Clinton, Dole Stump Styles Are Studies in Contrast

One after the other, three speakers warmed up the crowd with praise for Bob Dole: Their candidate. Their moral model. Their personal friend.

But when the GOP presidential nominee mounted the stage in this northern New Jersey suburb Tuesday morning, he smiled pleasantly--then never mentioned the party stalwarts who had lauded him or the community that welcomed him before launching into remarks that could just as easily have been delivered in Boise or Baltimore.

A little later, in Morristown, N.J., Mayor Norman Black noted that he was a “prairie son” of Nebraska, neighboring state to Dole’s home of Kansas. But the comment, an obvious opening for any visiting pol, went unremarked.

Instead, Dole, who has begun taking a somewhat harder line in criticizing his opponent, plowed ahead, questioning President Clinton’s trustworthiness while proclaiming: “My word is good and I’ll keep my promises to the American people.”

Dole shied away from criticizing Clinton’s character during Sunday’s debate--a decision that drew complaints from some GOP critics. The candidate defended his move in a radio interview Tuesday morning, saying that if he had criticized Clinton, “then I’d have been the mean Bob Dole, that old Bob Dole out there.”

Dole, however, has left much of the heavy hitting to surrogates. On Tuesday, it was Michael Chertoff, until recently the counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee, headed by Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.).

“The president promised to have the most ethical administration in American history,” Chertoff said. “Well, how many of that administration are in jail now? How many of that administration had to resign in disgrace? Why does the White House spend more time hiding its files from subpoenas than it does punishing drug dealers?”

The Dole campaign also began running a harshly critical advertisement, mostly on Christian-oriented radio stations, proclaiming that the country faces a “moral crisis” and that “Bill Clinton supports ninth-month abortions” and “condoms for school kids.”

That leaves Dole, himself, with a more ambiguous role. Most recently, he decided to borrow one of Clinton’s favorite campaign gimmicks--the bus tour--to corral votes.

But as five rallies the last two days in New Jersey made clear, there is no comparison between the way these two men try to connect with the crowds that line their way.

Where Clinton seizes on every opportunity to bond with a crowd--sometimes to the point of self-parody--Dole seems to almost willfully ignore the standard tricks of the trail.

In Clinton’s view, courting the crowd means mentioning most every neighborhood friend, touting every local product and prize pig, and cataloging every link between the community and his native Arkansas.

Dole relies on wry humor, lightly laid on, to charm his crowds. A good example occurred during his New Jersey tour. Stopping at a senior center in the town of Morris Plains, Dole learned a card game from 83-year-old Alice Brown. “The winner gets to vote twice,” he quipped on his way out.

But he often leaves it at that. His speeches run short, and his sessions of shaking hands with the public run shorter still.

The Clinton technique was vividly on display last month during a stop in Brandon, S.D., as he gamely set out to find common ground with residents of a remote, wind-swept state that he had not previously visited as president.

In a 23-minute address to a crowd impatient for the homecoming football game to follow, Clinton explored the fine print of farm policy, showed off his knowledge of local school attendance and employment patterns, praised as thoughtful the reserved nature of many South Dakotans and cited his ties to such local heroes as former Sen. George S. McGovern.

When the high school band wheezed into a rendition of the song “Eleanor Rigby,” Clinton immediately proclaimed it “my favorite Beatles song.”

Dole aides say the former senator’s markedly more subdued approach is based on his view that the more important audience isn’t the local crowd, but the far bigger one that is tuned in from far away. Or they explain that he simply takes a more businesslike, less garrulous approach.

“It’s the difference between his style and Clinton’s style of politics: The big schmooze,” said Nelson Warfield, Dole’s press secretary.

But Clinton’s strategists and allies contend that carefully cultivating the locals pays dividends with the electronic audiences as well.

“People seeing him on TV say, ‘He cares about them, and I bet he cares about me too,’ ” said Mark Mellman, a Democratic consultant. Other Democrats maintain this is part of the reason Clinton scores high when pollsters ask whether the president “cares about people like me.”

Dole’s approach seems to cost him some opportunities. At a commencement address last spring at Gallaudet University, an institution in Washington for the hearing-impaired, Dole praised his student audience, but didn’t mention what he had in common with them--a disability. And he cracked an awkward joke that seemed to suggest that the student speakers, like himself, had used speech writers.

In his use of spontaneous humor, Dole tries to register with audiences in ways Clinton wouldn’t risk. And often he scores. But he sometimes strays into areas that unnecessarily call attention to topics, such as his age, that might better be left unmentioned.

On Tuesday, Dole took note of an aging veteran in his Lyndhurst audience. “I see a World War II veteran in front of me. Yeah! And we got a lot of juice left too--Don’t worry about it!”

Working a rope line afterward, an enthusiastic backer reached out to shake Dole’s hand and entreated: “Please get Bozo out of the White House.”

“Bozo’s on his way out,” replied Dole. It was only light banter, his press aides were at pains to point out. But the remark, recalling then-President Bush’s comment made in the frenetic late days of his losing 1992 campaign that Clinton and running mate Al Gore were “two Bozos,” soon drew fire.

“It’s not hard to imagine that Sen. Dole might be feeling a little desperate at this point,” said Mike McCurry, the White House press secretary.

But Clinton can go over the top as well. At one recent stop in Texas, he claimed to have spent more time in the state “than anybody in 40 years.” He hedged this comment later, but not soon enough to keep the Dole campaign from distributing press releases pointing out that Clinton surely hadn’t spent more time in the state than such prominent figures as Bush, former President Lyndon B. Johnson, Ross Perot or former Gov. John B. Connolly--all Texas residents.