(7 of 8)
For her part, Elizabeth Dole has also influenced her husband. Before they were married, she persuaded him to back legislation which would set up a Federal Consumer Protection Agency, a proposal opposed at that time by the President. Not that she has any possibility of turning Dole into a liberal. "It would be a lot easier to vote for Betty and Libby," says one consumer advocate, "than Ford and Dole."
The consumer issue, in fact, is one of the few on which Dole and Ford differ. In 1975 the liberal Americans for Democratic Action gave Dole an approval rating of only 17%, while the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action placed him at 67%, and the National Farmers Union at 78%. In 1972, during his last full year in the House of Representatives Ford got respective ratings of 6%, 68% and 20% from the same three organizations.
Like the President, Dole opposes the Humphrey-Hawkins "full employment" bill as being unworkable and inflationary; he backs the Administration's defense policies, including the building of the B-l bomber; he wants strong restrictions on the use of busing to integrate schools; and he endorses passage of a constitutional amendment giving states the right to set up their own abortion laws.
Dole did criticize Ford in 1974 for his "premature" pardon of Richard Nixon. The following year, he rapped the President for placing a two-month embargo on the sale of grain to the Soviet Union. The President was responding to labor's charges that the deal would boost food prices in the U.S., but the ban infuriated Midwestern farmers who were eager to sell their bountiful crop to the Russians. In his acceptance speech—and again during his visit to Kansas with Dole—Ford vowed that there would be no more embargoes.
Ford's running mate also broke with the G.O.P. to form a curious partnership with Liberal George McGovern to get a bill through the Senate—the House is still considering its own measure —that would reform the food-stamp program by making the benefits more generous than those in the plan backed by the President. When he questioned a Department of Agriculture official about the Administration's tough food-stamp proposals, Dole was moved to ask: "Is there a burial allowance for those who starve?"
During his years in the House and Senate, Dole has been a special and persuasive advocate for the rights of the handicapped. At his suggestion, a sign-language expert stood behind him on the podium last week and interpreted his speech attacking the Democrats. A blind woman also seconded his nomination.
Ford's choice of Dole as Republican Vice-Presidential candidate inspired assorted wordplays. Democratic wags began calling the pair "Dull and Dole." The New York Times headlined its editorial on the vice-presidential selection DOLEFUL NOMINATION, and on the facing page Columnist James Reston wrote about FORD'S DOLEFUL NEWS. There came the inevitable puns and jokes. Question: What do you get when you cross a Dole and a Ford? Answer: A pineapple that won't start.