Dole Leaning to Reluctant Powell as a Running Mate

Sen. Bob Dole, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has not given up on the idea of selecting Colin L. Powell to be his running mate despite Powell’s reluctance and Patrick J. Buchanan’s threats to respond by leading a walkout at the GOP national convention, according to sources close to Dole.

Dole confidants have urged the Senate majority leader to ignore GOP rival Buchanan and ask Powell to accept the vice presidential nomination in the spirit of service to his country. Not choosing the retired general, who according to polls would be the strongest possible running mate, would make Dole appear weak and vulnerable to criticism that Buchanan dictated his selection, they argue.

Dole’s advisors, however, are deeply split between those who believe he should reach out to Powell or another moderate, such as New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, or pick an antiabortion proponent who would solidify his core vote and energize religious conservatives.

Dole has declined to speculate publicly about his vice presidential choice. But asked about Powell in a CBS interview, he said the retired general “has been a soldier all his life and he’s responded whenever his country needed him, and I believe if anyone went to Gen. Powell--I may be totally wrong--and laid out a case . . . that he would suit up again.”

Friends of Powell, however, have been sending negative signals. Powell is not in discussions with Dole and “remains steadfast in not being a candidate for election in 1996,” Kenneth M. Duberstein, a Washington business consultant and Powell advisor, said in an interview Tuesday.

As speculation mounted Wednesday, Duberstein reinforced that statement publicly. In a televised interview on CNN, he said that “based on all my recent conversations with him, what he is saying privately he is also saying publicly.”

“I don’t foresee any changes, period. The door is slammed shut. He said it in November. He meant what he said,” said Duberstein, who was White House chief of staff at the end of the Reagan administration.

Despite Powell’s reluctance, however, some Dole advisors feel that Powell would find it hard to resist a personal entreaty from Dole, and they suggest that former President Bush might be enlisted to urge Powell to run. Bush, who named Powell chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and remains in close contact with him, has told associates a Dole-Powell ticket would be the strongest the Republicans could field.

A close Bush advisor, David Bates of San Antonio, who served as his director of Cabinet affairs, said Bush “thinks highly” of Dole and Powell and “will want to help Dole any way he can” but added that he knows of no effort to involve the former president in discussing the matter with Powell.

Dole advisors who are less enthusiastic about the possibility of a Powell candidacy believe Buchanan’s threats of a walkout and criticism of Powell’s conservative credentials could mean trouble for the nominee.

“There are two schools of thought in the Dole campaign,” said one longtime Dole advisor. “One is you could take Christie Whitman or Colin Powell and that gives you a bounce with independent voters. The other school is you absolutely don’t give up one vote from your base; you can’t sacrifice any of it. Dole is listening to both schools, but I think he’s leaning to Powell.”

Lyn Nofziger, who until recently was national co-chairman of the Dole campaign, believes there is “a good possibility” Dole will ask Powell to run but clearly believes the downside of a Powell vice presidential candidacy might match or even exceed the upside.

“Powell’s extraordinarily popular and would bring in some black votes--how much, I don’t know,” Nofziger said. “But he’s got negatives, including pro-choice, and that would be hurtful, no question about it. Who knows whether there would be a walkout at the convention. The protesters could even give us a fourth party if Ross Perot gives us a third party.

“The other problem is we don’t know what kind of Republican Colin Powell is. He calls himself a Rockefeller Republican, and this is a party that never supported [Nelson A.] Rockefeller.”

Nofziger and other Dole advisors say despite Powell’s popularity, he could cost the Republican ticket votes among some conservatives, particularly in the South, who would not support a black. “We don’t know what kind of bigotry he would find in the South,” said Nofziger, “but it would cost the ticket some.”

Powell’s lack of political experience and his reputation for being thin-skinned also were cited by some Dole advisors as shortcomings that could hurt the ticket.

But with polls consistently showing President Clinton far in front of Dole in presidential trial runs, while a Dole-Powell ticket runs even with a Clinton-Gore ticket, talk of Powell as a running mate continues to be a major topic in the Dole camp.

The running mate question looms large inside the Dole campaign not only because of Dole’s age, 72, but because it bears directly on two of the biggest problems Dole now faces.

First, he must find ways to bridge the gap between his party’s right wing, which is strongly attracted to Buchanan, and the more moderate swing voters who will decide the November election. His selection of a vice presidential candidate could either help with that task or make it far harder.

Powell’s presence on the ticket might reassure moderates who are uneasy with some of the hard-line positions Dole has taken in the primaries. At the same time, Powell’s positions in favor of abortion rights and gun control and his criticism of the House Republicans’ “contract with America” would alienate conservatives.

Second, given the anti-government and anti-Washington mood of voters this year, Dole’s long years as a Washington insider--and his difficulty thus far in projecting a fresh vision--make him look to some voters like part of the problem rather than a solution. Powell’s image as a selfless patriot who served his country without becoming mired in politics could help on that count.

Former Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.), a longtime Dole confidant, says Powell would be “a superb running mate” and believes he might yet be named.

Conservatives who have been widely mentioned as possible running mates for Dole if he goes that route include Gov. John Engler of Michigan and former Gov. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. of South Carolina, who is now president of the American Council of Life Insurance. Either probably would be acceptable to Buchanan and to religious conservatives.

Buchanan, continuing a steady drumbeat of criticism of Powell as Dole’s prospective running mate, said in a television interview Wednesday: “Why should conservatives support a vice presidential nominee, Mr. Powell, who first joined the Republican Party only three months ago, who is strongly pro-abortion, who believes in affirmative action, who declares himself a Rockefeller Republican . . . . If Bob Dole sets it on a course to go back to Rockefeller Republicanism, he’s going to have a battle at the convention.”

The most recent nationwide poll, a Time Magazine/CNN survey released over the weekend, showed Clinton leading Dole by 17 percentage points, but a Dole-Powell ticket edging Clinton-Gore, 47%-45%--a statistical dead heat given the poll’s margin of error. The poll also showed Clinton-Gore leading a Dole-Whitman ticket, 51-40, and a Dole-Engler tandem, 50-31.

Times staff writer James Gerstenzang contributed to this story.