Dole’s Performance Raises Some Doubts

Bob Dole’s nationally televised response to President Clinton’s State of the Union speech set off a new round of worries Wednesday among some Republicans, who viewed the Senate majority leader’s performance as lackluster and a harbinger of his inability to win the White House.

The reaction couldn’t have come at a worse time for Dole, who stepped up his campaign this week to beat back a well-financed challenge by publishing magnate Steve Forbes. It reinforced perceptions among many party activists that, like many of his GOP rivals for the presidential nomination charge, Dole lacks the vigor and vision to compete directly with the younger, gregarious Clinton.

“If this is the best we can do,” then Clinton can easily gain reelection, Rush Limbaugh fretted on his influential radio program. “I was scratching my head” over Dole’s lack of “passion,” said Limbaugh, who until now has frequently defended Dole.

Patrick J. Buchanan, one of those competing for the nomination with Dole, said of the back-to-back speeches: “Our pitcher got shelled.”

Campaigning in New Hampshire, Buchanan added: “I did not detect passion [in Dole’s response]. I did not detect conviction.”

Undeterred by the criticisms, Dole moved aggressively to recharge his campaign in Iowa on Wednesday. He crisscrossed towns in the eastern part of the state in a two-bus motorcade that started in Cedar Rapids and included a stop at a prison in Anamosa.

Along the way, Dole issued fresh attacks on Clinton and Forbes, who is emerging as his chief challenger in Iowa’s crucial caucuses on Feb. 12. He displayed a podium-thumping oratorical style at a morning rally in Cedar Rapids, a noted contrast to his subdued style in the State of Union response the night before.

Clinton’s remarks, he said, had been dishonest. “When the president looked you in the eye and said he wanted a tax cut, you have to wonder,” Dole told about 125 supporters. “We want to downsize the government, not shut down the government. But there’s one obstacle in the way--nothing personal--but that obstacle is President Bill Clinton.”

Dole apologized for the bad weather and the federal budget impasse in Washington that have kept him from campaigning as extensively in Iowa as he had planned. But Dole and his Iowa aides pledged to shift his campaign into “overdrive” as he seeks a repeat of his victory in the state’s 1988 caucuses.

That year, Dole won with 37% of the vote. Analysts agree that he must obtain roughly that level of support to claim success.

Officials in the state GOP believe Dole has sewn up a third of the expected 150,000 GOP caucus voters, with a significant additional segment either undecided or within his reach.

Still, state GOP Chairman Brian Kennedy warned: “Iowa is tough for Bob Dole. Without a blowout victory, the rest of the country is going to shrug its shoulders.”

That kind of talk worries Darrell Kearney, Dole’s Iowa campaign manager in Iowa. He argues it’s unfair to hold his candidate to standards set in 1988 because Dole was running in a field of five candidates (including then-Vice President George Bush). In this year’s nine-person race, “it’s very hard for anyone to garner 37%,” Kearney said.

But Roger Linn, a county GOP chairman who has not picked a candidate, said: “He damn well better get over 30% or everybody’s going to say he lost it. I don’t think he will. And if that’s the case, he’s going to be perceived as a loser.”

As GOP loyalists in Washington and elsewhere pondered the negative perception of Dole’s Tuesday night speech, several noted that the setting favored the president. Clinton was delivering a formal address before a frequently cheering joint session of Congress, while Dole delivered his speech directly into a camera in an empty room.

Rich Williamson, a Chicago attorney and former State Department official in the Reagan administration, said Clinton went into the evening with a huge advantage. “The State of the Union is a statesman’s forum,” said Williamson, who has advised the Dole campaign.

Despite that, some Republicans were blunt in their criticism of Dole’s performance: “Some people are actually wondering if [Dole] was alive,” one GOP congressional aide said. “Get him a Diehard battery, would you? He looked like Vincent Price.”

Limbaugh said: “This is show biz. The Republicans still tend to be plagued by problems of marketing and packaging.”

Times staff writers James Gerstenzang and Gebe Martinez contributed to this story.