Word: bennette
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Besides, by late last month Bill Bennett's name was rising fast on Dole's ever changing short list. While preparing for his July 30 speech praising the values of the sci-fi blockbuster Independence Day--a subject, and a movie, that Bennett had urged upon Dole--the two men spent several days on the road together. The night before the speech, Dole invited Bennett to a meeting at the Hotel Sofitel in Los Angeles. With his press secretary Nelson Warfield and California campaign chief Ken Kachigian also in the room, Dole talked mainly about his upcoming tax-cut proposals...
...first reaction all around the room was skeptical. The memory of Kemp's endorsement of Forbes, among many other slights, was still fresh. Bennett pressed on. "You've all worked with Jack," he told them. "I've worked with him. We all know he'll drive you crazy. But he believes in this stuff, and he sells it like nobody else." Bennett was nearly through when he added, "The main rap on this party is that we exclude people. Jack Kemp is the best antidote to that." Without specifying what he had in mind, Bennett urged Dole to think...
Around the time of that meeting, Dole also telephoned Trent Lott to ask what he would think of a Dole-Kemp combination. "Lott was stunned," according to one of the Senator's advisers, but spoke warmly of Kemp. Meanwhile, Dole seemed more interested in the possibility of bringing Bennett aboard. Grownup without being elderly, the best-selling author of The Book of Virtues possessed not only the intellect but the gravitas to shoulder the Dole campaign into a debate on values, where Dole himself moves reluctantly. Bennett is a Catholic, and the Dole team badly wants the Catholic vote...
...Bennett gave no sign that he was interested in the job. When Dole tentatively asked him about it in late July, he replied that "Vice President is not something I'd be good at." Dole demurred, telling Bennett later that he would call him the next day. He didn't, but two days after the Hollywood speech Bennett phoned campaign manager Reed to reiterate that he wasn't interested. Reed called back to urge Bennett not to close the door; Dole was interested, he told him. Bennett answered only that he would think about it and get back to Reed...
...Bennett called that Sunday to back out. If not you, Reed asked, then who? Again Bennett told him, "You oughta look at Jack." More and more, that was the thought in Dole's mind as well. His other potential choices were not panning out. For a while he had been keen to reach back to the Bush years for former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, but the onetime Wyoming Congressman, who has had a coronary bypass, wanted to remain in retirement. Michigan Governor John Engler got on Dole's bad side when he urged Newt Gingrich to shut down the Federal...