Dole starts his last campaign, against President Bill Clinton

By Alan Elsner

SAN DIEGO (Reuter): Bob Dole, who became the Republican presidential nominee on Wednesday, has traveled a classic American journey, from poverty in the Great Depression, through European battlefields to the glittering corridors of Washington. Through it all, the 73-year-old Kansan has remained a plain- speaking man from the plains, pragmatic, phlegmatic, sardonic, taciturn, modest, sometimes inarticulate -- a man whose deepest emotions usually stay buried.

Now, Dole sets out on a final campaign against President Bill Clinton, in many ways the antithesis of everything he stands for. While Clinton relishes the cut and thrust of campaigning, Dole often seems stiff and uncomfortable in public. While Clinton reaches out to embrace his supporters, Dole sometimes seems to retreat within himself.

As one commentator said, Clinton is a man who feels others' pain. Dole, who suffers from war wounds every day of his life, refuses to acknowledge his own.

Beating Clinton will not be easy, but little has been easy in Dole's life. In the past six months he has shown a willingness to gamble, repeatedly surprising aides and confidantes with bold decisions.

In May, he quit the Senate, leaving an institution he said he loved above any other. It was the place where Dole felt most at home. Its daily rituals provided the rhythms of his life.

But, he said, to be taken seriously as a presidential candidate, he had to show he too was willing to make a meaningful sacrifice.

"My time to leave this office has come," he said in an emotion-choked voice in announcing his departure. "And I will seek the presidency with nothing to fall back on but the judgment of the people and nowhere to go but the White House or home."

Then, earlier this month, Dole went against a life devoted to the principles of fiscal austerity and balancing the budget by proposing a $548 billion tax-cutting package.

Dole, who as a child in Kansas knew neighbors who committed suicide because of debt, became a latter day convert to the proposition that economic growth should come first and debt would take care of itself.

Dole's third bold stroke was to turn to bitter rival Jack Kemp as his vice presidential running mate. Kemp had endorsed one of Dole's opponents during the nomination campaign, but Dole instinctively knew his campaign badly needed Kemp's glamour and pizazz.

After losing the key New Hampshire primary in February to conservative firebrand Pat Buchanan, Dole's third presidential bid had seemed in deep trouble.

But Dole kept his cool and relied on his superior organization and money and the support of the Republican establishment. Buchanan proved unable to sustain his challenge and Dole wrapped up the Republican nomination by March.

However, Dole ended the battle for the nomination exhausted, politically bruised and with his campaign almost out of money. It was only this month that the campaign picked up steam. The Kemp selection electrified Republicans gathering for their national convention. Suddenly, many began to believe again that Dole's presidential bid was for real.

Dole began his third run for the White House in April 1995, 50 years to the week after he was wounded as a U.S. Army second lieutenant in Italy. He led an assault on a German machinegun nest and a shell destroyed his right shoulder, paralyzed his right arm, broke vertebrae, riddled his body with shrapnel and robbed him of a kidney.

Twice decorated for heroism, he spent 39 months in hospitals before returning to civilian life. He went to law school, unable to write, getting through with the help of his first wife who painstakingly transcribed lecture notes with the help of a primitive recording device.

Robert Joseph Dole was born on July 22, 1923, one of four children of a grain elevator manager in Russell, Kansas. He abandoned medical studies on joining the army. After the war he won a law degree and entered politics, winning a House of Representatives seat in 1960 and a Senate contest in 1968.

Once divorced, in 1975 he married Elizabeth Hanford, then a federal trade commissioner and later transportation and labor secretary and president of the American Red Cross. He has one daughter, Robin, from his first marriage.