Word: added
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Dole is on a roll, but a tough Bush ad called "Senator Straddle" trips him up in New Hampshire...
Meanwhile, media adviser Roger Ailes arrived with a tough anti-Dole ad titled "Senator Straddle." It showed a grim-faced Dole waffling on various issues, notably taxes. Campaign manager Lee Atwater was for it, but two other advisers, Nick Brady and Robert Mosbacher, demurred, noting that it violated Reagan's "eleventh commandment" -- Thou shalt speak no evil of a fellow Republican. At first, Bush sided with them...
...Haig's endorsement. (When a Bush aide later read him a Haig quote saying "I did all the damage I could," Bush stared out a window and muttered, "That's sick.") That Saturday morning, Atwater told Bush he was dead even in the polls and that only the "Straddle" ad would put him over the top. Bush looked over at pollster Bob Teeter and said, "I thought you said I was 5 or 6 up!" Teeter shrugged. New Hampshire Governor John Sununu, Bush's state chairman, assured him the voters could handle the ad. Finally, Barbara Bush chimed...
...Dole campaign was sitting tight. At a strategy session on the Wednesday before the primary, it was decided not to use negative ads. By Saturday, Richard Wirthlin's tracking polls showed Dole going from 5 points behind to 5 points ahead, and at one juncture Wirthlin referred to Dole as "Mr. President." The Dole campaign was unable to put together a new ad in time to get it on the air over the weekend. When they wanted to use an old ad, they were told that the air slots were already filled...
Bush won New Hampshire by 10 points. The timing of the "Straddle" ad was crucial. "It wasn't because we were geniuses or anything," Atwater said later. "It was just because the decision came so late that it worked out that...