ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, October 16, 1996 TAG: 9610160031
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
BOB DOLE'S awkward presidential campaign has seemed at times a running debate among his advisers - and within the candidate's own mind - about what strategy he should embrace to catch up with the chameleon president.
Quitting the U.S. Senate didn't do the trick. Kowtowing to the Christian Coalition didn't, either. Nor did proposing a 15-percent tax giveaway, or naming Jack Kemp as his running mate. Each move has posed a dilemma for Dole, the accomplished Senate leader and social moderate who once ridiculed Kemp's supply-side faith.
Dole's internal tug-of-war - between (a) the wish to preserve his ironic dignity and redeem his nasty old image, and (b) the temptation to betray principle and risk posterity's ill judgment on the chance that he might still win the prize - has only compounded the muddle of his campaign.
Tonight, in the last of two presidential debates, comes perhaps the denouement of this psychodrama: Dole's last opportunity, with a big audience, to do what so many have urged, yet what he has resisted or undertaken only half-heartedly until this past week - to go after, in a word, Clinton's "character."
Five explanations have been commonly offered for Dole's reluctance - until recently - to charge into this swamp. First, his reputation as a hatchet man might revive. Second, voters are sick and tired of excessive partisanship and "negative" campaign insults. Third, most people already are familiar with Clinton's flaws and have figured them into their assessments of the man. Fourth, it's the vice-presidential candidate's job. (Whoops. Not only did Kemp, perhaps looking toward 2000, demur; he told a national audience that "it is beneath Bob Dole to go after anyone personally.") Fifth, Dole would look desperate, which he is.
All these reservations make sense. No one, in any case, should expect the Republican's performance tonight to change by much the dynamics of a contest that have changed little in the past year.
The problem with this analysis, however, is that it considers only the impact on the race, at the expense of the substance of the issue. Dole has done too much of this already, with poor effect on his chances and on the quality of the campaign.
A more significant reservation in attacking the "character" issue is that a number of the allegations that it encompasses are old or unproven or hugely complicated, or suggest mismanagement more than malfeasance, or are considerably less than central to the running of the government.
Of course character matters in choosing a president. Dole should have been talking about it all along. But he would do well, in tonight's debate and afterwards, to discuss it not as a code word with which to hit Clinton on the head, but as several issues with varying degrees of relevance to the election.
Put away "Bozo" and other name-calling. That should be beneath Dole. Leave aside, too, the old allegations of sexual impropriety. Even so, Clinton should not be permitted to get by this campaign without rigorous questioning, from Dole as well as others, on a number of conduct-related fronts.
Challenge him to explain in his own words the campaign contributions from Asian influence peddlers, the Whitewater real estate mess, the disappearance and reappearance of subpoenaed legal papers, the firing of White House travel office aides, the collection of FBI files on 900 people, the various investigations of Clinton assistants and Cabinet officials.
Above all, ask Clinton to defend his breathtaking political opportunism. Alas, Dole faces a dilemma here as well.
LENGTH: Medium: 65 linesby CNB