THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT  
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Friday, May 17, 1996                   TAG: 9605170494
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
                                             LENGTH: Medium:   57 lines

DOLE'S EXIT FROM SENATE PROVIDES PEEK AT HIS HEART

Like the Humphrey Bogart he resembles, Bob Dole, leaving the Senate to campaign full time for the presidency, cracked a fissure and let voters see the lava of emotion roiling beneath the crust.

At some point in a film, laconic, glittering-eyed, pursed-mouth, lean-faced Bogart, given to snarling asides a la Dole, would break down and offer a glimpse at the core. As often as not, it was sentimental.

Dole's farewell address, critics agreed, was his best. Nor did anyone intimate it was an act, the charge brought against Bill Clinton when he emotes; but if there were an Oscar for oratory, Dole would have it.

Bidding his staff goodbye, he cried, it was reported, but not in his speech.

``I will seek the presidency with nothing to fall back on but the judgment of the people and nowhere to go but the White House or home,'' he said, his voice quavering on home, as if he were about to join the jobless. ``I will stand before you without office or authority, a private citizen, a Kansan, an American, just a man. . . ''

At that his voice cracked, but he did not go over the brink, which was well. It is one thing to choke up, manly even; it is another, in voter's eyes, to weep as Ed Muskie did in the snow in New Hampshire long ago.

Dole's GOP henchmen held that he was sacrificing for the good of the nation. Democrats asserted he was trying to escape Newt Gingrich. Weeks ago, Dole instructed aides to keep him out of pictures with the Robespierre of the Republican revolt; but at the end, as always, Gingrich was there, hovering over Dole's left shoulder.

Gingrich's rosy face floated balloonlike amid the packed mass. He was wondering, perhaps if he could do as well. Over Dole's right shoulder graven-faced Pete Domenici was nodding approval.

Some regret the event didn't occur at Dole's Kansas home, but it was better the voters see him tearing away from his beloved Senate.

To leave was wise. Striving to stay astride two horses wasn't working. It is one thing to explain on the hustings why one opposes raising the minimum wage. It is another to prevent advocates from bringing it to a vote in the Senate. Dole the majority leader kept colliding with Dole the campaigner.

The question is whether the GOP hard right will let moderate conservative Dole go on his own.

In the past, he was mindful, mulling over a hike in the minimum wage, that his father wore overalls to work. Or he recalled, pondering aid for the underdog, his 39 months hospitalized under government care. Dole, a child of the Depression, was not apt to forget the net.

The GOP extreme should understand that its hard-edged image can be a major drag if thrust on the candidate. It better let Bob Dole be himself. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

BOB DOLE: JUST A MAN

by CNB