Bob Dole, R.I.P.

Former Senate Majority Leader and 1996 Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole passed away this morning of lung cancer. He was 98.

Born in Russell, Kansas, Dole served with distinction in the European theater in WWII earning two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star after sustaining a serious wound which nearly took his life and would limit the use of his arms for the rest of his life. Despite his wounds, Dole would earn a law degree and was elected to the Kansas State Legislature in 1950. A decade later he would be elected to the House of Representatives before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1968. In the early 1970s, Dole served as Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Dole came to further national prominence when Gerald Ford selected him to be his running mate in the 1976 presidential election which they would narrowly lose to Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale. In 1980, he made his first attempt to seek the GOP presidential nomination but dropped out following the New Hampshire primary during which he received less than 1% of the vote. In 1984, Dole became Senate Majority Leader when Howard Baker retired. When Republicans lost control of the Senate after the 1986 mid-terms, Dole became Senate Minority Leader. In 1988, Dole made his second attempt to attain the GOP presidential nomination. After winning in Iowa, Dole was soundly beaten by George H.W. Bush in New Hampshire and his campaign never recovered. Dole would regain the Senate Majority Leader title after the 1994 mid-terms which saw the GOP control both Houses of Congress for the first time in nearly four decades. 

In 1996, Dole resigned from the Senate in his third attempt at the GOP nomination. Dole finally got the brass ring despite being upset in New Hampshire by Pat Buchanan. However, Dole was soundly defeated as Bill Clinton breezed to re-election. Clinton graciously bestowed Dole with the Presidential Medal of Freedom shortly before his second inauguration.

Dole spent most of the past quarter century working as a lobbyist, writing books, appearing in TV commercials (including a Pepsi commercial with Britney Spears) and continuing the fight against world hunger which he started in the Senate no doubt influenced by a very different rock star in Harry Chapin. In 2018, he was bestowed with the Congressional Gold Medal. Dole was only the former GOP presidential nominee to endorse Donald Trump in 2016 and did so again in 2020. However, Dole firmly rejected Trump's claims of voter fraud and unhesitatingly recognized his longtime Senate colleague Joe Biden as the President of the United States. I leave you with Dole's speech from when he was bestowed with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1997. R.I.P.