Dole Tries New Twist on Campaign Trail

In his latest effort to boost his political fortunes, Bob Dole is smiling much, much more, but talking a lot less.

And when he speaks, he rarely deviates from script. In small but admiring crowds, he is focusing increasingly on children and young people, while ignoring questions from pesky reporters like the plague.

He beams as newly recruited traveling companions warm up audiences with harsh denunciations of President Clinton’s policies and character. He laughs, perhaps a tad too heartily, at the shopworn jokes that pass for humor on the campaign rostrum.

From the dais, he sticks to the high road, carefully reading speeches that detail substantive differences with Clinton.

“It’s the same Bob Dole, but a different campaign style,” said Nelson Warfield, spokesman for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

With poll after poll showing Dole behind Clinton by double-digit margins, generating deep angst even among his fiercest loyalists, the former Kansas senator has embarked on a new mission to repackage himself.

The question is whether Dole, who turns 73 Monday, has the discipline to stick to his emerging “message” and new style in the inevitably rough-and-tumble final months of the campaign.

A lifelong kibitzer with a penchant for zinging one-liners, he now must overcome an undisciplined approach to campaigning that has repeatedly landed him in hot water due to a string of verbal gaffes that even one of his most loyal and longest-serving confidants called “stupid.”

But even as Dole garnered some early positive reviews on his just-ended three-day campaign swing through some key Midwestern battlegrounds, the trip also served as a rude reminder that he has yet to articulate a clear vision of where he would take the country--or even why he wants to be president.

Still, the Dole camp and many of his supporters are pleased by the early results. His theme this week--education reform--turned news coverage toward the issue and away from the problems his previous comments created for him--such as whether tobacco is addictive, precisely what his position is on the assault-weapons ban and exactly why he did not accept an invitation to address the NAACP.

“I think he’s put those issues behind him, and he’s beginning to do just what he needs to do,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) “Things are starting to come together.”

“What we’re doing in July is filling in the blanks on a variety of issues,” said a senior Dole strategist.

Friday morning, Dole stayed on “message” at Cleveland’s St. Rocco Church and School--his third visit to a Catholic school this week. He received an enthusiastic response as he touted the major policy initiative he unveiled Thursday in Milwaukee--his proposed government scholarship program to help low- and middle-income parents send their children to the schools of their choice, including religious facilities.

Dole also scored a hit with the crowd when he announced that retired Gen. Colin L. Powell, who has rebuffed overtures to become an active part of Dole’s campaign, will be a featured speaker on the opening night of next month’s Republican National Convention in San Diego.

Dole partisans said in interviews this week that he must continue to more clearly differentiate himself from Clinton by promoting a core set of issues. Along with education reform, such topics include welfare reform, tax cuts, education reform and crime-fighting.

“He needs to say: ‘This election is about the following, boom, boom, boom.’ And if he can stay on a finite set of issues, he can turn it around,” said a longtime GOP strategist who requested anonymity.

But such focus requires repetition--something that Dole “hates to do,” noted Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), who became a Dole backer after his own presidential bid fizzled early this year.

“It’s fine to be repetitious. But first you’ve got to have a message,” a Gramm colleague added privately.

In Minneapolis, Dole’s new campaign style--and his speech deploring the state of public education--seemed to reassure many party loyalists on Wednesday.

“I understand that he’s going to be much more explicit about his vision for the future. That’s exactly what he needs to do. And if he continues to do that, we’re in for a real contest,” said Allen Quist, co-chairman of the Dole steering committee in Minnesota.

In Detroit on Thursday, at an outdoor round-table discussion on education, Dole’s new, slightly more expansive style began to emerge.

Seated on a sun-drenched lawn at Greenfield Village, a scenic tourist attraction, Dole faced an array of schoolchildren arranged in a semicircle. As Michigan Gov. John Engler and other education activists spoke, Dole smiled, winked and nodded at the children, many of whom began sending him slips of papers to autograph. Dole happily complied, and the youthful breach of conduct was blissfully ignored by campaign aides and Secret Service agents alike.

As he worked the crowd during his exit, Dole repeatedly pulled out young people to have their pictures taken with him.

Another glimpse of Dole’s attempt to mix it up with voters occurred earlier in the week. Faced with several hours to kill, he went to the rooftop of a private Minneapolis club to catch some sun. Several office workers in a building across the way put their telephone numbers up against their window and, sure enough, Dole called and invited two of them over for a private chat.

But he needs to expand on such efforts--in a big way, advisors said.

“He needs to introduce himself to the American people,” said a Republican senator close to Dole. “But I don’t know how you do that and not go out more and meet with people.”

Dole also must articulate his vision for the country and explain more compellingly why he should be president, many of his supporters said.

He made a stab at that Thursday night at a huge fund-raiser in Detroit’s Cobo Hall that brought in more than $3 million for the Republican Party.

“We have a lot of problems. And I believe there are weaknesses in the present leadership. And I believe I have the qualifications. I believe my life might be an inspiration to some,” he said.

Dole told the huge hall filled with Republicans that he is their man--”if you’re looking for someone to be president of the United States who doesn’t need the glories of the office, who doesn’t need a job to put on somebody’s resume . . . “

It is such exhortations that need polishing, many GOP officials and Dole advisors privately concede.

“He’s just not a visionary kind of guy,” said one GOP senator who asked to remain anonymous.

Another Republican senator, who is in a tight reelection race, began by telling a reporter: “Oh, there’s still time.” But in the privacy of the Capitol subway car, he added with a twinge of sadness:

“That’s what you say, isn’t it? What else can you say? I don’t know how he’s going to turn it around.”