ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 22, 1996 TAG: 9609250101
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON (AP)
SOURCE: MIKE FEINSILBER/Associated Press
IT is Inauguration Day 1997. President Dole has given a short, snappy inaugural address stressing responsibility - individual, societal and governmental. Tellingly, he evoked the spirit of Russell, Kan., where people looked out for one another.
What now? What kind of presidency can one expect Dole to produce?
His goals: Make his mark as the president who rescued Medicare; who balanced the budget (first time since 1969). Who restored America's trust in its political system. Who cut and simplified taxes, cut the size of government, ended the entitlement system that sends out government benefits whether they are needed or not; maybe, even, who made a move toward privatizing Social Security.
His timetable: Short. Dole takes office knowing that he very well may have only one term to make his mark. The clock is ticking; he would be 77 when his first term ends.
That means Dole enters office a lame duck. It means backstage maneuvering begins on Day One for the 2000 Republican nomination. Jack Kemp, Dole's vice president, has a leg up, but not a lockup. Other ambitious Republicans are not about to cede the nomination without a fight.
A generation of ambitious Republicans stands in the wings - Newt Gingrich, John McCain, Connie Mack, John Ashcroft, Phil Gramm, Dan Quayle, Christie Whitman, Tom Ridge, Pete Wilson, George W. Bush, John Kasich, Christopher Cox, maybe Colin Powell.
Of course, speculating about what a Dole presidency would be like is only that, speculation. Presidencies often are shaped by events beyond the control, even the anticipation, of a president. A revolution in Saudi Arabia, threatening the world's oil supplies, would do more to dominate a Dole presidency than any agenda in the back of his head.
Still, it is possible to speculate. Dole's style is the product of a lifetime; he won't change in the White House. And a Dole victory probably would be accompanied by a Republican Congress.
Dole could be expected to consult with Congress, especially a Republican one, more than any recent president. Consultation, accommodation, compromise - those are his hallmarks.
Yet he remains an old-fashioned conservative. That won't change. Somehow he would have to accommodate his inbred distaste for deficit spending with his campaign pledge to cut taxes by a substantial 15 percent.
To his core, Dole believes in a balanced budget. In office, he could be expected to push a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
A President Dole also could be expected to increase military spending and give new life to building a national space defense system. Dole also would give enthusiastic backing to turning federal programs back to the states. It was not accidental that during his primary campaign he often quoted the Constitution's 10th Amendment, which says powers not given the federal government by the Constitution are ``reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.''
``Given Dole's history of moderation, some people would be surprised at how conservative a Dole administration would be under a Republican Congress,'' said John Pitney, a political scientist who worked for the House Republican Research Committee and has written a Dole biography.
``Dole has usually worked in an atmosphere where he was compromising with liberal Democrats, either on the Hill or in the White House,'' Pitney said.
``But as president with Republican majorities, he would be compromising among conservatives, so you would be much more likely to get a conservative outcome.''
Stylistically, Pitney and others see a Dole presidency resembling Dwight Eisenhower's, described by scholar Fred Greenstein as ``the hidden-hand presidency.'' Much would happen out of sight.
Eisenhower was also a 9-to-5 president, who relied on good staff work. Dole would be more hands-on than either Eisenhower or Ronald Reagan, whose strength came from his oratorical skills, his ability to reach out to the country, and who left it to underlings to work things out - even big things.
Dole would be a full-time president, says former House Republican Leader Bob Michel.
``He doesn't play golf. He doesn't have hobbies. He's used to hard work and 18-hour days,'' Michel said.
Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., a friend from the Senate, says he would expect an ``open-door presidency.'' Dole ``likes to visit with people, likes to hear their views,'' Simpson said. ``But he's not a wonk. He's not interested in sitting around the old fireplace and shooting the vapors, he likes to see things get done.''
Elizabeth Dole, who sat on the Federal Trade Commission, served on the White House staff and held Cabinet posts as secretaries of labor and transportation, would be the first presidential spouse in history with strong governmental experience. If she hadn't been Dole's wife, she surely would have qualified as a vice presidential possibility.
She already is Dole's closest adviser. That would continue. But she wouldn't run anything in government; Hillary Rodham Clinton's experiences showed the pitfalls of that. Elizabeth Dole already has said she'd be a working first lady, returning to her job as president of the American Red Cross.
Simpson says Bob Dole's Cabinet would be filled with ``thoughtful people - moderates, not ideologues.'' Paul Light, director of the public policy project at the Pew Charitable Trust, said he wouldn't be surprised if Dole appointed ``the occasional Democrat.'' (Eisenhower had a Democratic secretary of labor who came from the labor movement; it was called a Cabinet of ``eight millionaires and a plumber.'')
Democrat Tim Penny, a fiscal conservative who quit Congress out of annoyance with its failure to deal with the deficit, is mentioned as a possible Dole budget chief.
Other possible Cabinet choices: for secretary of state, Colin Powell, if he's available, or Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., a foreign policy expert.
Other Cabinet candidates: Donald Rumsfeld, Dole's new national campaign chairman and President Ford's secretary of defense and White House chief of staff. Gov. William Weld of Massachusetts, if he loses his bid for a Senate seat. Gov. Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin, known as a welfare reformer.
Lugar, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, would be a natural for agriculture secretary if he misses out at the State Department, but might prefer staying where he is. Former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, a rival of Dole for the presidential nomination, might be available. Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean is highly respected. Former Rep. Vin Weber, R-Minn., is a Dole policy adviser with ties to GOP conservatives. Sen. Bill Cohen, R-Maine, is retiring and might be available. Former congressman Robert Ellsworth is a fellow Kansan with old ties to Dole.
Vacancies on the Supreme Court can be expected. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, would love the job and would be confirmable without a fight. Former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh also fits that category. Kenneth Starr, the Whitewater prosecutor and a former federal judge, would raise a howl from Democrats, but Dole might feel he owed him much.
The next president is going to have to find a way to keep Medicare from going broke. ``That's not politics, it's arithmetic,'' says political scientist Pitney. Dole might take that on - along with the entire issue of curtailing entitlements - as an act of statesmanship.
Endorsement of partial privatization of Social Security would delight GOP supply siders and young conservatives skeptical of the system's ability to continue to deliver.
Dole is likely to pay mostly lip service to a range of social issues. He's already seen abortion as a you-can't-win issue. He doesn't fancy tilting at windmills. Dole would be a president in a hurry. Wouldn't have time for empty gestures. Gotta go, as he likes to say.
``If federalism is to propel the next American century, it will be because we have a president genuinely committed to replacing the old paternalism with a new sense of partnership. I don't want governors to have to come to Washington on bended knees, seeking waivers every time they want to pursue a fresh way of problem solving. As president, I don't want to give them permission, I want to give them power.''
- From ``Unlimited Partners,'' a book by Bob Dole, co-authored with his
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