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Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
Conservatives give the post-mortem on the Elizabeth Dole presidential campaign.
Oct 20, 1999 | With tearful hubby Bob by her side and an evaporating bank account, former Red Cross Chairwoman Elizabeth Dole bowed out of the race for the GOP presidential nomination Wednesday.
"The current political calendar and election laws favor those who get an early start and can tap into huge private fortunes, or have a pre-existing network of political supporters," Dole said, referring to the richest of her former opponents, gazillionaire Steve Forbes and front-running Texas Gov. George W. Bush. Bush and Forbes "enjoy a 75- or 80-to-1 cash advantage" over her, she said. "Perhaps I could handle 2-to-1 or 10-to-1, but not 80-to-1!"
According to FEC reports filed last week, Dole has raised just under $5 million in her campaign, and has $860,000 cash on hand, placing her fifth in the GOP fund-raising contest. Bush has raised more than $57 million, with more than $37 million on hand; Forbes has raised $20 million (including $16.4 million of his own money), with $1.8 million on hand; Arizona Sen. John McCain has raised $9.4 million with $2.1 million on hand; and Gary Bauer has raised $6.2 million with just $284,434 in cash on hand.
While Dole's cash disadvantage was no doubt a major factor in her campaign's inability to catch fire, Republican observers pointed out a number of problems that were self-inflicted. With celebrity and notoriety on her side, critics say, Dole never came to the microphone with anything worth saying.
"She might have had a chance to achieve some success, but she never built on it," said William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard. "The window she had was that she's a woman, the first 'serious' female candidate, so a lot of people were interested in her."
Since Bush is so far ahead in both name I.D. and wallet size, Kristol said, his challengers need to offer a credible contrast with him. "You need an argument against the front-runner," he said. "There's a credible argument to be made to Republican primary voters that if you think Bush is too light you should go to McCain. Or if you think Bush is too moderate, you go to Forbes or Bauer But there's really no difference between [Dole] and Bush in terms of issues or even tenor. They're both moderate-conservative Republican establishment types."
"As [GOP pollster] Kellyanne Fitzpatrick said, 'When your choices are vanilla and French vanilla, what's so appealing about French vanilla?'" said Sheila Moloney, executive director of the conservative Eagle Forum. "I can't really think of any way that Liddy Dole distinguished herself from George W. Bush. She's a nice lady, but I'm not sure why she thought she was offering us anything new."
Others were harsher in their criticism. "Liddy Dole puts the GOP in a quandary," said a female Republican official. "Republicans want her to run, to help appeal to women. Keeping her in the race for as long as possible is very important for how the party is perceived, to help bring women back in the fold for the GOP. But then since Dole had no ideas, her agenda-less candidacy left her with nothing but her nontraditional appeal to women. If she doesn't have the ideas to support her candidacy, then her appeal is meaningless."
Moloney agreed: "You've got to run on something besides the fact that you wear dresses."
