Bob Dole: Great American
He lived through the Depression, then took a bullet for his country, then served it for 50 years. Now, at 88, he tells us what lies ahead
It occurs to me, sitting in a stately law office with Bob Dole, that Bob Dole is the exact opposite of so many of the politicians we talk about these daysespecially the animatronic, polished Mitt Romney, who tries so achingly hard to be real, to be authentic, to be someone like, well, Bob Dole.
Dole materialized last winter and entered the national conversation as one of the first Republicans anyone takes seriously to endorse Mitt Romney. (Wait, Bob Dole is still alive?) In a letter to The Des Moines Register, he offered an explicit and unanticipated reality check, becoming the lone conservative to actually say something, politely, about the invasion of the GOP weirdos into the campaign.
Bob Dole.
"I'm still here!" he says to me.
Bob Dole?
Aw, Bob Dole.
I ask him the question everyone seems to be asking of the GOP faithful in 2012: "Would you say your endorsement of Romney was...tepid?"
"Not tepid at all," Bob Dole says, his face tight and serious.
There's a spritely young flack sitting behind me and another one in a chair to my left, and so it is me and Bob Dole doing a show together, which apparently is what makes Bob Dole comfortable. "Romney came to my office," Dole says, "we had a good meeting, and I'm not a Gingrich fan, so..." He famously loathed Gingrich: "He's just difficult to work with. It's either Newt's way or the highway. He's got a lot of ideas. Some of them are good; not many. So it looked to me like it would be either Romney or Newt for the nomination, but just on its own, I thought hewell, I'll say this: Romney looks like a president."
It's always discomfiting to listen to people try to conjure any serious oomph when taking about Romney, and this moment is no exception. I make the point that Mitt Romney's background is different from Bob Dole's. "You're self-made," I say. "You embody the American Dream."
"I've never known a lot of rich people," he says. "It's not my bag."
His bag, even at 88, is to dress in a suit each day and show up at the law firm on F Street in Washington, D.C., grand and formal where dressy people are busy and hushed. He seems propped behind his big walnut desk, his soft body slumped like an infant's in a high chair, his chin lowered over the knot of his polka-dot tie, trousers hiked high. He's wearing a crisp white shirt, and his thin hair is combed into obedient stripes. A fresh cotton ball taped over paper-thin skin on the back of his hand suggests hospital matters not quite resolved.
*snip*
He lived through the Depression, then took a bullet for his country, then served it for 50 years. Now, at 88, he tells us what lies ahead
It occurs to me, sitting in a stately law office with Bob Dole, that Bob Dole is the exact opposite of so many of the politicians we talk about these daysespecially the animatronic, polished Mitt Romney, who tries so achingly hard to be real, to be authentic, to be someone like, well, Bob Dole.
Dole materialized last winter and entered the national conversation as one of the first Republicans anyone takes seriously to endorse Mitt Romney. (Wait, Bob Dole is still alive?) In a letter to The Des Moines Register, he offered an explicit and unanticipated reality check, becoming the lone conservative to actually say something, politely, about the invasion of the GOP weirdos into the campaign.
Bob Dole.
"I'm still here!" he says to me.
Bob Dole?
Aw, Bob Dole.
I ask him the question everyone seems to be asking of the GOP faithful in 2012: "Would you say your endorsement of Romney was...tepid?"
"Not tepid at all," Bob Dole says, his face tight and serious.
There's a spritely young flack sitting behind me and another one in a chair to my left, and so it is me and Bob Dole doing a show together, which apparently is what makes Bob Dole comfortable. "Romney came to my office," Dole says, "we had a good meeting, and I'm not a Gingrich fan, so..." He famously loathed Gingrich: "He's just difficult to work with. It's either Newt's way or the highway. He's got a lot of ideas. Some of them are good; not many. So it looked to me like it would be either Romney or Newt for the nomination, but just on its own, I thought hewell, I'll say this: Romney looks like a president."
It's always discomfiting to listen to people try to conjure any serious oomph when taking about Romney, and this moment is no exception. I make the point that Mitt Romney's background is different from Bob Dole's. "You're self-made," I say. "You embody the American Dream."
"I've never known a lot of rich people," he says. "It's not my bag."
His bag, even at 88, is to dress in a suit each day and show up at the law firm on F Street in Washington, D.C., grand and formal where dressy people are busy and hushed. He seems propped behind his big walnut desk, his soft body slumped like an infant's in a high chair, his chin lowered over the knot of his polka-dot tie, trousers hiked high. He's wearing a crisp white shirt, and his thin hair is combed into obedient stripes. A fresh cotton ball taped over paper-thin skin on the back of his hand suggests hospital matters not quite resolved.
*snip*
