Can Run Senate, Seek Presidency--Dole

Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), eyeing what he sees as a “wide-open” race for the 1988 GOP presidential nomination, said Thursday that he has the money and manpower to make the race and can run without relinquishing his post as Senate majority leader.

Dole predicted that the Republicans will retain control of the Senate in the November elections and said he has already informed colleagues that he is “inclined to stay on” as majority leader.

He made his comments during a breakfast session with reporters a day after Democratic senators complained at a closed caucus that, because of his presidential aspirations, the majority leader is playing to the GOP’s right wing and exercising heavy-handed control over the Senate agenda, thereby retarding progress of legislation.

Senate Minority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.), who served as majority leader from 1977 to 1981, declared: “I have always said you can’t run for president and also run this place right.”

Democrats accuse Dole--who as majority leader presides over the Senate--of using his power to thwart their attempts to offer amendments from the floor.

“To say the Democrats find it nettlesome the way Dole is operating is an understatement, and I can’t help but believe some Republicans are not terribly pleased either,” Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.) said in an interview. “No senator should be at the mercy of the majority leader in offering amendments.”

Situation ‘Awkward’

Dole himself has acknowledged that it would be “awkward” to run for the presidency while serving as the Senate leader. In an interview with The Times four months ago, he said that “you have certain obvious responsibilities to your Republican constituents in the Senate and to the President, so you find yourself sometimes wishing you were out of town when the vote is coming . . . .” But he said the post gives him visibility that would help in a presidential race.

At that time, Dole said his predecessor in that post, former Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr. (R-Tenn.), also a potential candidate for the nomination, made a political mistake by retiring from the Senate in 1984 and losing a forum that had given him great visibility.

In discussing his own presidential ambitions, Baker had indicated that, because of the majority leader’s extensive duties, he did not believe that serving in that post was compatible with campaigning for the nomination.

Not ‘Burdensome’

Dole, when pressed on that point at the breakfast session Thursday, indicated that he had no such reservations. If he has a chance of winning the nomination, he said, “it’s because people out there believe I’m doing something. I don’t see the leadership as that burdensome.”

Although Dole said he knows of no opposition to his retaining the leadership role after next November’s election, Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens is expected to seek the post, arguing that a presidential candidate will not have the time necessary to carry out the leadership duties. Dole narrowly defeated Stevens, 28 to 25, in the majority leader’s race in 1984.

With Republicans controlling the Senate by a margin of only 53 to 47 and occupying 22 of the 34 seats up for election in November, they face what has generally been considered an uphill fight to retain control of the Senate.

Reported Doing Well

However, Dole said the latest figures from the Republican Senate Campaign Committee show Republican candidates doing well in several states critical to the Democrats’ chances of regaining control, including Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Louisiana and Florida.

Disputing that assessment, Sen. George J. Mitchell of Maine, chairman of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, said Democratic candidates are well ahead in Nevada, North Carolina and Florida.