Some Question His Temperament : Dole Likely to Go All Out in 1988 Presidential Race

With polls showing Senate Republican leader Bob Dole gaining and Vice President George Bush slipping among GOP voters, the Kansas senator is poised to launch a full-scale campaign for his party’s 1988 presidential nomination.

Dole now talks openly and enthusiastically about what he sees as a distinctive ability to recruit Republicans of all stripes--from New Right conservatives to Ripon Society liberals. He declares himself “comfortable” with the idea of being President. He has even taken a physical exam in preparation for what he knows will be a grueling ordeal.

As a further sign of Dole’s preparation to take the plunge, his wife--Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole--already is compiling names and addresses of her husband’s supporters and waxes eloquently about the opportunity to hit the campaign trail and tell GOP voters “what I know of this man who’s got a laser-beam mind that cuts through the complexities of issues.”

In separate interviews with The Times, neither Dole left serious doubt that the 63-year-old senator, who is scheduled to announce the formation of an exploratory committee for his candidacy March 3, will ultimately enter the race. “I think I’m ready to do it,” he declared, “ready to give it a try.”

“I’d be an enthusiastic helper and he’d make a tremendous President,” his wife said.

Heavy Travel

Dole, assuming that he goes ahead, plans an all-out effort that he said would include heavy travel schedules for him and his wife. That means Dole probably would relinquish his post as Senate Republican leader and Mrs. Dole eventually would resign as transportation secretary, although she emphasizes that she has no plans to quit anytime soon.

The senator--a World War II hero who was badly wounded and has learned to overcome the residual damage to his right arm and shoulder with an iron will--is widely credited here for his skillful Senate leadership. He not only protected President Reagan’s flanks in Congress, but also played a key role in steering major White House legislative proposals through Congress, including the landmark tax reform act of 1986.

At the same time, Dole has found ways to maintain a degree of independence from the Reagan Administration, avoiding the image that dogs Bush of a politician so obsessed with appearing loyal to his President that he has no identity of his own.

Still Trails Bush

But if the senator’s prospects are blooming and the Doles are optimistic about his chances for the nomination, he also faces some formidable hurdles as he girds for the race:

--Even after Dole’s climb and Bush’s decline in the polls, the vice president still holds a 2-1 lead in national surveys of Republican voters.

--Dole acknowledges that he is “light-years” behind Bush in organizing, a deficiency that could become serious if it is not soon corrected because of the unusually large concentration of state primaries and delegate selection caucuses that will occur in the first 12 weeks of 1988.

--Organizational and scheduling problems have plagued Dole’s political campaigns in the past and raise doubts about whether he has the talents needed to mount an effective national campaign. Longtime associates say that by refusing to delegate and trying to run his own campaigns in the past, Dole has added to the chaos and inefficiency that accompany almost all political efforts.

--Never a favorite of the party’s right wing, which plays a crucial role in naming the nominee, Dole has wooed the conservatives to the point of “pandering,” in the view of some Republicans. That effort could backfire and cost the senator support among party moderates.

Questions on Temperament

And potentially more important than these political factors are lingering questions about Dole’s temperament, whether he has acquired the capacity to discipline his feelings and focus his energies in ways that may be necessary for winning the nomination and the support of his fellow countrymen as President.

In particular, although Dole has learned to curb the razor-sharp tongue that made bitter enemies for him in the past and now turns it to self-deprecating advantage, associates say he still has a quick temper and a get-even mind-set that sometimes make him lose sight of larger goals.

“There are two Bob Doles,” a former campaign aide said. “One is the most engagingly delightful, pleasant, although caustic fellow you’d want to know. The other is black as the ace of spades, and if he’s down and feels things going against him or somebody’s screwing him over, he just gets nasty and loses focus on the greater goals and spends his time thinking about how to get even.

“And when he gets like that there is no dealing with him. He’s inclined to call you up at 3 o’clock in the morning and raise hell,” the associate said.

‘Self-Destruct Streak’

“He has a self-destruct streak,” another former aide said. In 1980, when Dole made a short-lived bid for the GOP presidential nomination, “he was carrying around his 1976 experiences (when he was President Gerald R. Ford’s running mate) like it was yesterday. Most people would have mellowed out, but if a name came up from the ’76 campaign and he heard that person had said something about him he didn’t like, he would cross him off his list.”

In 1979, for example, when Dole was preparing to seek reelection to the Senate, he became involved in a dispute over campaign spending with a management firm called Response Marketing Group. The disagreement led to a lawsuit by the firm and a countersuit by Dole. But the matter was aggravated and magnified politically when Dole--at a breakfast meeting with reporters in Washington--waspishly described the firm as “Rip-off Marketing.”

Eventually, Dole settled the dispute with a $100,000 payment, but his remark and the accompanying criticism of the firm were seen by associates as an unnecessary, self-created problem for him on the eve of his Kansas campaign.

Fortunes on Rise

Despite such potential problems, Dole’s fortunes are clearly on the rise.

In the aftermath of the Iran- contra scandal, polls show him not only gaining ground on Bush nationally, but also now leading the vice president in the nation’s first presidential test--the Feb. 8, 1988, Iowa caucus.

And nationally, Dole is far ahead of two potentially serious rivals: Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) and Dole’s predecessor as Senate Republican leader, Howard H. Baker Jr. of Tennessee.

Dole has been concentrating his early efforts on Iowa and the second crucial test--the Feb. 16 New Hampshire primary. He is also counting on a strong showing in the Feb. 24 South Dakota primary, where Sen. Larry Pressler and former Sen. James Abdnor are actively supporting him. South Dakota is the last contest before the March 8 “Super Tuesday,” when 10 Southern states and three border states will hold presidential primaries or caucuses.

In two previous national campaigns, problems of Dole’s own making have undermined his candidacy. In 1976, as Ford’s running mate, he earned a reputation as a hatchet man for his slashing attacks on Jimmy Carter, the Democratic nominee, and Carter’s running mate, Walter F. Mondale. In fact, some political analysts attributed Ford’s narrow loss to Carter to Dole’s 1976 performance, including his debate with Mondale during which he accused the Democratic Party of being responsible for past wars.

Aides Resigned

In his 1980 presidential race, one of Dole’s campaign managers and a press secretary resigned after only a month on the job. And in New Hampshire, his state operations director, state Sen. Raymond Conley, and seven other staffers resigned, with Conley protesting that Dole’s Washington staff “figured they knew how to run New Hampshire better than we did.”

Three people who worked as officials in his past national campaigns, as well as two well-known Republican political consultants who have worked closely with him--all of whom agreed to be interviewed on condition they not be identified--questioned whether Dole, with his track record, is capable of putting together an effective campaign organization and would be willing to let someone else run the campaign.

“He’s a superb politician, but he’s always sure he knows more about a political subject than his campaign advisers,” a longtime Dole associate said. “He won’t let go of the political decision-making process. And you can’t get away with that at the national level, where there’s so much ground to cover and so much media attention and the candidate has to worry about what he’s going to say.”

Egos, Personalities

Dole rejects the idea that he may have trouble putting together an efficient campaign organization but concedes that with all the egos and differing personalities involved, mounting a presidential bid is like “trying to put together a bottle of steam.”

And already there are problems on the horizon. Even he raises some questions about what he calls the “basic group” he is assembling for the ’88 race.

Friend to Run Campaign

Despite a lack of recent political experience, a longtime Dole friend, Bob Ellsworth, chairman of the senator’s Campaign America Political Action Committee, will run the campaign and “won’t be a figurehead,” Dole said. Other members of the group include Donald J. Devine and Bill Lacey, who also are officials of Dole’s PAC, and John Sears, a highly respected Republican political consultant.

Ellsworth, a former congressman, former NATO ambassador and former Defense Department official, is “good on foreign policy but has to catch up a little on day-to-day politics,” Dole said.

“But I want somebody who is concerned about my agenda,” he said. “I don’t say they’re all concerned about their own, but obviously a lot of those guys have more than one agenda and they’re good people. Don Devine has done a good job. Bill Lacey, he’s excellent; he does all the day-to-day stuff. Sears I think would be good in a strategy area. What John Sears has is not management or money but, as I view it, strategy.”

The Doles, both dynamic speakers and experienced campaigners, already are a formidable force as they crisscross the country on speaking tours. Although he says an official announcement of his candidacy will not come until spring, Dole is unabashedly seeking support, concentrating most of his early efforts on the early tests of strength.

In her speeches, meanwhile, Secretary Dole sticks to transportation issues, but in question-and-answer sessions the senator’s presidential ambitions come up.

“People tell me they hope he runs,” she said, laughing knowingly, “and I say he’s taking a good look at it and let me take your name, address and telephone number.”

Mrs. Dole, who married the senator in 1975, has been credited by many of his associates with smoothing off some of his sharper edges on the campaign trail, although she contends that he never deserved the “hatchet man” label applied to him in the 1976 campaign anyway.

In his slashing attacks on Jimmy Carter, the Democratic nominee, Dole was merely carrying out the role assigned to him, she said: “In fact, President Ford called him at one point to say he was not being tough enough on Carter.”

Dole ‘Has the Backbone’

Mrs. Dole, citing her husband’s 25 years in Congress, said he offers “leadership based on experience and has the backbone to stand up on tough issues and is sensitive to what his life is capable of accomplishing. He has shown strength through adversity.”

Neither Dole hesitates to discuss the crippling World War II injury he suffered as a platoon leader during an attack in the Po Valley of Italy on April 14, 1945, or its impact on him. He suffered cracked vertebrae, a shattered right shoulder and a broken neck. He also lost one kidney. Doctors thought he would never walk again, and he permanently lost the use of his right arm. But after three years of recuperation and therapy in Army hospitals he emerged ambulatory and with full use of his left arm.

“All that time he spent in a hospital had a profound impact on his life,” Mrs. Dole said. “He’s compassionate; he’s an activist, and he cares.

“A few years ago I ran into the nurse who cared for him, Pat Lynch of Boone, Iowa, and she told me, ‘You know, your husband was completely paralyzed and in a body cast, but I wheeled him around the wards because he has a sense of humor and he cheered up the other patients.’ ”

Mrs. Dole also tells of the time in 1983 when Dole appeared late for a bankers’ meeting in Kansas and encountered two young people outside the meeting room with their disabled parents, one of whom was completely paralyzed. A banker tried to rush Dole into the meeting, but he resisted, saying he had to talk to people who needed his help and were looking for assistance.

Tears in His Eyes

“When he came back and told me about it, tears welled up in his eyes,” she said. “And he said, ‘Elizabeth, I’ve been wanting to start a foundation for the handicapped and I’m going to do it.’ Well, he set it up in a week and he spends a lot of time raising money for it.”

Incorporated in 1983 as the Dole Foundation for the Employment of Persons With Disabilities, it has distributed $1.25 million in grants.

Dole said he already has taken a physical in preparation for the campaign “because people are going to ask, ‘What about Bob Dole’s health?’ ”

“I have been in the hospital a lot. I’ve had a lot of operations,” he said, referring to the medical ordeal after he was wounded.

More recently, Dole said, he underwent a heart catheterization after a stress test indicated the possibility of problems. In the catheterization procedure, dye is injected into the heart through a thin tube, enabling doctors to view the heart’s action. Dole said the test showed no problems; nor did the rest of the physical.

‘Hatchet Man’

His wife’s defense of his political style notwithstanding, Dole has a long history as an aggressive, slashing campaigner. When President Richard M. Nixon named him the Republican Party chairman in 1971, then-Sen. William B. Saxbe (R-Ohio) called him a “hatchet man” who is so antagonistic he “couldn’t sell beer on a troop ship.” And a White House spokesman described him as “a hungry Doberman pinscher.”

Dole defended Nixon to the bitter end in the Watergate scandals, and afterward in 1974 won reelection by fewer than 15,000 votes.

Although he has been much more circumspect in commenting on the Iran-contra affair, he has spoken out so frequently on it and been on television and newspaper front pages so often that John Buckley, Kemp’s press secretary, saw an opportunity to chide a rival for being “too eager to make news over the corpse of a popular President.”

Dole quickly called for a congressional investigation after the arms sales to Iran were exposed last November and was just as quick to assess the political ramifications of the controversy. If Republicans want to have any chance in 1988, he said, “we ought to cut our losses, and do it as quickly as possible.”

But, although he has urged Reagan to disclose all the facts of the arms sales and has declared his opposition to the sales, he has expressed confidence that when the President “has all the facts, he will re-establish the Administration’s credibility by doing what has to be done.”

Government’s Role

Discussing his own candidacy, the senator said he believes that in 1988 people will be “looking for someone who understands that government does have a role to play” in solving a variety of problems.

“I have enough self-confidence that I understand what the President of the United States does . . . that I’d be very comfortable there; I wouldn’t see it as being under pressure. I’d see it as dealing with Congress and . . . the odds are Congress will be Democratic in 1989.

“I can work with Congress and I can find good people to serve in government in the various agencies. When you get down to the basics of the presidency, you’ve got to understand first how it works and you’ve got to ask yourself, ‘Are you up to it; are you tough enough; are you willing to make decisions?’

“And then you’ve got to figure out where you want to go, what you’re going to do about it other than to say we’ll take care of the deficit, take care of catastrophic health care, take care of the homeless,” Dole said.

“And we’re doing some preliminary work on that and when we make our announcement, we’ll have a statement that people can understand that this is where Bob Dole would go, whether it’s agriculture or something else or foreign policy.”