THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 2, 1995 TAG: 9508020454
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
A poll Tuesday disclosed that Bob Dole and Bill Clinton, the two most likely to face each other in next year's presidential race, have reason to be pleased with their standings in Virginia.
Dole swamps Phil Gramm and Pat Buchanan for the GOP nomination and edges Clinton 47 percent to 42 percent for the presidency.
Never mind, Clinton couldn't score points against King Kong in Virginia, and he has been in a perpetual comeback from the time he was born into a dysfunctional family.
He seems to revel in being the underdog and then to come screaming first across the finish line. That he now is close to Dole excites his backers.
They also expect that Dole's age - 72 - will hobble him. Dole seems in as good health as any of the candidates; but some old people, as I can testify, tend to become increasingly testy as the years roll on.
They don't suffer fools gladly, or at all. There's a sense of impatience with what ought not to be put up with. (It does not extend, however, to ending sentences with one or what looks like two prepositions.)
Dole's foes like to gloat over his rejoinder when NBC's Tom Brokaw asked him if he had anything to say after George Bush defeated him in New Hampshire in 1992.
``Yeah,'' Dole growled. ``tell him to stop lying about my record!''
``GO GET HIM, DOLE!'' I bellowed at the TV screen.
I was astonished that a shocked Brokaw, and, swiftly, the other emoting commentators, fell in a quivering heap at Dole's outburst.
Why were they undone at a well-phrased, straight-forward answer? The media, not Dole, fell apart.
What did they expect from Dole, whose record had been wronged? A loving tribute to George and Barbs?
Oldsters, having gone through so much, ought to be allowed, now and then, to lose our tempers when crossed unjustly.
At any rate, Dole, though old, has a corner on the crotchety vote. You might call it, after the angry old man in the Fontaine Fox's Toonerville cartoons: the Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang Vote.
Phil Gramm's slippage may be explained by a report that he once tried to invest in a porn film. Maybe it took place while he was a Democrat; but is the Christian Coalition such a forgiving lot that it would deem him born again from such a tawdry incident?
What's beguiling about Buchanan is that, at times, he doesn't seems to take himself or his chances seriously.
Colin Powell is running by not running. In a three-way race, the poll suggests, Clinton would win by 34 percent of the vote, followed by Dole with 31 and Powell with 23 and 12 percent undecided. Many voters love Powell but he has yet to be tested on issues.
The head of a draft Powell group said that voters were not interested in how he stood on the 55 mile-an-hour speed limit on the interstate. But what of affirmative action, Bosnia, TV violence. . . ? by CNB