BY MARK WINEKA
SALISBURY POST

Amid a hometown setting that was part pep rally, part political convention, Elizabeth Dole formally launched her bid for the U.S. Senate on Saturday afternoon.

Some 3,000 supporters waved placards, wore Dole T-shirts, chanted loudly for the candidate and interrupted her frequently with applause at Catawba College’s Goodman Gymnasium.

Republican Dole walked into the throng, many of whom were seated on a wall of bleachers behind the podium, to the tune of John Mellencamp’s “Small Town,” an obvious allusion to her roots here.

Sometimes criticized for her long absence as a resident of the state, Dole described herself as “a daughter of North Carolina.” She would later quote N.C. writer Thomas Wolfe and laud the Tar Heel senator who she hopes to replace, Republican U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms.

Republicans in the crowd acknowledged that Dole and Helms are different.

“But it’s not a difference I can’t agree with,” said Shirley Babson, a Dole supporter from Brunswick County. “It’s the character of the person that counts.”

Babson served as a Brunswick County campaign manager for Helms and is a nine-year member of her county’s board of education. Wearing a Dole T-shirt Saturday, she said she agreed with everything Dole said in her announcement speech.

“Especially when she said she looked up, looked up to the Lord,” Babson said.

Dole touched on faith in ending her speech.She brushed many issues, and even borrowed lines she used during her brief run for the presidency in 1999.

But overall, Dole emphasized national defense, the state’s struggling economy and education.

Accordingly, when she reached those parts of her address, Dole asked veterans, textile workers and teachers to stand up or raise their hands.

Dole has had political rallies in Salisbury before.

In 1999, she attended one at Livingstone College during her presidential run. In 1996, she brought her presidential candidate husband, Bob Dole, to Catawba College for a rally on his behalf.

Bob Dole accompanied his wife to the college Saturday, but he remained in the crowd with his mother-in-law, Mary Hanford of Salisbury, during his wife’s talk. Afterwards, both of the Doles spent considerable time with well-wishers, who pressed around them for pictures and autographs.

Elizabeth Dole originally meant to announce her Senate run — which has been going full throttle for several months — on Sept. 11, the day of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

Throughout her comments Saturday, she came back to that day, referring to it at least seven times.

It was a starting point for her discussion of national defense. She said it was the reason people wanted a different kind of politics and why leaders have risen to a level of statesmanship that had been lacking in the past.

Dole also used recollections of her visit to Ground Zero in New York as a way to speak of her experiences as transportation and labor secretaries and president of the American Red Cross.

Dole, the candidate, made some promises.

She said she would not vote to raise taxes, would give the same kind of constituent service as Helms and would run a positive campaign.

“The people of North Carolina deserve better than name calling and finger-pointing,” said Dole, who already has seen Democrats launch two statewide advertisements against her.

“They (North Carolinians) deserve what they demand — serious people addressing serious issues in thoughtful and creative ways, and my positive campaign will reflect that desire.”

The N.C. Democratic Party, in anticipation of the Dole event, took out a full-page advertisement in the Post Saturday that questioned Dole’s previous comments that she and Helms are really not that different on the issues.

The ad ends by saying that North Carolinians want to move forward, not backward: “Call Elizabeth Dole and tell her North Carolina doesn’t need another six years of Jesse Helms’ radical right-wing agenda.”

Helms has endorsed Dole.

Landis Mayor Fred Steen said Helms is an honest and sincere person, “and a lot of citizens see the same attributes in her (Dole) as well.”

Former Charlotte Mayor Richard Vinroot, who briefly waged a Senate campaign himself before quitting and becoming part of Dole’s organization, described Helms as a force in the U.S. Senate.

“But Elizabeth Dole would be a force as well,” said Vinroot. She should capture the Republican nomination easily, especially with a popular president strongly behind her, Vinroot predicted.

Norene Foster, former chairman of the Rowan Republican Party, coordinates local volunteers for Dole. She said 60 volunteers helped with Saturday’s event, and the preparations included shuttle trolleys and buses from two off-campus parking lots.

Organizers required media credentials, and a host of television and print media from across the state attended.

The North Rowan High School band, a blue grass ensemble and local singer Neil Wilkinson entertained the crowd, many of whom took their seats two hours before Dole’s appearance.

A trio of local emcees, including Ronnie Smith, Karl Hales and Catawba student Margaret Overcash, led the crowd in cheers for Dole, read e-mails of support from across the state and even tossed T-shirts into the crowd as the audience shouted out answers to Dole trivia questions.

Before Dole entered, the gymnasium lights went dark as the audience looked to an overhead screen to watch a 10-minute video biography of Dole. The video — similar to ones usually shown for presidential candidates at nominating conventions — included many scenes from Salisbury and interviews of local people.

Former Salisbury Mayor Margaret Kluttz, serving as general campaign chairman, is prominent in the video, as is Bob Dole and Mary Hanford.

Dole said her parents raised her to believe “there are no limits to individual achievement and no excuses to justify indifference.”

“From an early age, I was taught that success is measured, not in material accumulations, but in service to others,” Dole said. “I was encouraged to join causes larger than myself, to pursue positive changes through a sense of mission, and to stand up for what I believe.”

Dole made reference to the many military bases in North Carolina and promised that they would have no stronger supporter than she in the U.S. Senate. Dole chided the Senate leadership for abandoning Bush’s economic stimulus package and walking away from workers.

Putting the economy back on track will require the same type of resolve now being applied to the war on terrorism, Dole said.

“To do anything less on the economic front would be a dramatic failure of leadership,” she added.

Dole said she would put more investment into community colleges, earn more road funds for the state, promote information technology, open farm markets , enact a tobacco support buyout and eliminate red tape for business.

Dole also used Saturday’s event to announce that she would begin a series of “job days” around the state in which she would work side by side with citizens.

Contact Mark Wineka at 704-797-4263, or mwineka@salisburypost.com .