THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 15, 1996 TAG: 9607150110
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: 56 lines
After two bleak weeks in his campaign, Bob Dole received wise advice Sunday from a surprising quarter - James Carville, canny strategist for President Clinton.
Urging Carville to lay aside partisanship, Tim Russert of NBC's Meet the Press asked: ``Who'd you advise Bob Dole to pick as V.P.?''
``Domenici. Because I think Bob Dole's basically a green eyeshade,'' Carville said - and I broke into a cheer. The Lab ran and picked up his tennis ball, ready for action. Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, chairman of the budget committee, is a wise, firm man, not given to extremes.
My constant reader will recall that for 12 years Domenici has been my pick for the GOP ticket. He is to fiscal matters what Democrat Sam Nunn was to defense.
``I'd say for Bob Dole that is the kind of person he'd be comfortable with in a kind of political philosophy that I think deep down inside most closely mirrors Bob Dole's,'' Carville said. Domenici also would draw Catholic votes in the Northeast; and to pick someone from New Mexico would look unconventional.
``But chances are about one in a thousand that Dole would pick Domenici,'' he said - which perhaps is why Carville replied so readily.
``It'd just be, I think, favorably received,'' he said. Purblind Republicans won't see it. Dole's dangerous foes are not Democrats but GOP factions, each bent on prescribing a president by its inflexible views.
Clinton, a broken field runner flitting among issues, never stands still long enough for querulous Democrats, much less Republicans, to get a fix on him.
The one constant compass among milling Democrats, especially in the White House, is Carville.
With a bone-deep instinct for politics, honed by practice and by mingling with all kinds of people, Carville makes Machiavelli look like a Sunday school superintendent in charge of a picnic in the rain.
A release for him is a wild sense of humor, often kinetic. It was exhibited Sunday when, describing how Ross Perot, deciding to run for president, pulled the rug from under Richard Lamm's candidacy, Carville half sprang from his chair and jerked his arms as if yanking the rug into mid-air.
Such excursions into comedy not only renew Carville, but they reinvigorate his staff and bolster their confidence amid ever breaking crises of a campaign.
His wife, Mary Matalin, is capable of playing in depth a like role for the Republicans - some of whom, wallowing in paranoia, suspect her of consorting with the enemy. They don't understand that her own intellectual gifts are rendered all the more acute through osmosis while in Carville's company.
The GOP may beat Bob Dole yet. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Sen. Pete Dominici, left, has one chance in a thousand of joining
the Dole ticket, Clinton adviser James Carville says. by CNB