Campaign ’96 / VERBATIM : Bob Dole

Traditionally, Sen. Bob Dole has been among the most private of politicians. But increasingly this year, in an effort to make a stronger connection with voters, he has emphasized his personal story, as he did at a rally in New York this week. Here is an excerpt from his speech:

I want people to know that all of us up here . . . weren’t born in dark suits and ties. I think a lot of people are cynical about politics . . . They don’t know who we are. . . . Well, I wasn’t born the majority leader of the United States Senate. I was born in the little town of Russell, Kan., a long time ago. I think the population there was probably 5,500 or 4,500--it’s up to 5,500 now--we’ve had a lot of growth . . . I’m proud of that.

. . . My parents had a great influence on me. They didn’t get to finish high school. My dad wore his overalls to work every day for 42 years and was proud of it; my mother went all over western Kansas trying to sell sewing machines and vacuum cleaners. Six of us grew up living in a basement apartment so we can make ends meet by renting out the upstairs. I was born in a little house not any bigger than this platform with three little rooms.

I don’t tell you that because I want you to think, ‘oh, that poor guy, he ought to get a life.’ I went off to college. I remember the local banker, he loaned me $300. He said, ‘you ought to have a hat if you’re going to college.’ Well, I said, ‘if I’ve got to have a hat to get the $300, I’ll get a hat.’ So I got a hat; never wore it, but he was happy and I was happy and I got the $300. Like a lot of people in this room--that’s the point I want to make--very few started out with a silver spoon.

And like a lot of men in this room, women too, World War II came along, and a lot of us went off to war. We weren’t very excited about it; but it happened. . . . On April 14, 1945 . . . we started to march the Po Valley. And I was wounded. But that’s not the point. The point is it was pretty bad and it took me about 39 months to recover, before I could feed myself or dress myself or do a lot of little things you think about.

But the point of this is all, what I want to say is this: the people who look at us, and watch us on television and get the wrong impression, that somehow all we think about is power, we never care about people, we’re not sensitive to people with disabilities, or people who are down and out. That’s not true. I feel just as strongly about trying to help someone who needs help as you all do, because in my little town when I needed help they passed around a cigar box all over Russell and raised $1,800 because all the good doctors had left the army and I still needed some operations. They sent me to Chicago where a famous orthopedic surgeon named Dr. Hampar Kelikian operated on me, I think, seven times. And he would not take one dime because he had lost a brother in the war. But we paid the hospital the $1,800.

I know that could have been repeated . . . time after time after time. That was what was so great about America . . . .

I would just say to you . . . when you are calling your neighbors to get out the vote on Thursday, you ought to tell them you met somebody who might be a real person, somebody who might even care about people like me, people like you.