
note: lede
Sen. Bob Dole scored a shaky victory in Iowa's Republican presidential caucuses Monday night as Pat Buchanan emerged from the GOP field prepared to launch a conservative challenge in next week's pivotal New Hampshire primary.
Former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander ran a solid third and hoped that would be enough to give his cash-poor campaign a fresh start for the five-week blitz of primaries likely to settle the nomination fight.
All the candidates vowed to press on, but Iowa's results were sobering to publishing heir Steve Forbes, who was a distant fourth, and may have dealt a fatal blow to Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, who ran fifth.
With 97 percent of the vote counted, Dole had 26 percent, to 23 percent for Buchanan. Alexander had 18 percent, Forbes 10 percent and Gramm 9 percent.
Buchanan closed the Iowa campaign imploring supporters of anti-abortion candidate Alan Keyes to rally to his side. Keyes got 7 percent running on a shoestring budget. Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar had 4 percent and businessman Morry Taylor 1 percent.
President Clinton was unopposed in the state's Democratic caucuses, a luxury beside the bruising nature of the Republican race.
Rivals rushed to assert that Dole's win was hardly convincing, noting that he ran 10 points behind his 1988 showing. But Dole said his was hardly a weak showing, telling a victory rally, ``We withstood a barrage of millions and millions and millions of dollars of negative advertising and came out on top.''
Buchanan called his showing ``a victory for a new idea in the Republican Party and national politics, a new spirited conservatism of the heart'' he said would attract not only social conservatives but blue-collar workers worried about trade deals that send their jobs overseas.
Buchanan was the clear choice Monday of those who described themselves as very conservative or members of the religious right.
Alexander said the results proved Dole a fragile front-runner; and while congratulating Buchanan, he said the former White House adviser's protectionist trade views were ``dead wrong.'' He said Iowa had winnowed the GOP contest to a three-man battle, as if Forbes did not exist, and that he was the candidate with the best shot of beating Clinton.
Forbes said he was hardly through, insisting fourth place was ``a good springboard into New Hampshire.'' But just two weeks ago, Forbes was threatening Dole for the lead, riding the crest of a $4 million TV ad budget that shattered all records in the state.
Gramm aides considered pulling resources from New Hampshire and saving them for South Carolina and the Southern states to follow.
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP Sen. Bob Dole and his wife, Elizabeth, campaignby CNBMonday at the Principal Financial Group in Des Moines before winning
Iowa's Republican presidential caucuses. color KEYWORDS: POLITICS