Douglas Alexander: “of all my colleagues, I suppose that in 1996 I was the one most hoping that Bob Dole would not retire from the Senate.…”

“of all my colleagues, I suppose that in 1996 I was the one most hoping that Bob Dole would not retire from the Senate. That was because I was doing my best to defeat him in the New Hampshire Presidential primary. If I had, Bob had told several friends he was ``going back to the Senate.'' Well, Pat Buchanan beat both of us by a few percentage points, and Bob beat me. Within a few weeks, I was back in Tennessee at a press conference endorsing Bob Dole and presenting him with one of my red and black plaid shirts. ``I hope it's his last one,'' Bob's friend Howard Baker was heard to mutter, referring to my shirt. I should have known better. In my first Iowa poll in June of 1995, pollster Whit Ayres said, ``Governor, this is the professional challenge of my career. The poll says, `Dole 54, Alexander 3, margin of error 4 percentage points.''' The end result in the caucuses 6 months later was a good deal closer, but Bob Dole won because he had earned for himself the unofficial title of ``President of Iowa.'' Iowans liked his spare talk, his good humor, his war record, and his middle-America brand of politics. So did and does the rest of America. Not everyone comes out of a Presidential race more admired than when he or she went in. But Bob Dole did. He ran three times, the last time securing the Republican nomination. And, I would judge, he is even more admired today than he was 10 years ago when he retired from the Senate.…”