Dole’s just too square for the Oval Office.

The Tulsa World reported recently that 89 percent of the student body of Oral Roberts University voted Republican in the 1992 election. This statistic is of great comfort to some, those who associate Republicanism with godliness and consider Rush Limbaugh an end-times prophet, who have somehow overlooked the Establishment clause and think that the president ought to be a kind of Protestant Pope. That’s not all 89 percent, of course.

The purpose of this editorial is not to Sway (some might say deceive) that 89 percent. This columnist simply believes it is vitally important to ORU that both sides of political questions be properly represented (America is, after all, a democracy). And besides, with all respect to Senator Dole, discussions like this one may be academic Bob Dole has served his country with honor and pride since his tour of duty in World War II. He can remember the glory days of American politics - Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Reagan. He has stood by his party and his nation. He has remained above moral reproach. He is a true American statesman, a man who would fit easily into a Senatorial Roman Toga.

It’s just that he is a bit square for the Oval Office. Bob Dole’s America revolves around Russell, Kansas - a place many Americans are convinced is an attraction off Main Street America in Disney’s Magic Kingdom. It was largely a white, working-class community that worked together through the Depression, sent their boys off to Europe in ‘40s and settled easily into the suburbs of the ‘50s.

In the ‘60s, Bob Dole left Russell for Washington, but the memories have stayed with him. And like most memories, his get better with age. Main Street in Russell, Kansas, is Bob Dole’s image of American utopia, and to that utopia America must return.

President Clinton’s America can only improve. Like Dole, he comes from humble beginnings. Unlike Dole, he knew firsthand the plagues of modern American society - shattered families, alcoholic fathers, drugs, poverty, the draft, Vietnam.

Bob Dole, conversely, came to realize in the second debate that he really did not know what to do with such pervasive issues like discrimination, affirmative action, censorship on the Internet and AIDS. He could not say "gay" and "lesbian" on national television, stumbling through euphemisms like "alternative lifestyles." Yet these are the questions with which the president deals every day. Bob Dole’s unspoken reply to all these questions is invariably his recycled drug slogan: "Just Don’t Do It!" Dole, ever the pillar of virtue, ever the consummate gentleman, simply cannot understand why these issues are important, preferring to talk about "safe" issues, Reagan’s issues of another time tax breaks, defense and the economy. That’s not enough anymore.

Many of us wonder why certain issues are important. But, inexplicably, they do become important, and in this democracy, that means they are the business of the president. As president, Clinton’s stake in this nation is driven deep: Chelsea Clinton will enter college around the turn of the millennium. Clinton’s interest in the youth of America is not feigned; it is not simply rhetoric. Those youths have had a slumber party in the White House.

It’s unfortunate Bob Dole submitted himself to the indignity of the campaign trail, that he had to stand on a platform and exchange sound bites with a man twenty-five years his junior, a man he must call president. Bob Dole has proven he is above that. But Bob Dole also thinks he is above the "dirty" issues of this campaign, and that will be his downfall. In his cruelest yet most poignant criticism of the senator, President Clinton said in the second debate, "I don’t think Senator Dole is too old to be President. It’s the age of his ideas that I question."

See opposing editorial.

by John Affleck

published October 26, 1996

Freelance Author