Texas Sen. Phil Gramm won another of the nation's early Republican straw polls by a modest margin Friday, receiving 416 votes from South Carolina party members surveying candidates for the U.S. presidency.
Gramm, who kicked off his 1996 presidential campaign pledging a conservative program of less government spending and lower taxes, won the straw poll by taking 35 percent of the 1,190 ballots cast in the preferential vote."I'm running for president because I believe that if you don't change the policy of our government . . . dramatically, in 20 years you're not going to be living in the same country that we grew up in," said Gramm.
"Whether you look at the tax burden or crime or illegitimacy, I think one inescapable conclusion that you have to reach . . . is that we are either going to change the way our government does business or we're going to lose the American dream," Gramm told the crowd assembled for the host state's Silver Elephant banquet and Straw Poll at the State Fairgrounds here.