Lamar Alexander

Senate Republicans chose Lamar Alexander of Tennessee to be their third-ranking leader. Alexander, a former governor and presidential candidate, was elected chairman of the Republican Conference. He succeeds Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, who was elevated to the post of Republican whip. Kyl replaces Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott, who is resigning from the Senate.

On a still and hazy afternoon here last week, former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander was doing what he's been doing most days for the last five years: running for the Republican presidential nomination.

He had the nerve and he had the blood. And there never was a hoss like the Tennessee stud. --"Tennessee Stud" (1958) * Before all else, there was Tennessee's landscape: cool lonely mountains in the east, muggy open flatlands in the west, temperate gentle hills in the middle. The geography, in turn, shaped the people--poor and Republican in the east, poor and Democrat in the west, prosperous and moderate in between.

Patrick J. Buchanan, his face darkening and his voice rising, squared off against an 18-year-old Latino student Friday in an across-the-room bellowing match about immigration as polls showed him gaining ground and the Republican presidential primary race in Arizona tightening into a statistical dead heat. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), who skipped a debate in Arizona on Thursday night, campaigned in Oregon, where voting by mail began on Friday for a March 12 primary.

For Bob Dole, the best news in Monday night's Iowa caucuses was not his own disappointing showing, but an order of finish that kept the rivals he feared most from gaining a clear burst of momentum. With his unimpressive 26% showing, Dole only narrowly avoided disaster in Iowa. But his advisors took solace from the fact that his closest rival was Patrick J. Buchanan--a candidate the Dole camp continues to believe is too divisive to seriously challenge for the nomination.

Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas won the Iowa precinct caucuses Monday, but it was Patrick J. Buchanan, by finishing a strong second, who got the biggest boost for his candidacy from this first major test in the Republican drive to regain the White House. With 98% of the vote counted, this was the order of finish: Dole, 26%; Buchanan, 23%; former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, 18%; publishing magnate Steve Forbes, 10%; and Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, 9%.

Shortly after Lamar Alexander was named University of Tennessee president in 1988, he planned to have the school put up guests for events and football weekends at the nearby Blackberry Farm inn. But school administrators, citing conflict-of-interest concerns, cautioned Alexander against using the $200-per-night lodge as long as he remained a part-owner. Alexander assured them he had disposed of his interest in the property and proceeded to steer $64,626 in university business to the hotel.

Answering criticism that he is insensitive to working Americans, Sen. Bob Dole fired back on Saturday with an economic agenda that opens a new line of attack against both Patrick J. Buchanan, his chief opponent in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, and President Clinton.

Republican presidential contenders Patrick J. Buchanan and Bob Dole were locked in a close race and Lamar Alexander was running close behind Tuesday night as the three battled for votes and momentum in New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary. With 81% of the vote counted at press time, Buchanan had 27%, Dole 26% and Alexander 23%. The close results seem certain to prolong the GOP nomination battle, perhaps making California's March 26 primary the deciding contest.

Patrick J. Buchanan, self-proclaimed foe of the Republican establishment, won the New Hampshire primary Tuesday, suddenly reshaping the GOP presidential race into a contest between his conservative followers and the more traditional forces backing Sen. Bob Dole, who finished second, and Lamar Alexander, who came in third.