Down But Not Out, Dole Joins Washington Power Brokers
After four decades in public life, 73-year-old Bob Dole starts work Thursday with a high-powered Washington law firm. The former Kansas senator and presidential candidate is preparing to write a book, give speeches around the country - and retain a voice in Republican politics.
“It’s going to be Bob Dole Enterprises, I guess,” Dole, grinning, told an interviewer.
The former Senate majority leader said he will never lobby Congress or the executive branch for Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand. The downtown firm’s long client list includes more than 90 Fortune 500 companies and some foreign governments.
“To me, it’s just demeaning,” Dole said of lobbying. “I’ve worked with these guys. You sort of go up there with your hat in your hand. Having been the leader, I wouldn’t feel quite right about it.”
Dole’s main duty will be bringing in new clients, a task he can combine with traveling the nation making speeches and raising money for the planned World War II memorial in Washington. He also is working out a deal to write a book he hopes to have ready in the fall about “things that have been important in my lifetime that might have some value for readers.”
To take up his new digs at Verner, Liipfert, Dole finally is moving out of his GOP presidential campaign office suite near Union Station, where “Dole for President” signs still adorned the windows Wednesday.
As a moving crew taped up boxes and gingerly took pictures off the walls, Dole took time out to discuss his new job and future projects, his views of the current political landscape, even the potential for a presidential run by his wife Elizabeth Dole in 2000.
Although she “sees these polls coming out,” Dole said “it’s way too early” for her to consider such a bid seriously.
“I must say, we don’t sit around talking about it at home,” Dole said. He added: “She’s been very active, and some people are going to say, ‘Well, she must be interested.’ Who knows? We might elect a woman president one of these days.”
After a few months of relative inactivity - Dole blames his low post-election profile in part on a case of shingles - Dole re-emerged recently with a splash. First he loaned House Speaker Newt Gingrich $300,000 to pay an ethics penalty, then he helped President Clinton get the chemical weapons treaty passed.
Dole bristles at Democratic criticism his loan to Gingrich is ethically flawed.
“It’s not going to be any sweetheart deal. I’m talking to my banker, and he’s going to be able to tell me in writing that he’d do it.”
xxxx Dog’s life Bob Dole’s not the only one in the family bringing home some big bucks. As the former Kansas senator starts his new job at a Washington law firm, his 14-year-old schnauzer, Leader, is making some money in the private sector, too. Leader is being paid $5,000 by Ralston Purina Co. to appear on a 1998 calendar of celebrity dogs, Dole said Wednesday. The money will be donated to the Washington Humane Society, where Leader was adopted.