The Nashua Telegraph  
ran 17-Feb-96
by KEVIN LANDRIGAN
The Telegraph Staff
   Former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander appears to have become public
   enemy No. 1 to Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole's campaign entering the
   final weekend of the vote.
   
   The latest polls continue to show Dole and conservative commentator
   Patrick Buchanan in a flat-footed tie -- with 22 percent of the vote
   -- in a poll of 523 likely GOP voters done between Tuesday and
   Thursday by Dartmouth College's Rockerfeller Center for WMUR-TV.
   
   Alexander came in third in that poll with 16 percent followed by Steve
   Forbes with 14 percent.
   
   Pollster Linda Fowler said Alexander had the highest favorable ratio
   of all the candidates with 41 percent positive to 15 percent negative.
   
   
   But Fowler said nearly half of likely voters -- 44 percent -- said
   they haven't heard enough or are undecided about him.
   
   ''While this gives his support room to grow, time is running out,''
   Fowler said.
   
   On Friday, Dole brought out his strongest personal weapon -- Gov.
   Steve Merrill -- to attack the record of the former Tennessee governor
   in a 30-second television commercial.
   
   The Dole campaign is using Merrill speaking outside a home in
   Manchester to provide its final contrast between Dole, conservative
   commentator Patrick Buchanan and Alexander.
   
   ''New Hampshire taxpayers have a choice in this campaign. Pat
   Buchanan's own statements make him unelectable, and Lamar Alexander's
   tax-and-spend record is too liberal for New Hampshire,'' Merrill said.
   
   
   ''Bob Dole is the only candidate who's stood up to Bill Clinton and
   won.''
   
   Three weeks ago, it was Merrill who the Dole campaign enlisted to hit
   the airwaves to attack the flat-income tax plan of rival Steve Forbes.
   
   
   On Friday, Merrill also criticized Alexander for proposing as governor
   back in 1985 that the state adopt a constitutional amendment to permit
   a state income tax.
   
   Tennessee has no income tax, which Alexander often has said on the
   campaign trail in New Hampshire, the only state without a broad-based
   sales or income tax.
   
   ''It's more than a little disingenuous for former Governor Alexander
   to say there is no income tax when in fact he urged the Legislature to
   take steps necessary to adopt one,'' said Merrill chief of staff Steve
   Edwards.
   
   According to published reports at the time, Alexander offered the
   flat-rate income tax idea to raise the same amount of revenue as its
   existing code of state sales and property taxes, but lawmakers
   rejected the proposal.
   
   Alexander campaign Chairman Bill Cahill said the Dole strategy to
   attack his candidate will backfire.
   
   ''The fact is that many voters have been inoculated to Lamar because
   they have come to know him as he's campaigned here. Whether it's
   negative ads that distort his views, push-poll calls, you name it,
   that stuff isn't going to stick,[S O]' Cahill said.
   
   ''The Dole campaign at this point is a desperate one, and it is going
   to get increasingly more hostile as it gets to Tuesday's vote.''
   
   Alexander was the victim of a telephone phone bank campaign during
   which undecided voters were told unflattering statements about
   Alexander on taxes, spending and crime.
   
   In fact, the script used by the callers to registered Republican
   households in several central and southern New Hampshire communities
   was almost identical to an anti-Alexander ad that the Dole campaign
   began airing Thursday night.
   
   Abigail Beutler of Nashua said she was astonished at the charges
   leveled against Alexander after she had identified herself as leaning
   toward voting for him.
   
   If anything, Beutler said she was more inclined to vote for Alexander
   as she presumed the charges on taxes, spending and crime against him
   were not completely accurate.
   
   ''These kind of tactics denigrate the primary and that's
   unfortunate,'' Beutler said.
   
   Last week, magazine publisher Steve Forbes accused the Dole campaign
   of this form of calling known as ''push polling.''
   
   And during Thursday night's televised debate, Buchanan also accused
   Dole's campaign of employing the same methods against him.
   
   Cahill said he had no evidence who was doing the calling but insisted
   it won't work.
   
   
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