CAMPAIGN NOTEBOOK

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

Though he keeps attacking his opponent as "liberal, liberal, liberal," Bob Dole cleverly staked out a position to the left of rival Bill Clinton last week--on the TV screen, that is. In the annals of televised presidential debates, geography is destiny. The candidate who appeared onscreen to the left of his major-party opponent in the first debate has typically won the election. The one exception: Ronald Reagan.

BALLOTING BY THE BOOK

Bob Dole is behind in the polls--and trailing at the bookstores. Clinton's election-season tome quickly turned into a best seller. Not so for Dole's brief treatise (158 pages), which was co-written with his famously verbose running mate. If the election was decided at the cash register, Dole and Clinton would be also-rans to General Colin Powell, who has achieved the equivalent of a literary landslide (2.6 million copies in print) with his pre-election teaser. And what of that other man of letters, Ross Perot? He's rushing his "me too" autobiography to bookshelves this month.

STUMP WIT

Top 10 Reasons Bob Dole Should Be Elected President of the United States, as presented by Elizabeth Dole, making her first appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman. --CBS 10/11/96

"No. 3: State of the Union message will be more exciting because you never know if Bob will stage dive and surf the crowd."

MY KINGDOM FOR A VERB

Bob Dole gets an A for activity according to the Campaign Mapping Project, which uses an elaborate computer-software program to analyze word patterns in political discourse. In the first debate, according to project co-director Roderick Hart of the University of Texas at Austin, Dole "significantly eclipsed" Clinton in the use of such active terms as challenge, overcome and motivate, which impart a sense of vigorousness to voters. Dole, in his own words, was "reaching out," "protecting" and "defending," all of which, says Hart, painted a word picture of a "vigorous 73-year-old."