THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 15, 1996 TAG: 9608150350
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A9 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY GUY FRIDDELL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 46 lines
In nominating Bob Dole for president, Republicans aimed to humanize him.
Not that Dole needed humanizing. Friends know him as a quiet, even taciturn man, but with a quick, quirky sense of humor.
He shrinks from expatiating on his own virtues. Aboard his campaign plane, a reporter asked him what he thought was his best quality. Dole thought a moment. ``Beats me,'' he said.
On Tuesday at the New York delegation, Dole was breaking down his tax cut plan on individuals.
``Now, if you're an individual with five children under 18 years of age,'' he said and then looked up adding, ``you're a busy person.''
When Dole asked Arizona Sen. John McCain to nominate him, the usually serene McCain was worried.
``In a speech two nights before, I was worried because if I failed, it would reflect on me,'' he said. ``But I was even more worried for two reasons, Bob Dole is a close friend, and if I failed it would reflect on him.''
McCain spent most of Tuesday night writing.
McCain's father, Jack McCain, served as vice admiral commanding the Atlantic Amphibious Force.
While his father was in Norfolk, John McCain was stationed at the Oceana Naval Air Station. He has a fine command of the English language and comes by it naturally, said Robert H. Mason, the former editor of The Virginian-Pilot.
``Both his parents are highly articulate and popular in the Naval community in Norfolk,'' Mason said.
Dole and McCain were tempered by hardship and war. Dole was wounded during World War II and McCain was shot down on his first mission in Vietnam.
McCain recalled that when the U.S. Senate tried to cut off funding for the war in Vietnam before America's prisoners of war were released, Bob Dole led the opposition and prevented America ``from leaving the field while so many of her sons remained the prisoners of our enemies. All the while he waged that debate, Bob Dole wore a POW bracelet that bore my name. I never knew that Bob had done me that great honor until recently.''
``As a down payment on my gratitude, I'm privileged to render you a small service this evening, but by so doing, I render a far greater service to my country. In placing before this convention the name of my friend . . . for the presidency of the greatest nation on earth. God bless you, Bob, and God bless America.''
KEYWORDS: REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION 1996 by CNB