For Alexander, Florida May Be the Place to Draw Line in Sand

BOCA RATON, Fla. —  With his presidential bid as cold as the whipping winds he left behind in Vermont--one of the many states where he ran poorly in Tuesday’s cavalcade of primaries--Lamar Alexander has headed south intending to draw a line in the Florida sand.

Trekking from Miami to Fort Lauderdale to Boca Raton on Tuesday, Alexander said he plans to crisscross the state so much over the next seven days that he’ll soon be sporting a tan.

Florida is one of the two major prizes in next Tuesday’s slate of primaries (Texas is the other). And if Florida voters reject him, if Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole again leaves him in the dust, Alexander says he’ll call it quits.

Unless, that is, Tuesday’s losses were too discouraging for him to last even another week.

“My plan is to stay in right through Florida, then to beat Sen. Dole in Florida and stay in right through [the GOP national convention in] San Diego,” Alexander said at a rally in Fort Lauderdale.

But he did not sound particularly convincing. And as the magnitude of Dole’s victories on Tuesday became clear, Alexander planned to consult with his top advisors.

If he sticks by his decision to stage a last stand in Florida, it gives his long-shot campaign one last hurrah while confronting the grim political reality staring him in the face: despite respectable showings in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, he has yet to follow up with a victory in a single state.

Now that he has shed his red-and-black flannel shirt to campaign in the sunshine, Florida-or-bust could be his last attention-getting gimmick of ’96.

“What we need is attention,” Michael Murphy, Alexander’s chief strategist, said Tuesday aboard the campaign plane. “What we’re trying to do is frame the race in Florida so we get some attention.”

In recent days, that attention has been focused almost entirely on when Alexander would end his bid. Murphy criticized the media for conducting a “death watch,” for acting like Alexander “has nine arrows in his back.”

The game plan for Florida is to flood the airwaves with television ads painting the race as Alexander long has sought to depict it--a two-man contest between him and Dole on who is better suited to be the first president of the next century.

“I want to remind Republicans that this is not inside baseball,” he told reporters in Miami. “This is not a fraternity election. This is about the future.”

He had one small reason for cheer during the day. Students at Fort Lauderdale’s Pine Crest School selected Alexander as their GOP nominee at a mock political convention.

“I accept your nomination,” Alexander said at a raucous assembly in the school auditorium. “Even if they can’t all vote, I’d rather have the support of the young people because it’s their future that we’re talking about more than anyone else.”

But it’s the 18-and-over crowd that Alexander has to worry about.

“It’s hard to tell how he’ll do here,” said Jack Moss, an Alexander supporter who is chairman of the Broward County Republican Party. “He still has to get his name out there.”

Milly Cestone, a Boca Raton real estate agent, was even less enthusiastic. That, however, is to be expected: She was waving a Dole sign in the air as Alexander spoke in the center median of a ritzy Rodeo Drive-style shopping area in Boca Raton.

“Lamar is not going to win here,” Cestone said. “He doesn’t have a chance here. Alexander and all these people are fooling themselves.”

Mike Van Dyk, a Miami computer programmer who is secretary of the North Dade County Republican Club, reluctantly agreed with her.

“I think he probably won’t win, but I hope he wins and I admire him for trying to put up a fight,” said Van Dyk. “I have a message for Bob Dole: ‘Bob, why don’t you consider Lamar for vice president?’ ”