Dole Must Throw Out His Stale Stump Style, Aides Say

Sen. Bob Dole’s shortcomings as a presidential campaigner are regarded as so serious by his advisors that they believe he must reshape the way he performs or risk being overpowered on the hustings and in debates by the campaign-hardened and television-wise president he seeks to unseat.

The presumptive Republican nominee realizes the seriousness of his problems, campaign aides say, and is working hard to solve them one step at a time, beginning with his use of a TelePrompTer to make speeches.

But the effort to remake the candidate faces a double challenge: In President Clinton, Republican strategists confront an opponent who is at home and effective on the stump, smiling easily and speaking extemporaneously. In Dole they must work with a candidate who, after a political lifetime in Washington, still depends heavily on a prepared text to make a speech of substance, frowns a lot, does not smile easily and is uncomfortable with changes.

Dole is “going up against a campaigner of epochal proportions so he’s working very closely with a number of speech writers, getting material he’s comfortable with and getting it timely enough that he can practice on the TelePrompTer,” said a senior Dole campaign aide. “He’s capable of delivering a good speech, but there’s a lot to be done and he’s aware of it and he’s working hard. “

Since announcing on May 15 that he would resign from the Senate to campaign full time, Dole often has appeared awkward and uncomfortable on the campaign trail. In a late-May speech in Philadelphia to the Catholic Press Assn., for example, he stumbled several times as he switched back and forth between the printed text and a TelePrompTer.

He spoke only 23 minutes, declined to answer questions from journalists and received a polite, but lukewarm, audience response.

The performance was not much improved over February, when Dole and Clinton both spoke on welfare reform before the nation’s governors.

Clinton spoke extemporaneously, made eye contact with the governors, had Republicans and Democrats nodding in agreement with some of his points and received a standing ovation. Dole spoke from notes, seldom looked at the audience and received polite applause. Afterward, Tony Dolan, a Republican activist who wrote speeches for President Reagan, described Dole’s performance as “a disaster”

Dole seldom appears before reporters without being asked about his apparent lack of dynamism on the stump. His responses, however, do not always help. “I think there’s a passion burning somewhere inside me, but some people display it in different ways,” he said Thursday in a satellite question-and-answer session with ABC television stations.

Aides say Dole needs to become a livelier and more disciplined campaigner who smiles more often, looks less stern, shows more humor and uses more anecdotes to illustrate his points. And the campaign, they say, must develop crowds and material he finds comfortable.

“This is a work in progress,” said a senior Dole advisor. “His out-of-town speeches are tryouts. We are in spring training for the fall campaign when he has to be able to speak for television and communicate to the American people. And I know we’re going to get there, he’s doing what it takes to work up to that level. In time, he’ll get much more comfortable.”

Some things, such as Dole’s appearance on television, may prove difficult to change. With his heavy eyebrows and serious countenance, he often looks grim even when his message is not.

“Television is cruel to him,” a longtime friend said this week. “I was just watching him on C-SPAN. He’s not mean, but he can’t get that mean look off his face. I say it sadly. He’s just not comfortable as a candidate. But when he’s around people and there’s no television camera, he’s warm and comfortable and people see him as friendly.”

Although known as a quick wit and raconteur in the Senate, Dole has seldom shown those traits on the campaign trail. Lately, however, he has made a special effort and has been rewarded with laughter by joking that Clinton, like the movie “Twister,” is “all special effects and nothing’s really there.” Clinton’s promises, he quips, are like the “Mission: Impossible” tapes--”they self-destruct in 10 seconds.”

The campaign has brought in John Buckley, a veteran of the Bush and Reagan administrations, as communications director and put him in charge of reshaping Dole the campaigner.

Campaign aides say they already have seen improvement in Dole’s performance. They point out that in addition to loosening up a bit and joking, he now uses only the TelePrompTer to deliver his speeches. But even his supporters wonder how much the 72-year-old senator can change.

“I expect him to improve, but not to change much,” says Lyn Nofziger, a senior advisor to Reagan’s presidential campaigns.

“As soon as he gets the cobwebs out of his mind from trying to deal with those egomaniacs in the Senate, he should do better,” said Nofziger, a Dole advisor who until recently was the senator’s national campaign co-chairman. “But Dole will never be glib and that’s not all bad. There’s something sincere about not being glib. It will contrast nicely with Bill Clinton who is the personification of glibness.”

Michael K. Deaver, who was the keeper of Reagan’s public image, believes Dole will have to show “a lot of discipline” to change because “he is a man whose life has been in almost a womb in Washington and he has to try to get comfortable being out there on the campaign trail.”

Deaver, who is working with Buckley on the Dole make-over and will also assist the GOP in shaping its convention message, says Dole has his work cut out for him because Clinton is a natural campaigner like Reagan.

“Clinton loves an audience and reflects the people when he speaks and Reagan did too,” Deaver said. “It’s something that comes natural. Nixon could never do it and neither could Carter.”

Dole’s aides contend that, although he may lack Clinton’s polish as a campaigner, the senator will come across to voters as much more sincere and credible than the president.

“Clinton could sell Fords to Chevy dealers,” Republican national chairman Haley Barbour said Thursday. “But the good news is we’re not auditioning for national television talk show host.

“Wit and charm are assets, I’m sure, but that’s not what determines how people vote,” Barbour added.