#bob dole

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Cheri Oteri as Ross Perot

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1996 cover of the New Yorker.

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George Bush and Bob Dole by Jeff MacNelly, 1988.

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Poster from Bob Dole's 1996 Presidential campaign.

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February 1973 issue of First Monday.

[deadpresidents]

Even with holding a pen in his right hand all the time I'm sure Bob Dole still had people automatically reaching for that hand when meeting him and since his political career was so long I bet it was difficult and frustrating and maybe embarassing, that's unfortunate

I'm sure Bob Dole was used to it because shaking hands is basically 40% of a politician's job duties and for most people it really is just an automatic movement to go for a handshake with your right hand. Because of Dole's well-known sense of humor, I'm sure he also was used to putting people at ease when they realized he wasn't able to shake with his right hand.

It does, however, remind me of an interesting anecdote shared by Richard Ben Cramer when writing about the close relationship between Dole and Richard Nixon in his legendary book about the 1988 Presidential campaign, What It Takes: The Way to the White House (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO):

Dole had such respect for Richard Nixon, it was near reverence. Nixon had come to Kansas to campaign for Dole in '66. Dole would never forget their talk -- how Nixon said the GOP would make stunning gains in the House that fall. The Party was flat on its back after [Barry] Goldwater...but Nixon called it -- within two or three seats! Dole had never seen anyone who knew politics like Nixon: he had the whole country at instant command in his head. But it was more than that. In Nixon, Dole saw a man who'd been knocked down by life. But he was too tough to stay down. He started in a dusty California farm town...times were bad: story was, the family made it through the week eating ketchup. That meant something to Dole...and to Nixon, who never forgot where he'd come from...who could not forget that he never grew up with the world on his side -- like, for instance, a Kennedy...Dole understood, very well. He saw strength in Nixon, and nobility: Dole mentioned once that Nixon was the only one in Washington who stuck out his left hand to shake with Dole. The only one.

As I mentioned in an earlier post about why Nixon sticking out his left hand when greeting Dole was so meaningful:

For all of Nixon's social awkwardness and supposed lack of personal skills, he was capable of surprising people....Nixon also remembered certain things that meant the world to the individual people that were concerned. In the excerpt above, Cramer mentions that Nixon was "the only one in Washington who stuck out his left hand to shake with Dole." During World War II, Dole was severely wounded in battle in the Italian mountains by a Nazi machine gunner. Dole's injuries were so serious that his recovery was in doubt; it took several years for him to recuperate, and once he did, he was basically unable to use his right arm for the rest of his life. He learned to write with his left hand, button his jacket with his left hand, and tried to conceal the severity of his wounds by placing a pen or a rolled-up piece of paper in his closed right fist. Bob Dole spent 35 years in Congress -- four terms in the House of Representatives and 27 years in the Senate before resigning to focus on his campaign for the Presidency in 1996 -- and, as Richard Ben Cramer pointed out, in all of those years in the nation's capital, only Nixon remembered to shake Dole's left hand. That's why Bob Dole was loyal to a guy like Richard Nixon. That's why a guy like Richard Nixon had people loyal to him until the end. At Nixon's funeral in 1994, Dole -- a man not known for showing his emotions in public -- wiped away tears before breaking down and openly weeping while eulogizing the former President: "The American people love a fighter. And in Dick Nixon, they found a gallant one."

*Incidentally, I do not mention What It Takes: The Way to the White House (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) nearly enough. Richard Ben Cramer's extraordinarily comprehensive, in-depth, and detailed history of the 1988 Presidential election -- it clocks in at nearly 1,100 pages -- is hands-down the best book EVER written about a Presidential campaign. It's a masterpiece of political journalism. And the book itself is so big and heavy that it can be used as a murder weapon...or so I'm told by other people because I've never actually killed somebody with a copy of that particular book...

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Bob Dole political cartoon by Paul Conrad, 1996.

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