It’s not, of course, as if Dole were running against a man with a capacity to inspire fear and trembling. But Clinton is the president and brings with him into any real room or even electronic setting the imposing and somewhat intimidating aura of his office. And that’s what Dole the Unscary, Dole trailing the apparent “kick me” sign is up against.
You want evidence? Start with the unrelenting assaults, ridicule and contempt dished out all year by his supposed friends and party brethren – without the slightest sign of anxiety about being overheard by Dole or causing him discomfort or displeasure. Republican analysts have been competing with each other to say publicly what a rotten candidate they think he is or would be. These have not necessarily been people with a burning passion for some other candidate, but rather people ostentatiously shopping around for any alternative, all the while saying what a turkey the favorite is. Now, with condescension they say they will of course vote for him . . . but sigh . . . There’s not a one among these voluble, unembarrassed observers who seems to have undergone a moment of worry about whether it was politically prudent to sound off in this fashion against the guy who was going to be their nominee and conceivably their president.
Consider Dole’s staff. Will they still be publicly quarreling and rearranging their duties on Election Day? Will they be taking credit for Dole’s actions? Dole gave a good and important speech announcing his decision to leave the Senate. Article after article immediately explained who had written the speech and who had thought of the idea of resignation, whereat criticism started being heard that it was a phony speech because Dole hadn’t thought of it, etc. Now, it is worth noting here that no one takes credit for the boss’s successes more lavishly than some on the Clinton staff, and it is also the case that both Clintons’ persona makeovers by others are regularly chronicled in the press. And, in any case, innumerable ghostwriters for presidents and others have long since dropped the “ghost” part of the formulation, stepping into the spotlight almost before the guy delivering their words stepped out of it. So none of this is unique. But it is surely acute in Dole’s case and part of a larger pattern in which he is treated with practically no deference at all.
The press naturally picks it up, although as an institution it doesn’t usually need much encouragement in this line of attack. Dole merely loosens his tie or – in an act regarded as near revolutionary – removes it and he is made endless fun of. His manner of speaking, his snafus, his inadequacies are dissected to the point of something like actual deconstruction of the man. Bob Dole the campaigner, as a consequence, often doesn’t look so much like a hunter as like someone being hunted. Just about anyone can do whatever he pleases to him.
People used to be scared of Dole’s legendary scathing wit: he could be funny and mean and take your head off before you even saw the cutlass coming. That aspect of his personality has either been mellowed or put away, but it doesn’t much matter since that was not the particular kind of fear he needs now to be able to inspire as a credible presidential candidate. He needs to be able to do something analagous to what governments do in successful negotiations and power relationships generally: believably convey that they have power and strength they are willing to put at the service of their interests, that there are limits to their willingness to take abuse or go along, that they are going somewhere whether you are planning to go with them or not and that you might just want to think about the wisdom of joining up. It is not brute force or some silly threat of revenge that is activated in this kind of approach. It is the power of conviction and confidence in it.
Maybe Dole needs to commit a couple of ritual (if well-deserved) staff firings. Maybe he needs to smack back bigtime at a couple of the self-indulgent critics on his own side to indicate that at a minimum what they’re doing doesn’t come free. He certainly needs to enmesh himself with a more impressive group of colleagues – peers, really, from the Senate and the party – so that he would seem less of a darting, lone target and take on more political heft and size. He is, after all, up against the whole White House and institution of the presidency, not just some comparable lone guy in satin trunks in the middle of the ring. And he needs to establish some distance between himself and the ever-present mike, as well as himself and the ever-present crowd. I don’t mean he should forgo the close-up and personal campaigning that he reportedly is doing well at now in small towns across the country. I mean that in addressing those crowds as well as every other prospective voter, he needs to convey the power of a man who knows what needs to be done and has the self-confidence and audacity to do it, even at the risk of causing displeasure and taking political heat. That is also the power of someone who can and might just win. People, possibly even including those who have professed to be for him all the while bad-mouthing up an anti-Dole storm, might change their tune. Dole has to make it seem reckless or foolish or even dangerous for them to kick him around in public. I don’t know if he can, only that he hasn’t begun to do that yet.
