Volume 43, Number 3 · February 15, 1996
The Last Hurrah
By Thomas Powers
Bob Dole
by Richard Ben Cramer
Vintage, 165 pp., $11.00 (paper)
Senator for Sale: An Unauthorized Biography of Senator Bob Dole
by Stanely G. Hilton
St.Martin's Press/A Thomas Dunne Book, 300 pp., $22.95
Bob Dole: The Republicans' Man For All Seasons
by Jake H. Thompson
Donald I. Fine Books, 279 pp., $12.95 (paper)
The New Hampshire presidential primary has not been kind to Senator Bob Dole. Twice it has inflicted the sort of wound that would have killed the White House dreams of a less driven man. In 1980 when he first ran for president he finished last in New Hampshire in a field of six, with a total of 608 votes. This was less than a half of 1 percent of the 145,000 votes cast. Even the write-in votes had a bigger tally—1,310 votes. 'Pathetic' is too pale a word for Dole's dismal showing, and too kind as well for a defeat which all observers agree had been inflicted on Dole by Dole himself through political errors so fundamental it is hard to imagine the man has been routinely described as one of the great professional politicians of the age.
Review, 5956 words
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