Dole Touts Experience as He Kicks Off Presidential Drive : Politics: He stresses values, less government and U.S. influence abroad.

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole formally opened his front-running drive for the Republican presidential nomination Monday, proclaiming a threefold conservative manifesto: reining in big government, restoring traditional values and reviving American influence abroad.

By committing himself to this political version of what Dole and his advisers refer to as “the three Rs,” the 71-year-old senator hopes to cure the defect that undercut the early promise of his 1988 presidential campaign--the lack of a compelling vision for the country.

“My mandate as President would be to rein in the federal government . . . to reconnect our government in Washington with the common sense values of our citizens and to reassert American interests . . . around the world,” Dole told a cheering, sign-waving crowd of about 4,000 in the Kansas Expocentre here in the city where his political career began more than 40 years ago as a member of the Kansas Legislature.

Dole flew later to New Hampshire, where the first primary election is scheduled next February and where Dole sought to erase an error from his 1988 campaign by signing a “no new taxes” pledge drafted by Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative anti-tax group. Many analysts have said that they believe Dole’s refusal to sign a similar pledge in 1988 cost him the crucial votes that allowed George Bush to win the New Hampshire primary.

Dole campaign manager Scott Reed said that the shift was made possible because the Republican-controlled Congress can be counted on not to increase spending--unlike the Democratic-controlled Congress of 1988--making new taxes unnecessary to control the deficit.

From New Hampshire, Dole headed to a $1-million fund-raiser in New York, where he already has won the endorsements of virtually the entire state Republican hierarchy. Later in the week, before returning to his hometown of Russell, Kan., on Friday, he plans to campaign and raise money across much of the country--touching down in Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Texas, home of the most intense of his current rivals, Sen. Phil Gramm.

“We want to raise a lot of money and . . . we don’t want anybody to take anything for granted,” said Bill Lacey, the Dole campaign’s vice chairman and chief strategist, when asked about the Texas stop.

Beyond that sort of tactical consideration, Dole’s campaign kick-off tour has a broad strategic objective--to help Dole rid himself of the bugbear that he lacks a coherent view of the nation’s future.

“In a presidential campaign, voters look at three things,” said Lacey, “character, leadership experience and message. No one can quarrel with Dole’s character and experience. Our only vulnerability would be if we don’t have a viable message and I believe that we have that.”

But it is not clear whether the “3 Rs,” which Lacey and other Dole strategists see as the center of his message, can really serve Dole as a unifying theme for his campaign. At times in his announcement speech, it seemed much less--just a rubric for a melange of standard ideas from the conservative catechism, ideas that do little to set Dole apart from his main rivals for the nomination.

In his speech Dole attributed much of modern America’s difficulties to the shift of power from localities to Washington to cure the Great Depression and win World War II. But he lamented that what had been a “life jacket” for an older generation had turned into a “straitjacket” for the present generation, making the federal government “too large, too remote, too unresponsive.”

The solution to this problem, Dole contended, lies in the strictures of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which reserves to the states or the people all powers not specifically delegated to the federal government

Promising to act in the spirit of that amendment, Dole singled out four Cabinet departments--Commerce, Education, Energy and Housing and Urban Development--which he vowed to dismantle in whole or in part. Along with performing major surgery on the bureaucracy, Dole pledged to restrain some federal policies, particularly affirmative action, which Dole said is “out of control.”

“Fighting discrimination should never be used to divide Americans by race, ethnic background or gender,” he said.

Another unfortunate byproduct of the growth of Washington power, Dole complained, has been the rupture of ties linking the nation’s political leaders to the country’s traditional value structure--”hard work, integrity, responsibility . . . the source of our strength and the glue that holds us together.”

While that message may not set him apart, Dole has plenty of other things going for him in this race--high name recognition derived from his long career, ready access to the national spotlight because of his role as GOP Senate leader, the ability to raise vast sums of money to finance his campaign, the experience gained from two previous presidential efforts and support from party leaders across the country.

Indeed, Dole already has so thoroughly locked up the Republican Establishment in one major state, New York, that several rivals sent a letter Monday to the state’s GOP governor, George Pataki, saying that they fear the state Republican Party is planning to block anyone other than Dole from appearing on the state’s April 7 primary ballot.

Under New York’s arcane election laws, party officials can use a host of technical requirements to try to keep challengers off the ballot, and some party officials have hinted that they may do so on Dole’s behalf. The four challengers--Gramm, California Gov. Pete Wilson, California Rep. Robert K. Dornan of Garden Grove and Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania--appealed to Pataki to change state laws to prevent such a move.

While other candidates fret about such problems, Dole basked in the glow of his front-runner’s status. At his kick-off event here, three high school bands blared a welcome when Kansas’ favorite son strode to the podium, flanked by his wife, Elizabeth, president of the American Red Cross, and Robin, his daughter from a previous marriage.

Only a nasty turn in the weather marred the event--forcing the ceremony indoors and canceling plans for a photogenic rally on the steps of the state Capitol.

At times in his 20-minute talk, Dole sought to set a lofty and statesmanlike tone befitting the high office he is seeking for the third time. At one point, he evoked memories of the celebrated “the torch is passed” passage from John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address in which Kennedy spoke of “a new generation of Americans . . . tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace.”

“And so today, tempered by adversity, seasoned by experience and mindful of the world as it is--yet confident it can be made better--I have come home to Kansas with a grateful heart to declare that I am a candidate for the presidency of the United States,” Dole said, referring to his readiness for office after recalling his arduous recovery from the severe wounds he suffered in World War II combat.

Dole has faced questions about his age--he will be 73 at the time of the general election in November, 1996--and underwent surgery for prostate cancer in 1991.

At other times Dole’s rhetoric recalled the hard-edged, take-no-prisoners partisanship that has been a hallmark of his style since he first came to Washington as a congressman in 1961.

Deriding President Clinton as merely “a clever apologist for the status quo,” who says “no” to every cut in spending and effort to return power to the states, Dole declared, pounding the air with his fist: “We need a President who shares our values, embraces our agenda and who will lead the fight for the fundamental change Americans chose last November.”

Turning his attention abroad, one area where he is prepared to grant full authority to the federal government, Dole admonished, “we must never be reluctant about our greatness or ashamed of our national strength,” and warned against “placing the agenda of the United Nations before the interests of the United States.”

By testing Dole in eight states over five days, the tour is designed to show that the candidate no longer is what he has too often been in the past--his own worst enemy.

“Even though he has performed flawlessly for the last few years, some people still worry that he is capable of blowing it all with a couple of dumb comments,” said David Keene, a 1988 Dole adviser who recalled Dole accusing rival Bush of “lying” about Dole’s record on the night of his defeat in that year’s New Hampshire primary.

But Keene and other Dole supporters said they believe that their candidate is far less likely to commit such a blunder in this campaign than he was in the past because he is more at ease with himself and his destiny.

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Profile: Bob Dole

Born: July 22, 1923.

Education: Studied at University of Kansas. B.A., University of Arizona. Law degree, Washburn University, Topeka, Kan.

Career: Kansas Legislature, 1951-53. Russell County prosecutor, 1953-1961. U.S. House, 1961-1969. U.S. Senate, 1969-present. Senate majority and minority leader, 1984-present. Chairman, Republican National Committee, 1971-1973. Republican vice presidential candidate, 1976.

Family: Married to Elizabeth Hanford Dole in 1975, three years after divorcing his wife of 23 years, Phyllis Holden. One daughter by that marriage, Robin.

Source: Associated Press