Memo to Bob Dole: Don't quit your day job.
Oops. Too late.
If Bob Dole had one leg up over Bill Clinton in the coming election, it was his image as a steady, reliable grown-up who would do the responsible thing, whether it was going off to war or pushing legislation through Congress. As the soon-to-be-former-majority-leader put it just a few weeks ago, "I'm a doer, not a talker." Don't expect Dole to utter that phrase again anytime soon. His decision to leave the Senate in order to devote himself full-time to his presidential campaign puts the country on notice that he intends to stop doing and start talking. And unlike Clinton, who's at his best gladhanding on the campaign trail, Dole has been a disaster in the pulpit.
Staking the race on his ability to out-campaign Clinton is the least of Bob's new troubles. His departure from the Senate will help him distance himself from congressional extremists like Newt Gingrich. But without Dole to temper the fire of the revolutionaries, Trent Lott & Co. are only going to become more radical. And Bob Dole, along with all Republicans, may suffer for it come election day.
So why did he do it?
Bob says he quit the Senate so that he could stop bickering with Sens. Daschle and Kennedy and take on the "Big Guy." Recent battles over the minimum wage hike and the gas tax repeal were making him look ineffective. But does Bob Dole believe that quitting is the answer? Does he really think that Americans will see this as a "bold move" rather than a retreat?
The fact of the matter is that Bob's advisers were panicking at Clinton's early lead in the polls, and felt he needed to do something drastic to turn things around. This certainly qualifies.
Whatever the reasons, now Bob's really gotta get busy. This move is dramatic enough that it's sure to give him a momentary lift in the polls. But voters are going to expect a lot of action from Bob, and if they don't get it, any gains he's made will be short-lived. Still facing his campaign's painful lack of vision and tight ceiling on campaign spending, Dole is not kidding when he says he likes doing things the hard way.