Turns Peppery After Criticism From Bush and Kemp : Dole Losing Bid to Curb His Tongue

Drip by drip, the acid is beginning to eat through the cork blocking Bob Dole’s sharp tongue.

Known for biting sarcasm and savage put-downs of critics, the Kansas senator has tried to restrain himself during his bid for the Republican presidential nomination lest he offend more voters than he amuses.

But the old venom is dribbling through as Dole comes under sharpened attacks from a pair of GOP rivals, Vice President George Bush and New York Rep. Jack Kemp.

Campaigning in this old mill town Tuesday, Dole was asked whether he had any reaction to the latest explanation by Bush of his role in the Iran-Contra scandal.

‘Confused Enough’

“Not really,” Dole deadpanned. “I don’t want to confuse it further. He’s confused enough.”

Dole has not been a perfect model of verbal decorum during the campaign, but the dike began to break this week as Bush launched new broadsides against lawmakers--including, by inference, Senate Republican leader Dole--for impeding rather than facilitating Reagan Administration initiatives.

On Monday, Dole twitted Bush for taking little part in pushing President Reagan’s tax initiatives and legislative agenda through Congress. “We did it all without him,” Dole said at a reception in Bedford, N.H.

‘Still Searching’

The next morning, Dole was still muttering about Bush. “He’s searching around for something he’s done and he’s still searching,” Dole said as he left an auditorium after delivering a speech.

” . . . Now if he wants to debate leadership, I’ll be happy to go one on one on this porch, anytime. For an hour, two hours, two days. But I don’t think he wants to do that. . . . I’ll be happy to talk to him and explain leadership to him if he has the time.”

Bush, campaigning in Concord, said he had “no response” to Dole’s remarks. He said he intended to “just keep on the high road, keep getting my message out.”

Criticizes Congress

But without mentioning Dole by name, Bush again Tuesday peppered his campaign speeches with criticisms of Congress and by extension the Senate minority leader.

“A President leads and members of Congress must follow,” Bush said.

Dole’s rhetoric has been even blunter when it comes to Kemp, whose campaign has found new vigor of late with polls showing him in striking distance of Dole in New Hampshire. Dole is generally considered the front-runner in Iowa but is second to Bush here.

Keyed to his rise in the polls, Kemp has made a last-ditch pitch for the important elderly vote in both states with charges that both Bush and Dole have backed tax increases and cuts in Social Security.

Brown Envelopes

Both men deny such claims, but one Kemp tactic in particular has left Dole fuming. Senior citizens throughout Iowa and New Hampshire in recent days have been receiving brown envelopes in the mail marked on the outside only with the words “Important Social Security Information.” Inside, is Kemp campaign literature warning recipients that his opponents want to cut their future benefits.

Dole ripped into the mailing in speech after speech Tuesday, calling it “deceptive,” “political trash” and “on the borderline of fair campaigning.” He accused Kemp of trying to scare the elderly with literature designed to look like an official government document.

Some Dole supporters have been even more outspoken in their criticism of Kemp. Sen. Warren B. Rudman, the New Hampshire chairman of the Dole campaign, accused Kemp of engaging in “the politics of fear and intimidation of a very vulnerable group” and advised Kemp to “clean up his act.”

Rudman has made a new radio commercial for Dole that, though it does not mention Kemp by name, clearly refers to him. “Desperate men do desperate things,” Rudman observes in the ad.