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No talk of vice presidential role for Dole -- yet

BY MARK WINEKA
SALISBURY POST

Do the options include a vice presidential nomination from Republican front-runner George W. Bush or one of his top challengers, Sen. John McCain?

Newsweek magazine described Dole last week as a “dream pick” for vice president. McCain recently said Dole, Colin Powell and Tenn. Sen. Fred Thompson would all make good vice presidential candidates.

Speaking to the Post Saturday, Dole shrugged off that kind of speculation.

“That’s something that doesn’t come up until much farther down the road,” Dole said. “In fact, vice president is just not even something to talk about at this point. As we’re fond of saying: A week is a political generation. And this is months away.

“... So many things go into it that you couldn’t predict now.”

Dole’s short-lived presidential campaign, which extended from mid-March to late October, never reached a caucus or primary.

But an upbeat Dole described it Saturday as a positive, rewarding experience that fell victim to a phenomenon: Texas Gov. Bush’s unprecedented fund-raising.

“They mobilized early on,” Dole said of Bush forces that she believes started laying his financial groundwork for president as early as 1996. “I give them credit for that. They didn’t do anything wrong.

“(But) had we started earlier, it would have been advantageous.”

Beyond some speaking engagements and working for the Republican Party, Dole holds back on what her next endeavor will be. She has seen former workers and supporters go to both Bush and McCain, without endorsing any particular candidate herself.

“There’s certainly plenty to become involved in,” Dole said, “but in terms of what the mission is going to be, I want to take a little time with that one.

“What I want to do now is look at a number of options, because I want to continue to make a difference. My whole life has been about finding that mission. So that’s important to me. To continue to be involved.”

Since calling it quits, Dole has focused on family, thank-yous and travel.

Bob and Elizabeth Dole spent the Thanksgiving holiday in North Carolina, where Elizabeth’s brother, John, lives in Charlotte, and their mother, Mary Hanford, lives in Salisbury.

It was the second time Dole has been able to visit with her family since withdrawing from the presidential race. Her time also has been consumed with thank-yous — written and by telephone — to thousands of supporters and contributors of her campaign.

Dole paid for a full-page advertisement in the Post’s Thanksgiving edition to thank her friends and supporters here.

The Doles traveled recently to Taiwan as part of Bob Dole’s work for his Washington law firm. The couple will speak together next week at a function of the Ohio Republican Party. And Elizabeth Dole will introduce her husband in coming days when he receives an award from a Washington women’s group.

Dole still feels her presidential campaign appealed to young people, women, disenchanted voters and disengaged voters. She thought she was successful in getting new people involved and enthusiastic in the political process — people who were yearning to do something for their community that was bigger than themselves.

To women, Dole said, her campaign gave them a chance to become vested in “long-delayed hopes and dreams.” Fifty percent of Dole’s political contributions came from women, who usually contribute only 23 percent to a candidate’s campaign and are normally involved more in humanitarian and civic fund-raising duties.

“I was not running to be the first woman president,” Dole said. “I was running to be the best president I could be.”

The media’s focus on money frustrated Dole. For her, every interview seemed to start with a question about fund-raising and how she and other candidates were trailing Bush. Federal Election Commission spending reports became the major stories, she said.

Dole wanted more attention given to her 30 years of experience, many in chief executive officer roles such as transportation secretary, labor secretary and American Red Cross president.

Dole also wished that more focus could have been given to the big crowds she was drawing, the new people she brought into the party and the strong organization she had built, notably, in Iowa.

But the lip service given to campaign dollars, especially the $60 million-plus that Bush had raised, denigrated the whole process, Dole said. The pundits’ concentration on money hid a real people’s campaign that was happening “outside the Beltway,” Dole said.

Dole claimed that Iowans, for example, were more concerned about a myriad of issues unrelated to dollars or gender, for that matter.

“Money becomes the message,” she added.

In trying to explain the Bush phenomenon, Dole said his people started early, tapped into the longstanding political connections of the family, took advantage of a sitting governor’s fund-raising apparatus and benefited from the connections of other governors across the country.

Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida is George Bush’s brother.

Dole also stressed the Bush is a “fine individual,” who “has done a great job as governor” of Texas.

By the time Dole left the non-partisan American Red Cross and decided to run for president, she said, Bush already had tapped the traditional Republican sources for money.

Dole speaks in favor of raising the political contribution limit for an individual from $1,000 per candidate to $5,000. The $1,000 maximum dates back to 1974.

“That would have given me enough to stay in there,” Dole said of a $5,000 limit.

McCain has been able to stay in, even though his fund-raising wasn’t much better than Dole’s. Dole said McCain has the advantages of being a U.S. senator. He legally transferred $2 million from his Senate campaign coffers to his presidential committee, for example.

McCain also benefits from being a sitting committee chairman (Commerce) when it comes to political contributions.

Dole said she felt good about her presidential chances if she could have won the nomination. Polls throughout the year have always shown her favored over Democrats Al Gore and Bill Bradley.

Dole said her speech in Washington announcing that she was leaving the presidential hunt was not overly emotional for her.

“I was at peace about it,” she said. “It was the right decision, I felt. I think Bob felt some emotion at that point.”

Dole also doesn’t look back. For example, she said she doesn’t think about how her life would be different had Bob Dole won the presidency in 1996, making her the first lady.

Neither has she looked at the 2000 presidential race as her one and only shot.

“I really don’t think about the what-ifs,” she said.