WASHINGTON — When Bob Dole was the Senate majority leader, in the days when Republicans and Democrats were at least trying to cooperate, he routinely walked the second floor of the Capitol to see minority leader, Tom Daschle, in Mr. Daschle’s office. to meet.
The reversal of protocol was gracious to Mr Daschle, who was new to the job.
“I said, ‘Bob, I’m really humbled that you insist on coming to my office; I’m the youngest so I should come to your office,” Mr Daschle, a Democrat from South Dakota, recalled in an interview on Sunday after learning that Mr. Dole, 98, had passed away. “And he said, ‘No, if I come to your office, I can always decide when the meeting is over.'”
The comment was classic Bob Dole – witty and straight to the point. And the story is a reminder of Bob Dole’s Washington.
Mr. Dole, a Kansas Republican who overcame the poverty of the Great Depression and the severe injuries he sustained during World War II, brought his prairie values and no-nonsense manner with him when he arrived in Washington in 1961. Over the next 35 years — eight years in the House, 27 in the Senate, and three failed attempts to win the presidency — he operated in a city that nurtured his dealmaker instincts.
It may be trite to reminisce and romanticize about a “bygone era” in Washington, when politicians from opposing parties fought by day and socialized by night. During Mr. Dole’s time at the Capitol, there was a lot of partisanship—some as bitter as what exists today.
But there’s also no denying that the climate was different, and the facts speak for themselves: Both as a senator and as the Republican leader, a job he held from 1985 to 1996, Mr. Dole reached down the aisle to perform a series of bipartisan legislation, such as a bill to save Social Security, the Americans With Disabilities Act, and a measure to overhaul the Social Security system.
One of his proudest accomplishments was working with South Dakota liberal Democrat George McGovern to completely overhaul the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly referred to as food stamps. They continued to work together on nutrition issues after they both left the Senate.
“People believed in working together and they kept their word,” Senator Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who considered Mr. Dole a friend, said in an interview on Sunday. He recalled the close ties between George J. Mitchell Jr., the Maine senator who Mr. Daschle presided as the Democratic leader, and Mr. dole.
“When George Mitchell was leader, he went to Dole’s office two or three times a day and vice versa,” Mr. Leahy said. “And I remember them both saying the same thing about the other: ‘He never surprised me.’ You don’t see that happening today.”
Not only that, Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Dole had dedicated phone lines on their desks that allowed them to communicate directly with the push of a button, one assistant recalled.
The button came in handy in November 1994, when Republicans regained the majority. Mr Mitchell, who had not run for re-election, asked Mr Dole to point out that he would come to his office to congratulate him. Mr. Dole quickly returned a message that he didn’t want Mr. Mitchell to make the humble trek and that Mr. Dole instead go to his office, a gesture that Mr. Mitchell and his team considered decent and considerate.
“He was operating in a different era, when the idea of duality was very much in vogue and politicians understood that in a democracy you just have to work, not only with your party members, but also with people from the other side or the other side. from the aisle,” said Robert Dallek, the presidential historian. “He was masterful at that.”
That’s not to say Mr. Dole didn’t have sharp elbows or conservative ideology. Newt Gingrich, the former Republican Speaker of the House who is widely regarded as ushering in the era of the partisan war in Washington, said he worked closely with Mr. Dole to push through tax cuts and President Bill Clinton’s plan for universal beat healthcare.
In an interview on Sunday, Mr. Gingrich compared Mr. Dole to current Republican leader, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, an object of Democrat loathing.
“I think there are a lot of parallels between Dole and McConnell,” Mr. Gingrich said. “They’re both creatures of the Senate; they are both very good tactically. They both understand how to stop things and they understand how to get things done.”
Despite their partnership, Mr. Dole was unable to embrace Mr. Gingrich’s bomb-throwing style. When Mr. Gingrich and House Republicans refused to pass federal spending laws, forcing the government to shut down in 1995, Mr. Dole went to the Senate to declare that he had had enough.
“We should put an end to this,” Mr. Dole said at the time. “I mean, it’s gotten to the point where it’s a little ridiculous about this senator.”
In Washington, Mr. Dole and his wife, Elizabeth Dole — who later became a senator and became president herself — were seen as a power couple, the epitome of the city’s institutions. Mr. Dole came to face the Second World War and the Greatest Generation, and an earlier era of dignity and honour. He was the driving force behind the World War II Memorial on the National Mall and was often there to greet veterans.
“He was, in a sense, Mr. America,” said Mr. Dallek, the historian. “He came from the interior and stood for a kind of shared values.”
In 1996, Mr. Dole left the Senate — an institution in which he had served for more than a quarter of a century — to run for president. Washington was changing. mr. Gingrich was at the height of his power. Clinton would later be impeached for his affair with an intern, Monica Lewinsky, which would fuel growing partisan tensions.
But when Mr. Dole, who at the time was the longest-serving Senate Republican leader, went to the room to deliver a speech announcing his departure, the old Capitol customs were still intact.
“The day he announced he was leaving the Senate, nearly every Democratic senator was in attendance,” Leahy said. “Now he would go out and take on Bill Clinton. And when he finished speaking, we all stood up and applauded and applauded.”
Carl Hulse reporting contributed.
