'I Hope We've Bottomed Out'

Just before he received the Republican vice-presidential nomination, Kansas Senator Robert Dole joined TIME'S editors and other staff members for breakfast in Kansas City to talk about the President, the party and the coming campaign. Excerpts:

ON FORD AS A CAMPAIGNER. Jerry Ford's always been out helping someone else campaign. He's always had a safe district. Suddenly he's in the White House and still basically a Congressman, which isn't bad--I mean, you're more accessible. But all of a sudden he's in the big picture and running like a Congressman, still drawing for help on friends who represent districts, not states, or regions. I just haven't met a person in the campaign yet that has a broad view. Also, with eight weeks to go, he has to be very aggressive. I don't know how you can do much else but go to Georgia the first day after the convention and work your way up. With him going to Vail for a week--that's 15% of it down the drain.

ON REFORMING THE FORD ORGANIZATION. Jerry Ford is a very decent, honest, open President. He just isn't the kind of guy to go around knocking heads together. But the President's got to do it. When you're 20 points behind in the polls, you have to take some risks, and I think one of those risks is that you have to risk offending a few people if you really are going to strengthen your organization. But you really have got to have somebody come in who's going to strengthen it, to add to it. I don't know what [Campaign Director] Rog Morton wants to do. But there is some talk of John Connally coming in, and [Budget Director] Jim Lynn's name has been tossed about. There's also been some talk about some of the Reagan people. I know President Ford wouldn't want to offend anyone, but he doesn't want to lose the election either.

ON CARTER'S VULNERABILITIES. His sensitivity. He says he's essentially a very sensitive person, and I think he is. Any time you say anything about him, he responds. He better get ready because he may be down there playing Softball, but we're going to be playing hardball pretty soon, and he's going to have to learn how to catch as well as pitch. He said that I was being very personal--I can't remember saying anything except that he was sort of a Southern-fried McGovern or Humphrey. Both Hubert and McGovern thought that was fine, as long as I mentioned their names. We don't intend to be personal; we'll keep this campaign on a lofty level. Jimmy Carter is afraid we're going to talk about the issues, and he doesn't want us to even know about them. Governor Carter is a mass of contradictions.

When we put out a little statement on the Democratic farm platform--really nothing--his farm director called a press conference and belabored me and [Agriculture Secretary Earl] Butz. Then I said they favored embargoes on grain and they came back and said they didn't favor embargoes. At least they were talking about embargoes. His position on 14B [the "right-to-work" section of the Taft-Hartley law] also is going to be interesting. He says one thing about 14B in one place and something else in another. Pretty soon nobody'll know who's for what. The next time he's asked, he'll probably say it's his shoe size. He's just all over the lot. That's the point we're trying to make.

ON GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS. The Democrats have the easy side of it and advocate more social programs, more outreach, more spending on people. If we take the initiative, we're shot down by our own troops. I think sometimes we overreact and seem to be sort of an antipeople party in some eyes. I don't know how you say no and still be acceptable. We say no and people turn away. We don't have to be that way. We don't have to go around the country saying farmers never had it so good. We can be sympathetic. They have had it better, and it doesn't do much good to say their net income is greater now than it was under the Democrats because you haven't cranked in inflation.

ON THE FARM VOTE. The thing that really hurts is that farm prices are declining. Farmers claim that the cost of producing wheat is $3.50 per bu., and they're getting $3. You can't feel kindly toward the Administration under those circumstances. Farmers for the most part are conservative and vote Republican, unless they're restless. [Walter] Mondale will be effective in farm areas: He's a very bright, articulate guy and has strong ties to the Farmers Union and the coops, and he'll go up and down the Midwest.

ON THE G.O.P.'S CHANCES IN '76. I think there surely is going to be a change after this week. We'll probably drop quickly to a 15% difference [in the polls]. That's within striking distance. I still believe that there's a basic underlying feeling here, that we're Republicans. And we're going to go out of here and elect a Republican President.

ON THE G.O.P.'S FUTURE. Some people in the party think that the best thing to do is let the Democrats have the White House for eight years or whatever. Then we can run against them. We don't add a lot to the party that way, but we don't lose a lot. But the party is already in mothballs, so we'd have to bury it some other place. But I hope we've sort of bottomed out. We do have some young Governors, and there are a lot of bright people in Congress. With all respect, Connally, Goldwater and Rockefeller are great men but they don't indicate any forward thrust in our party. We've got to start building from the bottom up instead of the top down. We're going to be talking between now and November 2nd about electing a President, and we have done that very well, but we haven't focused on House seats and Senate seats, Governors and state legislatures.

We certainly don't have organized labor on our side to take that task on for us, and the result is we just keep inching away. We blew a real opportunity in '72. We had the money and we had the opportunity but they spent it all on the presidential race. The new American majority they talked about was a real possibility, but that's gone, at least for the time being.

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