Bob Dole

Robert Joseph Dole
U.S. Senator, Kansas
In office January 1969–June 1996
Preceded by	Frank Carlson
Succeeded by	Sheila Frahm
Personal details
Nationality	American
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	(1) Phyllis Holden, divorced (2) Elizabeth H. Dole

Robert Joseph "Bob" Dole (born July 22, 1923) is best known as a former Republican presidential nominee in the 1996 presidential election, in which he was defeated by then-incumbent President Bill Clinton. He was also United States Senate Majority Leader and Senator from Kansas from 1969-1996 and the Republican vice presidential nominee in the 1976 Presidential election.

Early years

Dole was born and raised in Russell, Kansas. During the Great Depression, which hit Kansas very hard, the Doles moved into the basement of their home and rented out the rest of the house. Dole took many odd jobs around Russell as a boy; he would later work as a soda jerk in the local drug store.

Dole graduated from high school in the spring of 1941 and enrolled at the University of Kansas the following autumn. Dole, who was a star High School athlete in his native Russell, earned a coveted spot on the KU Jayhawks basketball team under the legendary coach Phog Allen. While in college, he joined the Kappa Sigma fraternity. Dole studied Law at KU, but his studies were interrupted by the start of World War II. After the war, Dole continued to study law. He attended the University of Arizona from 1948-1951. Dole eventually earned his degree from Washburn University in 1952.

World War II and recovery

In 1942, Dole joined the United States Army's Enlisted Reserve Corps to fight in World War II. He became a Second Lieutenant in the Army's 10th Mountain Division.

In April of 1945, while engaged in combat in the hills of Northern Italy, he was hit by German machine gun fire in his upper right back. His right arm was also injured so badly that it was unrecognizable. He had to wait nine hours on the battlefield before he was finally taken to the Fifteenth Evacuation Hospital. He was eventually transferred to a U.S. Army hospital in Michigan, where he would begin his recovery. The extensive wounds in his right arm rendered it completely paralyzed. Today, Dole often carries a pen in the hand of his paralyzed right arm as a signal that he is incapable of shaking hands with that arm.

Dole was twice decorated for heroic achievement, receiving two Purple Hearts for his injuries, and the Bronze Star Medal with combat "V" for valor for his attempt to assist a downed radio man.

Career

Dole ran for office for the first time in 1950 and was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives, serving a two-year term. After graduating from the law school at Washburn University in Topeka, Dole was admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of law in his hometown of Russell in 1952.

Also in 1952 Dole became the County Attorney of Russell County, serving in that position for eight years. In 1960, Dole was elected to the United States House of Representatives from Kansas' 6th Congressional District, located in central Kansas. In 1962, his district was merged with the 3rd District in western Kansas to form the United States House of Representatives, 1st District, a huge 60-county district which soon became known as the "Big First." Dole was reelected that year and twice thereafter without serious difficulty.

U.S. Senate

In 1968 he was elected to the United States Senate, succeeding retiring Senator Frank Carlson. He was re-elected in 1974, 1980, 1986, and 1992, before resigning on June 11, 1996 to focus his efforts on his Presidential campaign. He only faced one truly enthusiastic and well-financed challenge – in 1974 by Congressman Dr. Bill Roy, much of Roy's popularity was in response to the fallout from Watergate. Dole would win re-election in 1974, but only by a few thousand votes. While in the Senate he served as chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1971 until 1973, and was the ranking Republican on the Agriculture Committee during the 96th Congress (1979-81).

When the Republicans took control of the Senate after the 1980 elections, Dole became chairman of the Finance Committee in 1981, serving until 1985. From 1985, when Howard Baker of Tennessee retired, until his resignation from the Senate, Dole was the leader of the Senate Republicans, serving as Majority Leader from 1985 until 1987 and again from 1995 to 1996. He served as Minority Leader from 1987 to 1995. Following the advice of conservative William Kristol, Dole flatly rejected the health care plan of Bill Clinton, remarking, "There is no crisis in health care."

Dole had a moderate voting record and was widely considered to be one of the few Kansas Republicans who could bridge the gap between the moderate and conservative wings of the Kansas Republican Party.

Presidential politics

In 1976, Dole ran unsuccessfully for Vice President on a ticket headed by President Gerald Ford. He replaced incumbent Vice President Nelson Rockefeller who had withdrawn from consideration the previous fall. His most notable contribution to the campaign was his attack, during the Vice Presidential debate, on the Democratic party for causing "Democrat Wars" including World War II.

He ran for the 1980 Republican Presidential nomination, eventually won by Ronald Reagan. He received only 597 votes in the New Hampshire primary and immediately withdrew.

Dole made a more-serious bid in 1988. He started out strong by solidly defeating then-Vice President George H.W. Bush in the Iowa caucus—Bush finished third, behind television evangelist Pat Robertson. However, Bush recovered in time to defeat Dole in the New Hampshire Primary. The New Hampshire contest between the two was particularly bitter although they differed little on the issues. After the returns had come in on the night of that primary, Dole appeared to lose his temper in a television interview, which prompted some members of the media to perceive him as angry about the loss. That slowed his momentum and he was not able to recover. Bush defeated him again in South Carolina and went on to the nomination and ultimately, the Presidency.

Dole was the early front runner for the GOP nomination in the 1996 presidential race, and was expected to win the nomination against underdog candidates such as the more conservative Senator Phil Gramm of Texas. Pat Buchanan upset Dole to win the New Hampshire primary, with Dole finishing second and former Tennessee governor Lamar Alexander finishing third. Publisher Steve Forbes also entered the race, paying for a stream of negative ads out of his personal funds. At least eight candidates ran for the nomination.

Dole secured the nomination, but had been forced to spend more than he had planned and, until the convention in San Diego, faced federal limits on campaign spending. He hoped to use his long experience in Senate procedures to maximize publicity from his rare positioning as Senate Majority Leader against an incumbent President, but was stymied by Senate Democrats. On May 16, 1996, he resigned his seat to focus on the campaign, saying he was either heading for "The White House or home" [1].

The incumbent, Bill Clinton, had no serious primary opposition and had rebounded in popularity partly by portraying Congressional Republicans as extremists. Dole promised a 15% across-the-board reduction in income tax rates, and made former Congressman and supply side hero Jack Kemp his running mate; these maneuvers, however, failed to inspire the voting population. Dole also found himself criticized from both the left and the right within the Republican Party over the convention platform as well as the additional challenge of eccentric billionaire Ross Perot's entry into the race.

The Dole-Clinton debates were highly anticipated because Clinton was viewed as a weak incumbent and Dole, a Reagan-style conservative. Surprisingly for the Republicans, Clinton held his ground and came out in the polls much better than before the debates.

Clinton remained behind in the polls in the South (other than Florida). Liberal organizations in the South began referring to Dole as "Dead Hand Dole," and attempted to discredit Dole as a weak, disabled leader. Dole hated this attack, and rebuffed it as a weak liberal attempt to trick voters. Dole's counterattack worked, and the Southern electoral votes went to Dole, with the consensus view that the attacks had been a weak attempt by Clinton to control the South.

Nonetheless, as pundits had long expected, Dole was defeated in the 1996 election. Clinton won in a 379-159 Electoral College landslide, but captured only 49.2% of the vote (against Dole's 40.7%) because of the independent candidacy of Ross Perot.

President Clinton awarded Dole the Presidential Medal of Freedom two months after the election, for his service in the military and his political career.

Retirement

Dole has worked part-time for a Washington, D.C., law firm, and engaged in a career of writing, consulting, public speaking, and television appearances. This has included becoming a television commercial spokesman for such products as Visa, Viagra, Dunkin' Donuts and Pepsi-Cola, and as an occasional political commentator on the popular American interview program Larry King Live and has guested a number of times on Comedy Central's satirical news program, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He was, for a short time, a commentator opposite Bill Clinton on CBS's 60 Minutes. He guest-starred as himself on NBC's Brooke Shields sitcom Suddenly Susan in January 1997 (shortly after losing the presidential election). On the Larry King show he had a heated exchange with Democratic presidential primary candidate Wesley Clark in which he correctly predicted that Clark would lose the New Hampshire primary and other primaries.

The Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics, housed on the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence, Kansas, was established to bring bipartisanship back to politics. The Institute, which opened in July 2003 to coincide with Dole's 80th birthday, has featured such notables as former President Bill Clinton and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Dole has written several books, including one on jokes told by the Presidents of the United States, in which he ranks the presidents according to their level of humor. President Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in early 1997 for his service in the military and his political career. He received the American Patriot Award on December 3, 2004 for his lifelong dedication to America and his service in World War II.

In December 2004, Dole had a hip-replacement operation, which required him to receive blood thinners. One month after the surgery, while in his Watergate apartment, he felt light-headed and fell. Doctors told him that the blood thinners had caused internal bleeding and light-headedness.

A quick trip to the hospital and a few stitches later, he was taken back home, but he felt ill and had to be taken back to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where it was determined that he was bleeding inside his head. He spent 40 days at Walter Reed, and when he was released, his "good" arm, the left, was of limited use. He told a reporter that he needed help to handle the simplest of tasks, since both of his arms are injured. He undergoes physical therapy for his left shoulder once a week, but doctors have told him that he may not regain total use of his left arm.

Dole is special counsel at the Washington, D.C., lobbying firm of Alston & Bird. On April 12, 2005, Dole released his biography One Soldier's Story: A Memoir (ISBN 0-06-076341-8), which talks of his World War II experiences and his battle to survive his war injuries. He gained minor attention when it was noticed he worked for a lobbying firm that was pushing for the Dubai port deal.

Personal life

Dole married Phyllis Holden, an occupational therapist at a Veterans Hospital, in Battle Creek, Michigan in 1948. His daughter Robin was born in 1954. Dole and Holden divorced in 1972.

Dole has been married to Senator Elizabeth Dole, née Hanford of North Carolina since 1975. Elizabeth ran an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2000 and was elected to the United States Senate in 2002.

Trivia

• Dole has a much-parodied habit of referring to himself in the third person. During the New Hampshire primaries in 1996, for example, he told supporters "You're going to see the real Bob Dole from now on." By April, a National Review columnist termed the habit "irritating".

Dole in Pop Culture

• Dole has been parodied on Saturday Night Live by Dan Aykroyd and Norm MacDonald. His caricature constantly refers to himself in the third person. [2] Dole appeared on Saturday Night Live himself in 1996 shortly after losing the Presidential election. He even lampooned his own caricature of his third-person references and criticized MacDonald as doing "an impersonation of Dan Aykroyd doing (him)."
• He was also parodied on an episode of Family Guy. Like the Saturday Night Live sketch, he repeatedly referred to himself in third person. He does this while talking to Peter, and eventually falls asleep after beginning numerous sentences with his own name.
• In an episode of The Simpsons when the Republicans were deciding on a Republican to run for political office, Bob Dole proceeded to say: "Bob Dole thinks Bob Dole should run. Actually, Bob Dole just likes to hear Bob Dole talk about Bob Dole. BOB DOLE!"
• In a Halloween Special episode of The Simpsons, both Dole and Clinton are captured by Simpsons aliens Kang and Kodos and eventually impersonated by the aliens, saying the line "Bob Dole don't need this" as he was abducted, and "Is this some kinda tube?" as he was imprisoned in a tube.
• In one Simpsons episode about free speech Homer's friend Lenny holds up his shirt to show a Dole-Kemp 96 campaign image tattoo.

References

• Dole, Bob (2005). One Soldier's Story: A Memoir. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-076341-8
• Clinton, Bill (2005). My Life. Vintage. ISBN 1-4000-3003-X

External links

 This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress [3]

• His official website
• His hometown's biography of him
• His remarks at the dedication of the Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas
• His memorial to Ronald Reagan after Reagan's death (registration required)
• The Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics
• A page examining his early life
• Template:Nndb name
• Bob Dole at IMDb