Word: stumps
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...SATURDAYS AGO IN CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa, but it could be anywhere, any day on the campaign trail. Freed from the weekly Senate grind, Dole is suffering another punishing round of stump appearances. He is serving up the red-meat, conservative lines the campaign insists will win the nomination. The audience has already been shown a 13-minute video titled Bob Dole: An American Hero. The film cost $167,000 to produce and distribute and has the feel of Morning in America, the famous, upbeat Ronald Reagan video. Dole's film is heavy on the story of his road back from...
Dole's aides are hardly oblivious. "Barely adequate" is their candid assessment of Dole on the stump. But this time they have reason to gloat. Dole has stayed "on message." Among the Doleites, their man is "on message" when he avoids describing the government as "doing a lot of good things," a sentiment the campaign would just as soon have him ditch. "Stayed on message," Dole says afterward, before repeating a pet peeve: "Every time I do that reconnect-the-government-to-values stuff, I feel like a plumber...
Consider another example of the real Dole vs. the campaign Dole. On the stump and in his video, Dole urges a more muscular effort to stem drug imports. Privately, Dole has little respect for that policy. "Interdiction is something you can't give up on," he says, "but it'll never do the deed. We've got to get serious about rehabilitation--use our abandoned military bases for facilities--and direct money to educate kids about drugs, starting in the second grade...
Finally, Scott Reed, the Dole campaign manager, is trying to recruit a new messagemeister and some Designated Thinkers who can punch up Dole's listless stump speech. Reed has been trying to improve it since September, but has been unable to find the right person for the job. Several of the people Reed has sounded out for help recently are holding out--for Powell. And Dole insiders wonder whether Dole would even listen to anyone new. As a senior adviser put it, in the classic campaign argot of nouns-as-verbs: "What good is a guru Dole isn't going...
Representative Bob Stump, Republican from Arizona and chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, calls the charge that Congress has balanced the budget on the backs of veterans "just plain mean, disgraceful." He argues that a declining veteran population, coupled with streamlined management and reform of the arcane eligibility rules that keep veterans' hospitals from delivering care in the most efficient way, should enable the VA to maintain its level of service. "Without a balanced federal budget," he adds, "rising interest payments on the national debt would soon crowd out our ability to continue providing for the nation's veterans...