Dole Tests Waters in Bid to Refine Campaign

Bob Dole was uneasy. He didn’t relish the idea of exploiting the plight of a little girl simply to score political points against President Clinton.

But the staged bill-signing event, staffers argued, afforded the Senate majority leader the opportunity to act presidential--and highlight a major substantive dispute with the man he wants to unseat.

So Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), joined by 9-year-old Tara Ransom of Phoenix, gathered before a bank of hot television lights for the ceremony of transmitting to the White House a product-liability reform bill, which Clinton vetoed Friday.

The life of the little girl, according to the bill’s supporters, could depend on a medical device whose manufacturer may well stop making it if the avalanche of liability lawsuits is not restrained. As she stood by, clutching a pink rabbit doll, Dole and Gingrich dutifully “signed” the bill.

But throughout the speechmaking, Dole seemed so ill at ease that he kept a 2-foot gap between himself and Tara. Dole’s demeanor made supporters wince, just thinking about how Clinton, perhaps with teary eyes, probably would have hugged the little girl in a trademark display of empathy.

The event also ended on a sour note. Amid a barrage of shouted questions on topics ranging from abortion rights to repeal of a 1993 gas-tax hike, the GOP leaders abruptly turned and left the room. For Dole, the hasty retreat left the impression of a beleaguered politician afraid to face tough questions.

“Well, we tried something today,” one sheepish Dole aide said afterward.

Welcome to another day in the struggling presidential campaign of Bob Dole.

His aides and advisors have a vision of how he can reverse his continuing slide in the polls--and mute the growing chorus of anxious voices within the GOP. Their strategy calls for Dole to spend the next several weeks testing out issues and themes he might use against Clinton, refining his campaign pitch while there is still time and racking up some solid legislative accomplishments that he can brag about.

Dole on Friday provided a dual example of this approach. First, he announced from the Senate floor that he would lead another effort this week to pass a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution; later, he traveled to Long Island, N.Y., to give a major speech detailing his “profound and fundamental” differences with Clinton.

But this strategy, as the ill-fated product-liability event illustrates, is often undermined in practice, partly by Dole’s deficiencies as a candidate. And such miscues, in turn, create fresh doubt about whether Dole can successfully evolve from a master legislative insider to an effective campaigner for the highest office in the land.

On any given day, Dole is bombarded by a cacophony of contradictory advice from friends, colleagues, party officials and aides.

Many beseech the Kansan to step down as majority leader and take his campaign out to the country--and soon. But others, led by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), urge Dole to stay the course.

Dole seems content to remain where he is, at least for now. “I don’t think we’re in difficulty,” he declared before a group of real estate agents last week.

McCain and other Dole confidants say it’s misguided to debate whether Dole should quit as majority leader and begin a full-bore campaign outside Washington.

It isn’t enough for Dole to cast himself as the doer, and Clinton the talker. Rather, they say, Dole must first do--and then talk.

“He needs to maintain his position of majority leader and complete the ‘contract with America.’ Then he’ll have a full legislative agenda to campaign on,” said McCain, who first backed Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas for the GOP nomination but now is a member of Dole’s inner circle.

“Some who are advising him to step down are doing it for personal ambition,” McCain fumed, referring to the jockeying among GOP senators to succeed Dole.

*

Advocates of Dole relinquishing the Senate reins, McCain added, ignore that gambit’s potential drawbacks.

“I’m not saying he’s doing great. But if he quits as leader, he could be seen as abdicating his responsibilities--being out of the cockpit,” said McCain, a former Navy pilot and POW in Vietnam. “So when he’s out talking about repealing the gas-tax [hike], people might say: ‘So why aren’t you there on the floor of the Senate working on it?’ ”

But others, such as Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), who has campaigned with Dole in his state, are urging him to get out of Washington--”the sooner the better,” adding: “George Bush proved in ’92 that the Rose Garden strategy doesn’t work.”

Santorum is not the only GOP senator who feels that way. “The emphasis shouldn’t be here on Washington but out in Omaha, out in Los Angeles,” said Sen. Paul Coverdell (R-Ga.).

Dole has significantly curtailed his travel largely because he poured so much money into the early primary battles that his campaign is short on funds and will remain so until it receives an infusion of federal election money after the Republican convention.

To get around that problem, there is growing talk on Capitol Hill that the Republican National Committee might begin to underwrite Dole visits to state legislatures around the country to promote a balanced federal budget and other GOP priorities. Similarly, plans are being made for Dole to campaign with his Senate colleagues who are seeking reelection--letting them foot the bill.

The prevailing thinking in the Dole camp, at least for now, is that there is ample time for him to build on his legislative track record and then take it out to the people--drawing a clear contrast between himself and Clinton.

“The general election really hasn’t started,” said Sen. Dirk Kempthorne (R-Idaho). “Most people haven’t tuned in yet--and won’t until after Labor Day.”

“There’s a natural transition that occurs--from leader, to candidate for the nomination, to nominee,” Coverdell said. “But everyone expects all this to happen like a light switch.”

Dole backers, meanwhile, are delighted by the way he was able to instantly catapult the issue of repealing a 4.3-cent gas-tax hike onto the national agenda.

His proposal--outlined in a terse press release that aides distributed in the Senate press gallery on a late Friday afternoon--dominated debate in Congress all last week.

“That’s getting back on the offensive,” Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.) said approvingly.

Arguably, the Clinton administration more than held its own in responding. The president ordered release of some of the government’s strategic petroleum reserves in a bid to lower gasoline prices, and the Justice Department announced a probe into whether illegal collusion by oil companies was at work.

Still, Sen. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) said he and many other Republicans hope the gas-tax proposal will be only the opening salvo of a sustained Dole initiative on pocketbook issues that divert him from arcane legislative-speak.

“Dole needs not only to talk about the record of this Congress, but also to talk about Bill Clinton’s record--Lani Guinier, Joycelyn Elder, health care reform, gays in the military, Henry Foster. . . ,” said Brian Lopina, a Christian Coalition lobbyist, referring to some of Clinton’s controversial personnel and policy decisions.

*

Dole aimed his fire at Clinton during much of his Long Island speech; he charged, for instance, that the president has “talked conservatively while walking knee-deep in the swamps of liberalism.”

“Looking back, the difficult primary was very helpful to Dole,” Kempthorne said. “He had to respond, reassess, adapt. And he became much stronger for it. And remember, Bob Dole has been written off before.”

That cautionary note is being repeated by Democrats, said Sen. Barbara Boxer of California. “Too much can happen” for Democrats to get complacent, she said.

Added Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.): “Dole has overcome a lot of adversity in his life.”

That, of course, is an allusion to Dole’s struggles in the wake of his World War II injuries--a contrast with an opponent who avoided the draft in the ‘60s. And it’s a part of the Dole story that needs to be more broadly told, many Republicans say.

“We can’t change Bob Dole, but we can tell his story. And he’s got a great life story,” said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas). “We already have someone who’s glib, who’s pretty, who makes a good speech.”