Let’s take a breather from local politics for a fresh change. Forget about Mayor Isko’s ambivalence, VP Leni’s puritanical politics, BBM’s revisionism of political history, Lacson’s positive approach in campaigning and Pacquiao’s populism and money politics. I have generously devoted many columns about the rough-and-tumble game of presidential politics in the past. I hope they helped crystallize somehow the issues in this coming election. But as the former Kremlin tyrant, Premier Joseph Stalin, once said: “It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” I know we can do better than that.
So today, I have elected to write about a former US senator, former GOP vice presidential candidate in 1976 as a running mate of President Gerald Ford and former GOP presidential candidate in 1996 against reelectionist President Bill Clinton —Robert “Bob” Dole.
Dole died on December 5, 2021 at the age of 98. He was definitely a distinguished American whose political odyssey was truly remarkable. Bob Dole lived for almost a century and his life is best encapsulated in President Joe Biden’s message of condolence who described him as “an American statesman like few in our history. A war hero and among the greatest of the Greatest Generation…. To me, he was also a friend whom I could look to for trusted guidance, or a humorous line at just the right moment to settle frayed nerves.”
As his contemporaries would undoubtedly confirm, Dole was a great political wit with nary an equal among his peers. Incidentally, he wrote a book in 1998 after he retired from politics, entitled Great Political Wit: Laughing (Almost) all the Way to the White House. This is the book to read if you want to know politicians’ favorite anecdotes, witticisms, and reminiscences. Even his lovely second wife, Elizabeth Dole, who at some point served in the cabinets of President Ronald Reagan and President George H. W. Bush and as elected senator of North Carolina, admired her husband’s wit and humor. In her review of Bob Dole’s Great Political Wit, she recalled: “Considering that when I was Secretary of Transportation, Bob once said the Federal Highway Administration used my biscuit recipe to fill potholes, I’m tempted to give this book a bad review. But the fact is that Great Political Wit captures the Bob Dole I know and love—warm, funny, with a unique ability to laugh at himself.” And everyone seems to love Bob Dole until his death.
Dole lost the vice presidency; lost the presidency, but he won the respect and admiration of many US politicians from both sides of the political aisle. Despite his monumental defeats, he did not lose sleep over them. Neither did he spend precious time brooding over his debacle and ruminating about options that could have altered the outcome. In his concession speech on the night following the election, he was honest enough to say: “Tomorrow is the first day of my life when I have nothing to do.” But he kept himself busy. Like a winner, he guested at The Late Night show with David Letterman two nights after the election. And he narrated that the host, David, asked him about President Clinton’s weight to which Bob Dole replied: “I don’t know. I never tried to lift him. I just tried to beat him.” Bob Dole proved that there is still life after losing an election. He never claimed that he was cheated like many of his Filipino counterparts. Nor did he accuse the winner of stealing the election like his notorious partymate Donald Trump. His loss to President Clinton signaled his retirement from US politics. He was 73, five years younger than President Joe Biden, his old senate colleague, when the latter was elected President. Three days before Clinton’s inauguration as the re-elected president of the US, President Clinton awarded Dole the coveted Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian decoration of the United States. The award cited his distinguished service during World War II where he was almost mortally wounded while rescuing his fallen comrades. Through victories and defeats in politics, Clinton stressed that Dole had “turned adversity to advantage and pain to public service, embodying the motto of the state he loved and went on to serve so well: Ad astra per aspera—to the stars through difficulties.”
After he was severely injured, Dole was airlifted from the battleground to a safe hospital for emergency treatment. The doctors who responded to him had given up the hope that he would live. He stayed in the hospital for three years recuperating but he had lost total use of his right arm. He eventually married his therapist who gave him a child. They eventually divorced years later. Dole throughout his life had carried the scars and injuries of the war. His right arm hung limp and deformed. In later years, he assiduously practiced the fingers of his right hand to hold a pen to prevent others from reaching for his right hand for handshake. His longtime ally and friend, President Richard Nixon, never failed to extend his left hand every time he met Dole so that the latter could grab it with his normal left hand, and Dole was forever grateful for Nixon’s gesture.
In our country, politics is a joke but we don’t find the humor, wit and even the sarcasm of a Bob Dole. Even President Dwight Eisenhower whose military upbringing and serious manner seemed impervious to laughter had said: “A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.” When in the midst of a tense situation and when both sides are gearing for combat, a light banter can break the political impasse and lead to a solution or compromise.
Among the many gifts Dole had left to his countrymen is his resilience and tenacity forged in the crucible of many political battles he had lost and won. But that’s not the end of his colorful political saga. After his defeat and retirement from politics in 1996, he stayed on the sidelines with his sardonic wit, dry humor and bon mots and for the next quarter of a century until his death he had poked fun at political figures, including every president. He failed to capture the White House but he had the last laugh.