Word: kempe
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Never mind that the Dole-Kemp ticket trailed Clinton-Gore by 16 points in the polls. Never mind that Bob Dole had gained no ground against President Clinton in a televised debate only three nights earlier. Never mind all that, because many senior Republicans had already resigned themselves to Dole's incoherent campaigning and likely defeat. But there was still a good chance Republicans could keep a hold on Congress and make a better run for the White House in 2000. And in both those struggles Republicans attached their hopes to Kemp, who seemed to be everything Dole...
...then, with 45 million people watching on TV, Kemp was judged to have badly lost his debate against Gore. That's what three instant TV polls said. That's what a panel of debate coaches said. And worst of all for Kemp, that's what prominent Republicans said, on the airwaves and, more vehemently, in private. "A disaster," thundered right-wing icon Rush Limbaugh. "We need new leaders!" Many of the callers to his syndicated radio show expressed amazement and anger that Kemp passed up debate moderator Jim Lehrer's invitation to critique President Clinton's ethics, even on such...
Conservative columnist George Will declared Kemp to be "verging on incoherent." Bill Bennett, a co-chairman of the Dole campaign, was worried that his close friend Kemp was "concerned too much about being 'nice' and not enough about winning." Bill Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, complained that "if you came down from Mars and saw this debate, you might think that Al Gore was a moderate Republican...and Jack Kemp was the Democrat." Even Dole, in an interview with ABC's Ted Koppel, cracked that Kemp and Gore got along so famously that "it looked like a fraternity...
...many ways, Kemp was the victim of a passive-aggressive behavior characteristic of a divided and sour G.O.P.: Dole and his top aides won't say what they want, then get angry when they don't get it. Republicans get angry at Dole and take it out on Kemp. "A lot of Republicans had already decided this campaign was going down, but at least felt good that we had a strong candidate for 2000," says Ed Rollins, who managed Kemp's 1988 effort. "You'd hear, 'If only we had Jack at the top of the ticket...
...dysfunction that currently prevails inside the Dole campaign explains why, within hours of the debate, the finger pointing was well under way. Dole's campaign manager, Scott Reed, who once served as a top Kemp aide, put out the word that he was so disappointed with Kemp's lack of fight that he refused to speak with his former boss after the debate. He was particularly upset that Kemp failed to use several scripted zingers. For instance, at some point when Gore cited arcana from Kemp's record, Kemp was supposed to ask, "Say, Al, did you get that...