POLITICS 88 : He Has Week in Illinois to Reverse Big Deficit in Polls : Dole Facing Another Survival Test

By an ironic twist of the electoral calendar, the worst day of Bob Dole’s political life brought him back to the state where he overcame the worst days of his entire life.

Gravely hurt in combat at the end of World War II, Dole spent 39 months in and out of hospitals. Finally, a doctor in Chicago was able to patch his badly mangled body together.

“It’s a long time ago that I walked out of Wesley Hospital after Dr. (Hampar) Kelikian was good enough to operate on me six times to get me back on the road to recovery,” Dole recalled Tuesday. “If we take a little bath today, I’m going to start my road to recovery again in the state of Illinois just like I did 40 years ago.”

Needs Heck of a Wallop

If the March 15 Illinois primary truly is the elixir that can revive Dole’s wounded presidential hopes, it better pack a heck of a wallop. His loss to Vice President George Bush in the Republican half of the Super Tuesday primaries was more like a tidal wave than a bath.

Despite the enormity of that rout, Dole remained feisty and defiant as he vowed to fight on rather than cave in to what many experts are saying is a now unstoppable Bush juggernaut.

“I don’t give up easily,” Dole said in Kansas City before flying to Illinois for a week of campaigning that even his aides admit will make or break his candidacy. “If I did, then I wouldn’t be standing here right now.”

William E. Brock III, Dole’s national campaign chairman, acknowledged that the campaign had suffered a “very heavy” psychological hit in Tuesday’s voting that would create “a lot of problems for us.” But Brock noted that other Dole aides said the Kansas senator, while “discouraged,” was determined to fight on.

Shows No Bitterness

Tom Rath, one of Dole’s senior advisers, said the lawmaker had already resigned himself to a big loss and displayed none of the bitterness toward Bush that he displayed after last month’s loss in New Hampshire when he publicly accused Bush of lying about his record. Rath, who was in Dole’s hotel suite in this Chicago suburb as returns rolled in, said the senator was calm, businesslike and, “classically Doleesque, assembling information, waiting to hear things.”

Dole’s battle for survival in the race, like his battle with death, will be tough--but much shorter. With barely one week to turn around a double-digit deficit in the polls, Dole also must fight a Bush organization in Illinois that is run by Gov. James R. Thompson and laden with most of the Republican heavyweights in the state.

Dole’s arsenal includes his Midwestern roots--an asset that proved a big plus in electoral triumphs he notched over Bush in Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota--and some intriguing independent surveys that indicate he would make a far stronger candidate against any of the potential Democratic nominees than would Bush.

At a rally in the rotunda of the state Capitol in Springfield, Dole stressed doubts about Bush’s “electability” as he called on the vice president to join him in a series of debates throughout the state just as Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas did in their classic battle for a Senate seat here in 1858.

“I don’t believe a Republican can be elected President who won’t come out and fight, who won’t come out and talk about the issues, who won’t come out and tell us where he stands,” Dole said after reading the text of a telegram to Bush formally proposing the debates.

Later, visiting Lincoln’s tomb in Springfield, Dole partook of an old Illinois tradition as he rubbed the nose on a large bust of the 16th President for good luck. At the same time, Dole could not resist rubbing Bush’s nose in his patrician background. When asked whom he thought Lincoln would vote for if he were alive today, Dole cracked: “Me. He made it the hard way.”

Dole then flew to Peoria, where he told a press conference that debates could be useful to “smoke out” Bush’s vague positions on a wide range of domestic and foreign policy issues. He also warned Republicans that Bush would have extremely short coattails at the top of the ticket, which could damage the election hopes of many Republicans running for state and local offices in November.

“Sooner or later . . . we’re going to have to fight out some of these battles on the Republican side because the Democrats aren’t going to let George Bush hide,” Dole said. “They’re going to want answers to a lot of questions, a lot of questions.”