Dole Seeks to Turn Budget Role Into Asset

GOP presidential hopeful Bob Dole, prevented by the Washington budget talks from campaigning freely, used an appearance here Saturday to try to turn his absences from the campaign trail into an example of leadership.

After enduring a week of attacks from other Republican candidates for abandoning his party’s hard line in the budget talks with the Clinton administration, the Senate majority leader told reporters that he was working while his rivals, most notably fellow Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), were out talking.

“I’m the one candidate with a job right now,” he said, noting that Gramm was absent from the Senate to campaign during many of the budget talks.

Dole flew to Iowa, site of the first presidential caucuses next month, to share a stage with 10 supportive Republican governors. But his time for the “Governors Cavalcade” was cut short so he could return to Washington for budget negotiations at the White House, forcing him to forgo a planned trip to Waterloo, Iowa.

*

“I am the leader so I’m there [in Washington],” Dole told a crowd of about 200 at the Des Moines Convention Center. “I don’t really have any option. It seems to me if I wasn’t there, I’d really be in trouble. The people want us there. They want us to do this. Our first obligation is to do our job. As the leader, my job is to get a balanced budget.”

For Dole, the early days of this campaign have been bittersweet. As the overwhelming front-runner in a field of nine major GOP hopefuls, he has held onto his comfortable lead in most polls despite withering attacks from his rivals. At the same time, the budget stalemate between Congress and the White House has pinned him down to negotiations in Washington, preventing him from campaigning.

Asked to respond to comments by Gramm, who claimed in campaign appearances that Dole “lost nerve” for attempting to usher a vote through the Senate to end the partial shutdown of the federal government, the majority leader lashed back.

“At least I had some [nerve] to start with,” Dole said. He then added: “I also served.”

The last comment was typical of Dole’s cutting wit--a double-entendre drawing attention to Gramm’s absences from Washington during the budget talks as well as the Texan’s lack of military service.

Asked if the comment was about Gramm’s lack of military service, Dole responded: “No. But I served.”

“I was there [in Washington] every day,” he continued, “but I haven’t seen Phil around.”

Dole said it was “just politics” for Gramm to criticize his efforts to reopen the government, noting that he worked through the Christmas holiday recess in an effort to get furloughed federal workers back on the job.

“Some came back [from holiday vacation] and second-guessed things,” Dole said. “But my view was that we did the right thing. Now we’re back on our message. We’re not talking about a government shutdown, we’re talking about a balanced budget.”

Dole went on to emphasize Gramm’s absence from the capital during the budget considerations by recalling events of Friday night.

Before the Senate voted on measures to reopen the government, “I said: ‘I understand there are some who would object to the last agreement, so let me ask if the senator from Texas is here.’

“I looked around the chamber, and, lo and behold, he wasn’t there,” Dole said. Gramm was campaigning in Iowa.

“I made a very specific point--because I don’t want to upset Phil--to see if he might be passing through Washington and wanted to object to the agreement.”

Nelson Warfield, the Dole campaign’s chief spokesman, acknowledged that the budget has forced Dole to push back a more aggressive schedule of campaign appearances that would have kept him out of Washington for all but three nights in January. Lost were trips to several key states, including Iowa, New Hampshire, Florida and Georgia.

*

“It’s been a positive for him because he’s able to demonstrate his leadership,” Warfield said. “At the same time, people expect retail politics and he hasn’t been able to go out as much as he would have liked.”

At his appearance here, Dole warmed to the cheers and applause of the supportive crowd. He called the governors sharing the stage with him, including Jim Edgar of Illinois, Kirk Fordice of Mississippi, Steve Merrill of New Hampshire and Terry E. Branstad of Iowa, the “true leaders in this so-called Republican revolution” and said he wanted to be elected president to return government’s power to the statehouses.