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Although they said the story was irrelevant, Reed and Buckley did not want to put that to a public test. Dole might be especially vulnerable because he was running as "the better man." He had told the Washington Post that he was always faithful, and he was on the record as saying such issues were of legitimate concern. After reports of adultery forced Gary Hart to drop out of the 1988 presidential race, Dole told the New York Times, "Once you declare you're a candidate, all bets are off. Everything up to that point is fair game...
...story took some of Dole's top advisers by surprise. Bill Bennett, Dole's national co-chairman and the best-selling author of The Book of Virtues, didn't know whether the allegations were true but had no doubt they raised a legitimate issue. "People should not cheat on their wives, whether they're presidential candidates or not, Democrats or Republicans," he says. "It's wrong. Last time I checked, Jews and Christians had a Commandment about that." The story had a chilling effect on Dole, who found it difficult to separate private and public character and go hard after...
...Dole did not campaign effectively on the character issue until the last weeks before the election, when he got an assist from the media: press reports revealed that a Clinton fund raiser named John Huang had collected more than $800,000 in questionable contributions from foreign donors. Clinton had designed his fund-raising juggernaut to ensure a big win, but now public disgust with his money machine threatened to whittle down the size of his victory margin. Clinton desperately wanted to get more than 50% of the vote. As some undecided voters broke for Ross Perot, Clinton's own polls...
...late October, Penn saw a poll finding that people thought Clinton had taken more money from foreign sources than had Dole. It wasn't true, and it represented a possible opening for Dole. Penn preached aggressive counterprogramming. He began mall-testing a devastating anti-Clinton spot made by Knapp showing a smiling Clinton among Indonesian fat cats. The tag line was, "The President says he did nothing wrong. But isn't the test of a President doing what's right?" This time, they did not make the mistake of showing it to the boss...
...Sunday, Oct. 20, Knapp and Penn cobbled together a response. The spot they made accused Dole of taking $2.6 million in foreign money and being an obstacle to reform. Early Monday morning, Clinton told Penn he wanted to respond on the stump to Dole's attacks. Penn discouraged him. "Anything we say becomes the day's lead story," he said. Penn told him about the new spot, and they decided to put it up immediately. To further blunt Dole's attack, the White House readied some Clinton remarks on campaign-finance reform. He would come out in favor...