Not Even White House Plea Would Stop Him, Dole Says

Kansas Sen. Bob Dole on Monday vowed that not even a plea for party unity from the White House could get him to quit his fight for the Republican presidential nomination.

Faced with another probable drubbing at the polls here today, Dole dug in his heels as he sharpened attacks on Vice President George Bush, the GOP front-runner.

At the same time, he made it clear his campaign would move on to the next battlegrounds of Wisconsin and Connecticut no matter how badly Bush beat him here. And to underscore that resolve, Dole was scheduled to visit both states today even as Illinois voters were still casting their ballots.

Says He’s in for Long Haul

Mocking rumors that aides were pressuring him to get out of the race, Dole declared he was in it for the long haul as he campaigned in Chicago’s Loop.

“All the pundits are saying it’s over for Bob Dole,” he told a breakfast meeting of the Chicago Executive Club. “It’s not over for Bob Dole. It’s not over now and it’s not going to be over tomorrow.”

Later, at a press conference, Dole was asked what he would do if he came under pressure from the Reagan Administration to quit rather than risk a protracted, intramural squabble in the party.

“It wouldn’t work, anyway,” Dole said of such a suggestion.

“Nobody’s going to decide for me,” Dole said, clearly signaling those around him to back off from talk about dropping out. “I’m the candidate who’s working every weekend, every (Senate) recess almost for the past three years. And so when a decision is made, it will be made by Bob Dole and nobody else.”

Dole made it clear he was far from making that decision. “If you’re out there and you’ve been twisting in the wind for six or eight months and you start to smell a little, then maybe somebody has to cut the rope just for your own good,” he said.

But later, in an example of his changing moods, Dole seemed to hedge when pressed on the point. “I’ll make that decision (whether to go on) after tomorrow,” he said in a live interview with NBC News.

Dole’s comments capped a chaotic week that saw him waver between caution and all-out bravado as he struggled to blunt Bush’s momentum after the vice president swept each of 16 primaries held last Tuesday.

At one point last week, Dole promised to “reassess” his effort in the light of his performance in Illinois. But as the voting grew closer and the press and party experts all but wrote him off, Dole’s resolve stiffened as did his rhetoric, as he continued to taunt Bush over the vice president’s refusal to accept a debate challenge.

“Why should somebody who’s as far ahead as he is be afraid to stand up and debate issues with somebody he indicates doesn’t have any leadership ability in the first place,” Dole said of Bush. “I think it’s a mark of weakness that he’s unwilling, with this big, big lead he has to say, ‘sure, I’ll take on Bob Dole any day of the week.’ ”

Will Continue to Prod Bush

If nothing else, Dole insisted, he would stay in the race to prod Bush out of his cocoon and begin telling voters what he stands for. Though Bush’s ties to President Reagan may be enough to win him the Republican nomination, it will not be enough to keep the White House in GOP hands in November, Dole warned.

“It’s not a photo album,” Dole said of his fight with Bush. “It’s a contest of issues and strengths and whether you can articulate where you want to take America . . . I don’t have nearly as many photos of Ronald Reagan as George Bush has . . . I can’t match him in photos but I can match him in record.”

Dole said it would be wrong to “cut and run” from the campaign so early and pointed to numerous telegrams, letters and phone calls he had received--including one from former President Richard M. Nixon--urging him to hang on.