Keyes Wins Alabama Straw Poll

By PHILLIP RAWLS, AP
04:36 PM ET 08/28/99

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - The few who came, prospered, in Alabama's first ever Republican straw poll.  Talk show host Alan Keyes won the non-binding ballot with Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah finishing second and Texas Gov. George Bush, front-runner in the national race for the presidential nomination, third. Keyes, Hatch and Florida education advocate Angel Rocker were the only candidates who came.

``The only people showing up are the candidates with no chance of being elected,'' said Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. ``That diminishes the straw poll.'' Gary Bauer was fourth, Elizabeth Dole fifth and Steve Forbes sixth.

Keyes pulled 29 percent, Hatch 27 percent, and Bush 25 percent. The other seven candidates were in single digits.

Keyes' victory came after a stirring speech in which he encouraged delegates to vote their true feelings and not go with Bush just because he's popular.

``If you keep voting for people who are vague on the issues important to this country, you will be defeated and you deserve to be defeated,'' he said.

Lt. Gov. Steve Windom, one of Bush's Alabama chairmen, played down the outcome, saying, ``I don't think it has any significance outside this room.''

Even Hatch said Bush may be unbeatable. ``George Bush has it wrapped up because the party hierarchy is with him.''

State Party Chairman Winton Blount warned that candidates were risking ``snubbing a significant group of Republican votes'' by not participating. But Carl Grafton, a political scientist at Auburn University at Montgomery, said it wouldn't hurt Bush.

``After eight years of Bill Clinton, these people want to win the presidency,'' Grafton said. ``Just because Bush doesn't show up, they are not going to punish him.''

The pay-to-vote contest followed Saturday morning frivolities including live-elephant rides and a ball-throw at a Bill Clinton look-a-like in a dunking booth.

Unlike the Iowa straw poll, which Bush won two weeks ago, the Alabama straw poll did not allow candidates to pay for unlimited delegates. They could only sign up 100 delegates each for the $35 seats, but most didn't bother. That caused many to discount the poll's importance.

``You'd really have to be a political junkie to know about this,'' Black said.

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