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The Michigan Daily - Monday, December 4, 1995 - 5A
Dole uses
leadership
post for
expOsure
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON- A few afternoons
ago Bob Dole had it both ways. There
he was live on C-SPAN giving a high-
brow speech announcing his qualified
support for President Clinton on Bosnia.
Flip a couple of channels and there he
was again, condemning movie violence
in a videotape excerpt used in the
middlebrow CNN show "TalkBack
Live."
Teddy Roosevelt may have claimed
the "bully pulpit" for the President of
the United States, but in the electronic
age being the majority leader of the
Senate is almost as good - especially
if you're also a presidential candidate.
Pundits speculate that Dole (R-Kan.)
suffers from having his senatorial du-
ties cut into his campaign time, but who
else gets free nationwide television ex-
posure whenever he wants it?
In the past three months, Dole's of-
fice has cranked out 53 news releases
on subjects ranging from Bosnia to the
O.J. Simpson trial and Cal Ripken's
record for consecutive baseball games
played. "I know that all members of the
Senate join with me in tipping our hats
to Cal," Dole said on Sept. 6.
During the same period Sen. Phil
Gramm (R-Texas), Dole's chief rival
for the 1996 GOP nomination, pro-
duced 25 news releases. Richard
Lugar (R-Ind.), the Senate's other
presidential hopeful, had 63, but these
included a sheaf of policy statements
in Lugar's capacity as chairman of
the Committee on Agriculture, Nutri-
tion and Forestry.
"When we (the GOP) became the
majority, the demand for comments
certainly didn't diminish," said Dole
press secretary Clarkson Hine. "I'm not
Republicans say Gingrich will
remain a top party messenger
WASHINGTON (AP) - Republi-
can leaders spoke approvingly yester- Newt ougtt to just quiet down, cut
day of Rep. Newt Gingrich's decision ou all th y-"-'"-"
to steer clearofTV cameras fora while. ou iie -&
but said the speaker of the House will
remain a top messenger for their party.
"I think he himself feels that maybe
it's best now to keep a low profile for a
while, because there were some state-
ments made that he regrets," Senate
Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas
said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
Even some longtime supporters were
angered by Gingrich's statement that
he toughened the terms in last month's
partial government shutdown because
- Sen. Ernest F. Hollings
(D-S.C.)
he felt President Clinton had snubbed
him aboard Air Force One, Republi-
cans returning to Capitol Hill after
Thanksgiving reported.
A Senate Democrat agreed that
Gingrich should keep a lower profile.
"Newt ought to just quiet down, cut
out all that rat-a-tat-tat he's got going
and let Dole take over," Sen. Ernest F.
Hollings (D-S.C.) said on NBC's "Meet
the Press."
Hollings accused Gingrich of want-
ing too much power.
"He thinks we've got the parliamen-
tary system and he's the prime minis-
ter; that we over in the Senate are just a
bunch of House of Lords and the presi-
dent is ceremonial," Hollings said.
U'
Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole talks to reporters outside the CBS-TV studios in
Washington yesterday after appearing on "Face the Nation." Dole discussed the
deployment of U.S. troops to Bosnia and the federal budget during his appearance.
FeP Ga0 a
Cr4or L
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Each
News Analysis
sure ifthere's a dramatic difference, but
I assume it's more."
Since the beginning of September,
Dole has issued at least two press re-
leases on 11 different days, including
four on Oct. 18 and five on Oct. 17,
when the Senate passed the defense
appropriations bill that funded four
projects for Kansas.
"In my view the Sensor Fuzed
Weapon and the Combined Effects
Munition arean effective use of scarce
defense dollars," he said, and who's
to argue?
"In my view," is Dole's favorite
phrase, useful for everything from Sen-
sor Fuzed Weapons to Clinton, who,
"in my view... has not yet made the case
to the Congress or the American people"
on Bosnia, Dole said Nov. 21.
But by Nov. 30, in the latest of 10
Dole releases on Bosnia, Clinton had
done well enough to merit qualified
support, even if, "in my view, the defi-
nition of success of this deployment
must include a real end to the war."
Another Dole specialty is the "snarl
clause," the nasty little aside that sticks
it to the enemy - Clinton, tax-and-
spend Democrats in general, or both:
"I've read the polls that say more
Americans are blaming the Republican
Congress for the (government) shut-
down than are blaming President
Clinton," he said on Nov. 15. "And if
you think leadership is all about taking
polls - as the White House does -
then I suppose you can take heart in
these results."
Most congressional press secretaries
distill theirnews releases from the boss's
floor speeches. Hine, by contrast, just
lets it rip in dense, single-spaced tran-
scripts lifted verbatim from the floor
originals. Reporters "want context," he
said. He has also started foot-noting
releases with the time of day the speech
was given, so television producers can
easily find what they want.
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