(5 of 6)
But such statistical footnotes offered the Vice President's opponents no consolation. As the winner lingered in Houston for two days of tennis and strategy sessions, Kemp returned to Washington to write a gracious withdrawal speech. The New York Congressman said he would end his 18-year legislative career as well as his presidential campaign. He claimed to find solace in the fact that some of his original causes, like growth through lower taxes, are now party dogma. Robertson, once considered a threat to fracture the party in the South, had seen his support drop ten points even among his core constituency. His predictions for success in Dixie shattered, the ever facile former minister used the tenderfoot alibi: "It isn't that bad for an amateur, but it's not what I expected."
Dole, making a last stand in Illinois, had a more plausible explanation for his disaster. "I can beat George Bush," he said repeatedly, "but I can't beat Ronald Reagan." Nothing was working right for him, not even his chartered aircraft, which at one point refused to take off. "Let's get another plane," he muttered to frazzled aides. In keeping with his losing streak, there was no other plane; the Senate minority leader had to wait for repairs. His campaign organization, never a model of efficiency or unity, also needed work at a time when Dole had no margin for error. Some advisers urged that he follow Kemp to the exit promptly, before suffering more humiliation. That advice soon made the airwaves, increasing the already huge doubts about Dole's viability. He ricocheted between pity and resolve. "Nothing is easy in life for me," he groused. In the end, clinging to pride, he asserted, "I do not give up easily."
In the abstract, Dole appeared an almost romantic figure, the brave underdog who would not yield. Visiting the Chicago hospital where his war wounds had healed, he announced, "I'm starting my road to recovery again in Illinois, just like I did 40 years ago." But 40 years ago, the surgeons could X-ray the damage and prescribe detailed treatment. Last week Dole had no 5 for his political malady. The "one of us" line that had served him well in Iowa and South Dakota was wearing thin. One of Dole's shrewdest advisers, Tom Rath, observed, "You can't wage an insurgent candidacy with an Establishment candidate." With a weekend Chicago Tribune poll showing Bush ahead in Illinois 62% to 28%, Dole was reduced to a vague hope of rescue by some deus ex machina. "Who knows what's going to happen next week or the week after?" he mused in a fatalistic tone.
What should happen, one of his top aides suggested, is that Dole craft an elegant farewell statement for delivery around midweek. That would clear the & way for an early healing of intraparty wounds and allow Bush to get a large jump on his eventual Democratic opponent. It might also encourage the Vice President to venture out of the bunker of blandness from which he has waged his nomination campaign. When he arrived in Chicago last week to seal his victory, Bush seemed to lean in that direction. Sounding more than a bit like Dole, Bush promised to preside personally over a Washington summit to resolve the budget deficit. He inveighed against ethical lapses in government, an implied criticism of the Administration's laxness on that subject.