ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 3, 1996 TAG: 9603040040
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LEXINGTON
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
note: below
THE STUDENTS at Washington and Lee have spoken on who will be the GOP nominee. They're usually right.
Bob Dole - by a landslide.
The students who run Washington and Lee University's Mock Presidential Convention have spoken.
They put their school's stellar record for political prognosis on the line Saturday and predicted Dole would grab 1,257 delegates at the real GOP convention in August. They forecast that Pat Buchanan (379), Steve Forbes (169) and Lamar Alexander (82) would lag far behind.
If history is a guide, Dole will indeed go on to win the Republican nod: W&L's 88-year-old Mock Convention has correctly picked the nominee of the party out of the White House on 10 of its last 11 tries. The student-run convention drew coverage from The New York Times, U.S. News & World-Report and C-SPAN.
As voters trooped to the polls Saturday in a key Republican primary in South Carolina, more than 1,500 W&L students packed their school's gym to hear from House Speaker Newt Gingrich and then go through a state-by-state roll call vote.
The students have been doing intensive research and nail-biting analysis in recent weeks, trying to make sense of the mixed-up Republican nomination tussle.
"While amateurs are watching South Carolina today," Gingrich told the cheering students, "sophisticated folks are watching you."
Dole, the Senate majority leader, jumped to an early lead in the mock convention roll call vote. When he approached the 996 delegates he needed for a majority, the states began deferring to the Kansas delegation - which had taken a temporary pass on announcing its vote.
Kansas put Dole over the top by pledging all 31 delegates to its native son. Balloons dropped from the ceiling; the convention went wild.
Then Dole spoke to the convention by cellular phone. After initial confusion - "Hello? Hello? Are you there?'' - the Senator told the students, "Thank you very much. I accept the nomination."
The students also nominated retired Gen. Colin Powell as Dole's running mate. Unlike the presidential pick, the convention's choice for vice president is traditionally more a popularity contest than a realistic predication.
Afterward, David Stewart, the convention's general chairman, said student researchers believed Dole would win the nomination because Republican voters see him as a better match for President Clinton in the general election.
Even in conservative Deep South states, Stewart said, Dole is seen as "not as conservative as Buchanan, but he's still conservative enough."
Stewart said the decision to put California and all of its 165 delegates in Dole's ledger was a key to the outcome.
"But we just decided that the anger vote that Buchanan would get wouldn't be enough to overcome Dole."
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. ERIC BRADY/Staff Students cheer Dole's nomination atby CNBthe mock convention Saturday in Lexington. color
2. DON PETERSEN/Staff The 88-year-old Mock Convention at W&L has
correctly picked the nominee of the party out of the White House on
10 of its last 11 tries. color
3. chart - Mock convention roll call color STAFF KEYWORDS: POLITICS PRESIDENT