ByJACQUELINE ALEMANYCBS NEWS November 14, 2014, 1:31 PM

Catching up with the losers: The '96 campaign and GOP lessons for 2016

Twenty years ago, emboldened by Newt Gingrich's triumphant "Republican revolution" in the midterm elections, a raft of Republicans--some famous, some not so famous--readied their campaigns to take on a Democrat named Clinton in a race that may well echo in 2016, albeit with a different Clinton. The 1994 "Republican Revolution," had just taken hold, and Republican party scrambled for the GOP presidential nomination and the chance to take on President Bill Clinton in 1996.

It turned out to be more difficult than some of those candidates anticipated.

"My name-face recognition was pretty low," said former Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, one of the top-tier GOP candidates who fizzled out. "It was going to require a great deal, not only of my personal time on the trail, but also money. I underestimated this completely, as well as the need for a national campaign organization. This was naivete on my part, as to what a national campaign brings about."

The Republican race of 1996 was chronicled by journalist Michael Lewis in his book "Trail Fever." The book was later reissued with a different title: "Losers."

Through the twists and turns of Iowa and New Hampshire, Lewis followed his cast of characters: Lugar, now-Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, activist and former diplomat Alan Keyes, businessman Morry Taylor, Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, California Rep. Bob Dornan, billionaire Steve Forbes, conservative firebrand Pat Buchanan, and the eventual nominee--Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas.

Lewis found inspiration not in poll-topping front runners, but in the hard-working candidates at what he called "the bottom of the political food chain."

"The winners--political insiders like Dole and Clinton--came to seem mere reactionaries, almost irrelevant to the great questions of the day," Lewis opined of each party's 1996 nominees. "They did not lead the country; the country led them. Each morning they raised more money, paid for more polls, and then sat down and composed more ads."

The lesser candidates, the losers, were "braver men," he wrote.
Several of the ex-candidates sat down with CBS News, looking back on the campaign almost 20 years later with some wistfulness and a lingering sense of "What if?"

"I was encouraged by a poll which was conducted by a radio station in Indianapolis following the 1994 election saying I would defeat President Clinton by 20 points if I was the Republican candidate at that point," Lugar said of what prompted his decision to run for president.

Campaigning largely on his robust foreign policy expertise, Lugar, was not able to strike a chord with voters. Accused of being a bland candidate through and through, Lugar's defense was that he was the even-keeled, sober-minded candidate in a pool of notorious hotheads, some with extreme beliefs.

Alexander's decision to run was validated early on in 1996 in Iowa when he came in third in the Iowa Caucuses. He said he was giddy when Walter Isaacson, then the managing editor of Time Magazine, booted his reporter off the campaign plane to ride along with Alexander himself out of Iowa.

Dole won Iowa, Buchanan took second, followed by Alexander's stronger-than-expected finish.

"My highest high was election night at the Iowa caucus," recalled Alexander, who was known for wearing his signature red-and-black plaid shirts on the campaign trail. "I'd campaigned a lot, my wife campaigned a lot. And six months before the caucus, Dole was 50 points ahead of me, and then on caucus night we had volunteers with red and black shirts around and all these caucuses and when the results came in, I was third and it was pretty close."

Alexander came pretty close in the New Hampshire primary, too, but not close enough: He finished third again, and this time, third felt different than it had in Iowa, like the beginning of the end.
Instead, the story of New Hampshire was Buchanan, a Nixon disciple and conservative commentator, who scored a stunning victory over Dole in the New Hampshire primary.

The win cemented Buchanan as Dole's main conservative rival for the nomination, and to this day, he thinks he could have won it outright had other candidates not clogged the field.

"I was a long shot even after New Hampshire, but with all due respect to my good friend Bob Dole, I think that if Forbes, Keyes, and Dornan had dropped out, I think I would have beaten Bob Dole in Arizona.

I'm sure of it," Buchanan told CBS News. "And if I had beaten him in Arizona I could have beaten him in Georgia and South Carolina and I think that would have been it."

Buchanan, a frequent guest on political talk shows, understood the power of the television sound bite. As his old boss, President Nixon, used to say, ''The worst sin in politics is being boring.''

He recalled threatening to break down the doors of the Republican National Convention in San Diego to protest Dole's nomination.

"Look, here's what we do," Buchanan said at the time, still not endorsing Dole even though his nomination had essentially been secured. "We're going to San Diego. We break down the doors. We take over the party." Dole snarked back: "I think maybe he needs a little rest, more sleep."

At the end of the day, they all lost. But the gang has plenty of advice for the next generation of Republicans revving their engines for the same trip they made 20 years ago.

Lugar stressed the importance of building an organization and not relying on media attention alone to carry a candidacy: "You may hope that your campaign will catch fire, that the media and their coverage of you will excite people; it might, but not enough to make the difference," he said.

While Buchanan doesn't see any "Buchananites" in the crop of potential 2016 nominees, he said Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are the strongest contenders in the grassroots conservative wing of the party.

"I think the populist side will have two candidates who are very strong, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz," he said. "For the establishment, I think Jeb Bush is the front runner, but he doesn't look to me right now like he is in fighting trim, if you will.

"Jeb Bush, I think he's a fine fellow, he comes from a wonderful family that has served this country well, but I tend to disagree with him in a number of areas," Buchanan said. "I wonder if he would be a strong candidate."

Alexander said GOP candidates must talk about the future rather than just attacking President Obama or the Democratic nominee.
"They need to reassure us about safety, security and the economy," he said. "But a 'Morning in America' presentation of a bridge to the future, and optimism about our future, and competence in leadership--I think that's what Americans in the end look for in a president."

And their last piece of advice? Enjoy the ride.

"If you're taking a year off and you've got nothing else to do, running for president is very, very pleasant," Buchanan said. "You see the country!"

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