ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 6, 1996 TAG: 9612060039
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
If things had gone the way Lamar Alexander had hoped, he'd have been busy picking his Cabinet about now.
Instead, he was in Roanoke.
As the former Tennessee governor put it, the voters in last spring's Republican presidential primaries gave him an early "vacation."
So what do former presidential candidates do? This one was at the Hotel Roanoke on Thursday, delivering the keynote address at a Virginia Tech economic development conference, talking about how his home state succeeded in attracting new jobs.
Afterward, he made it clear he'd like a new job, as well - by running for president in 2000.
Until then, Alexander is telling fellow Republicans they need to retool their message if they hope to regain control of the White House. Specifically, he says the Republican campaign in 1996 sounded too negative for many voters.
"If you want to abolish it, end it, stomp on it, send it away, we're your party," Alexander said. He said Republicans shouldn't change their positions, but should adopt a more upbeat approach. "If all you talk about is abolishing the Department of Education and [supporting] home schooling - both of which I favor - then you miss about 90 percent of the people. We need to learn how to complete our sentences and talk about how we're going to create the best schools in the world."
Alexander said Republicans - at least - need to be "more interested in being a governing party and not a think-tank party."
He suggested that "voters knew exactly what they were doing" when they re-elected a Democratic president and a Republican Congress. "They elected a Democratic president who said the era of big government is over. They refused to entrust everything to us because we didn't say what the future would look like if we were in charge."
As for Alexander's future, he's heading a conservative group called Empower America and leading a national commission on charity sponsored by the Brethren Foundation.
He also figures to spend a lot of time helping Republican candidates. As for the presidential race, "I'm very much interested," he said. "I'm going to be at the front of the line."
LENGTH: Short : 50 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART/Staff. Former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexanderby CNBspeaks at the Economic Development Conference Thursday at the Hotel
Roanoke. color.