Dole Nurtures Roots, and a Senate Bid May Bloom

Elizabeth Hanford Dole has perfectly positioned herself to run for the Senate by following one of the simplest small-town rules: Don’t forget momma.

Over the last 30 years as she and her husband, Bob, have scaled the heights of the Washington establishment, Dole has returned home nearly every month to go to parties, lunch at the Big Pig barbecue and spend time with her mother, Mary, who turned 100 this year.

“It’s almost like she never left us,” said Jake Alexander, who grew up in Salisbury with Dole and sees her at church sometimes.

On Wednesday, these hometown bonds turned to political gold when Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, a powerful conservative, announced he is not running for another term. The decision fired the starting pistol to one of the hottest Senate races next year and shifted the focus to Dole, a recent presidential contender and considered the Republicans’ brightest hope to keep Helms’ seat. With Democrats holding a one-vote edge in the Senate, both parties are mobilizing around every contested seat. Pressure is coming all the way from the White House for Dole, who enjoys great name recognition, to run in her native state.

“I will give it serious consideration,” Dole said two weeks ago, in her only statement on the race.

Even before Helms went on television Wednesday to say he is calling it quits, Salisbury was buzzing with talk about Liddy, as she’s known. There’s almost a mythology about her in this town of columned mansions and old textile mills, wig shops and towering magnolia trees.

John Crawford, the town ophthalmologist and a former sweetheart, remembers 40 years ago standing on a dock on High Rock Lake, watching the moon rise over the water and eyeing Liddy’s hand when she turned to him and said: “John, I want to be the first woman president.”

“I was hoping she’d say something else,” Crawford said. “But that’s the thing about Liddy. She’s always been focused on ambition.”

Whether that ambition and her top-notch credentials--three degrees, two Cabinet posts and former head of the world’s best-known nonprofit, the Red Cross--are enough to win a tough race will be the question.

On the Republican side, two congressmen and former Sen. Lauch Faircloth are considering a run, though all have been reluctant to announce their intentions before Helms bowed out. The leading Democrats are North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall and Dan Blue, a state representative and the first African American speaker of the state House.

‘She’s Not Exactly Miss Spontaneity’

Dole, 65, came up way short when she ran for president, outgunned by George W. Bush’s fund-raising efforts, and some political analysts say she’s an uptight campaigner.

Sometimes, before a big speech, Dole will go as far as to make sure her shoes match the carpet, said Jennifer Duffy, an editor at the Cook Political Report, a Washington newsletter.

“She’s not exactly Miss Spontaneity,” Duffy said. “But if she gets in the race, with all the name recognition and big money she’ll bring, you’re going to see one of the best battles of the year.”

Dole’s political bio begins in the third grade, in a red brick elementary school in Salisbury, when she was elected president of the Bird Club. The daughter of a rich florist, she was known for being as smart as she was pretty. Many people in Salisbury still remember the year Dole, then Liddy Hanford, won both the student council presidency and May Queen at Duke University.

“My grandma used to always say, ‘That Liddy is going to make us proud,’ ” said Betsy Ridenhour, who lives two doors down from the huge Tudor house where Dole grew up.

After Duke, Dole got a master’s in education and a law degree from Harvard University. Then she entered public service, working in the Johnson and Nixon administrations. It was during this time she met Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, 14 years her senior. After three years of dating, they married. She was 39.

She quit work to help her husband run for president in 1976 and 1980. When he lost, she became an aide to President Reagan and in 1983 was named secretary of Transportation. Her big issue was raising the legal drinking age to 21 in all states.

Both Doles were emerging as shining stars in the Republican Party and together became one of Washington’s top power couples. Some people even made buttons that read “Dole-Dole ‘88” and part of the joke was not knowing which Dole was first.

In 1989, President Bush appointed her Labor secretary, a job she held until 1991 when she became president of the Red Cross. Two years later, the North Carolina Press Assn. named her North Carolinian of the Year.

Dole has not lived in North Carolina since a summer internship in 1960. But her frequent visits and her connection to her mother and childhood friends put her in a completely different light than, say, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who won last year’s New York Senate race 11 months after moving to the state for the first time.

Salisbury likes her so much that two years ago the town of 25,000 named a school after her: Elizabeth Hanford Dole Elementary School.

“She’s done such a good job of keeping up her image as a native of the state, if she runs, she won’t be seen as an outsider,” said Duffy, the Washington political analyst.

Dole resigned from the Red Cross in March 1999 to run for president, becoming the first woman to launch a major campaign for the highest office in the land. But from day one she lagged far behind George W. Bush, in both polls and fund-raising, and she alienated conservatives by her support for gun control and what’s been called “pro-life lite” positions on abortion. She bowed out five months later.

On the trail, she earned a reputation for being headstrong and difficult to manage, said Merle Black, an Emory University political scientist.

“She’s known as being very different privately than she is publicly,” Black said. “And she’s very unproven. She has a great resume, yes. But can she live up to it?”

Black wonders whether Dole is even up for the fight, especially in a primary election. If GOP Reps. Richard M. Burr or Robert “Robin” Hayes enter the race to succeed Helms, Dole might not, he said. Then there’s former Charlotte Mayor Richard Vinroot, a popular moderate, and Faircloth, who lost his Senate seat in 1998.

“She could be facing some very experienced campaigners,” Black said.

There’s also the chance if Dole enters first, some of the others won’t, Black said.

President Bush’s chief strategist, Karl Rove, has been courting Dole, though a contested primary with other veteran Republicans would put the president in an awkward position regarding endorsements.

The race, because it’s for an open seat in a narrowly divided Senate, will most likely be expensive, with estimated costs of $10 million to $20 million. It will be the second open Senate seat because 98-year-old Strom Thurmond, a South Carolina Republican icon, is also retiring.

Her name recognition and the networks that she and her husband formed during their presidential bids make Dole the best GOP candidate to raise money for the general election, several analysts said.

But Bob Dole’s health hasn’t been great--he had a recent stomach operation--and that may be another concern dissuading her from running.

North Carolina is also a state undergoing change, with a large influx of immigrants and an increasingly progressive population drawn by the state’s growing high-tech industry. Gov. Mike Easley is a Democrat and so is Sen. John Edwards, the trial lawyer who unseated Faircloth and is now exploring presidential ambitions for 2004.

Hometown Friends Think Dole Will Run

Dole has declined to discuss her intentions. Gia Colombraro, an aide, said the phone was ringing off the hook Wednesday, but Dole was sticking to her short statement released two weeks ago. “If Jesse Helms should make a decision not to run, I will give it serious consideration,” it said.

Friends close to her in Salisbury think she will do it.

“I see it happening,” said Crawford, the old boyfriend, who thinks Dole will move back in with her 100-year-old mother.

Salisbury’s movers and shakers aren’t waiting. On Wednesday, hours before Helms announced his retirement, several supporters were busy calling each other, happily plotting the next move.

“We’d form the committees--right away,” said former Mayor Margaret Kluttz. “You don’t know how much a thrill it’s been for us to watch Liddy soar.”

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End of era: Sen. Jesse Helms confirms he will not seek election to a sixth term. A11