WASHINGTON INSIGHT

GRITTY FLIER: GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole was so determined to make an appearance Sunday in Nashua, N.H., to pitch his plans to overhaul the laws governing campaign donations that he waved off a recommendation from the pilots who fly his plane--Citizenship--and the accompanying press plane. The pilots had advised against making the stop because it meant bucking gusty winds and torrential rains. Dole decided to press on. Winds rocked his plane for several minutes as it broke through the clouds. Some oxygen masks popped out. But Dole kept to his schedule.

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DECISIVE ACTION: Dole’s campaign team has been disturbed in recent days about a head cold that the candidate developed, yet neither Dole nor his aides would admit to his condition. After the illness led to media reports characterizing Dole as distracted or suffering from melancholy, two top aides were overheard at a rally in Troy, Mich., exchanging serious concerns. If only someone could get to a drugstore before the next flight and buy some Sudafed cold medicine, one aide said to the other, the stories about the candidate’s “depression” would stop. By the next event, Dole’s condition had improved noticeably.

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PROMOTING JACK: Ever since being picked as Dole’s running mate, Jack Kemp has been trying to convince the public he wants to be a presidential understudy, not the leading man. Somehow, the message isn’t entirely getting out. At a fund-raising dinner in New York last week, Cardinal John J. O’Connor, the host, slipped up and told the audience that Kemp was shooting for the presidency. The next day, New Hampshire Gov. Steve Merrill, Dole’s campaign chief in the state, somehow made the same goof at a Manchester rally. Kemp’s response in each case: “From your lips to his ear.”

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DANCE THIS, AL: If the vice presidential race came down to dancing, Kemp wins, hands down. He is a rag doll to Al Gore’s tin man. Kemp’s speeches, accented with extravagant gestures, such as a fake football toss and various words in sign language, inspired the traveling press to choreograph the “Kemparena”--a spoof on the Macarena, the line dance the Democrats screwed into the ground at their nominating convention. Kemp smiled broadly and summoned his wife to watch when shown the routine. The moves: football toss with right hand, then a toss with left; sign language for “I love you” with right hand, then with left; kiss blown to crowd with right hand, then with left; sign language for “America” (arms stretched out parallel to ground to form a circle, intertwine fingers, move hands in horizontal circles); both hands in the air with the sign language for “applause;” 90-degree hop-turn while performing a two-handed hitch-up of the pants. Repeat. If that’s confusing, watch Kemp on C-SPAN.