Until Hurricane Fran beat him to it, Bob Dole had planned to spend last Friday campaigning in New Jersey, trying hard to make a dent in another crucial swing state. The master of clanging symbols, who once toured the Old Man ale plant in New Hampshire, was scheduled to appear at the Switlik Parachute Co. in Trenton, a factory that makes lifeboats, life jackets and parachutes. "Let me get this straight," said a top campaign official after the trip was scrubbed. "We're going to a factory that makes products for people who are drowning or crashing? Thank God for the hurricane."
At this point Bob Dole could use an act of God, because he is running out of time. A private poll by the Republican National Committee last week found that in the 19 biggest states not only is Dole trailing badly, but also his support is lower than Clinton's negative rating, meaning that even voters who can't stand the President can't bring themselves to support his opponent. Unemployment last week hit a seven-year low, people's confidence in the economy hit an eight-year high, and for the first time, a majority of voters credited Clinton for his handling of it. The air attacks on Iraq shoved Dole off the front pages and might have reminded voters that he had met with Saddam before the Gulf War and concluded that "there might be a chance to bring this guy around." If Dole's candidacy is to be anything more than a formality, he needs to bring himself around, and quickly.
And, at last, he tried to do so. All summer long, as his party allies snorted and pawed over a double-digit gap in the polls, Dole remained serene in his conviction that voters wouldn't start paying attention to politics until the traditional Labor Day launch of the general election. The nominee had told nearly every audience for months that he would burst upon the scene in September after a successful convention, with a popular vice-presidential candidate and a clear economic message. Best of all, he said, his cash-starved campaign would be revived by $62 million in federal funds to pay for television commercials explaining why he, and not Clinton, should be President for the next four years. Dole's top strategist, Don Sipple, had been eager to launch the offensive, but he told friends in August, "The Big Dog isn't ready."
With only two months to go before Election Day, Dole was finally ready--and the first thing he did was can Sipple. But this wasn't the "Old Dole," who is known for dumping aides when he hits a rough patch. Instead it was campaign manager Scott Reed, who had plotted for weeks to replace Sipple and retrieve control of the campaign's message machinery.
Enlisted in March after Dole fired his previous pollster and top strategist, Sipple and his sidekick, Mike Murphy, spent months planning ads, testing themes with focus groups, studying ad markets, trying out ideas. They worked down the hall from Reed at a company called New Century Media, a wholly separate operation whose sole client was Dole for President. The arrangement hid a basic disagreement that would eventually cause a problem: Who was in charge of message--the admen or the campaign managers?