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![[Bob Dole]](dole.money.jpg)
(adapted from The Buying of the President, Charles Lewis and the Center for Public Integrity, 1996)
In Yorba Linda, Calif., on an overcast spring afternoon in 1994, Sen. Robert Dole delivered one of the eulogies at the funeral of former President Richard M. Nixon. "The American people love a fighter and in Dick Nixon they found a gallant one," Dole said. "Today our grief is shared by millions of people the world over, but it is also mingled with intense pride in a great patriot who never gave up and who never gave in."
As Richard Ben Cramer put it in his book on the 1988 presidential race, What It Takes, "Dole had such respect for Richard Nixon, it was near reverence.... In Nixon, Dole saw a man who'd been knocked down by life. But he was too tough to stay down.... He saw strength in Nixon, and nobility."
But over the years, as he sought to emulate Nixon, Dole's campaigns came closer to resembling Nixon's than perhaps he wanted.
In the not-so-noble world of campaign finance, on a much more modest scale than Nixon, Dole campaigns have solicited and accepted illegal contributions and have even seen one senior advisor hauled off to prison. The think tank Dole established in 1993 abruptly shut down amid a flurry of bad press regarding its secret contributions. What most people don't know about Dole is that from 1973, the middle year of the Watergate scandal, through 1994, he has raised at least $47,612,125 for his Senate and presidential campaigns and his leadership PAC. Of that total be received at least $5,445,595 in PAC money.
Between 1981 and 1993, when it was legal for senators to accept money for appearances, Dole received $1,326,771.53 in honoraria for speeches. Now, in an era of anti-Washington fervor, Dole is a consummate Washington insider and deal-maker, realities which are usually veneered by political euphemisms such as "experienced" and "effective." Those interests that have given most heavily to the Kansas senator have reaped magnificent returns on their investments.
As he rose in power and stature on Capitol Hill, Dole became an accomplished fund-raiser. Throughout his political career, Dole, like Nixon, saw his campaigns for various national offices scrutinized by federal authorities, sometimes resulting in large fines for illegal contributions. David Owen, the close friend of the Dole family who ran Dole's 1974 senatorial race and played key roles in Dole's 1980 and 1988 presidential bids, but later went to prison for tax fraud, observed, "He was obsessed by money and power. There are a lot of personality traits in Dole that parallel Nixon."
Dole's 1980 presidential campaign was forced to refund more than $50,000 to various companies and to the Federal Election Commission for undocumented campaign disbursements.
During that same campaign, the FEC filed a complaint against Dole's wife, Elizabeth Hanford, for loaning his campaign $50,000. The $50,000 loan had been requested by Dole's campaign. Elizabeth Dole got the money from David Owen's bank at below the prime rate. At the time, Owen was also chairman of the Dole for Senate Committee and Elizabeth Dole's financial adviser, later handling her blind trust. A letter from Jo-Anne Coe, assistant treasurer of Dole's leadership PAC, to Owen on Dec. 17, 1979, written on Dole's U.S. Senate stationery, said, "These funds are needed at the earliest possible time, and I will therefore appreciate your expediting the bank transfer." The campaign had only $14,709.04 in the Dole for President account at its Virginia bank.
The FEC dropped the charges and levied no fines, citing "the unique nature of Kansas law at the time of the uunsaction.
During Dole's 1988 presidential campaign, allegations emerged that Owen, a former Kansas lieutenant governor and close Dole aide, had employees and executives of a Kansas company -- to which he served as a $3,000 a month consultant and in which he held stock-make $24,000 in contributions to Dole's 1986 Senate campaign. Employees reportedly were ordered to contribute and later got reimbursed by the firm, Birdview Satellite Communications. Steven Small, one of Birdview's founders and a former company vice president told the Kansas City Star, "I didn't feel right about [the contributions] but what could I do? I wasn't in a position to say no."
When the story broke in the midst of the 1988 presidential pnmaries, Dole's staff denied that he had done anything wrong. The senator, who said he knew nothing of the donations, called for an internal and Federal Election Commission probe into the matter and the staff promised that if any illegal money was received from Birdview employees, it would be returned." FEC officials, however, have no record of any request from Dole to look into the Birdview matter.
Owen resigned from the 1988 campaign and told the Center for Public Integrity that Dole knew about the Birdview donations. He said Dole was present at a private fundraiser at the home of the former president of the now-defunct Birdview, Charles Ross, whom Owen said knew Dole well. Owen said Dole's reaction, in calling for an FEC probe, was "very typical of the way Dole operates, just sic an agency on someone to clear himself...He just cuts and runs whenever the heat gets hot. He leaves his friends out to dry."
Owen landed in prison in 1994 as a result of an earlier situation similar to the Birdview episode. Owen's tax fraud conviction stemmed from two counts of filing false income tax returns. One count stated that Owen "disguised political contributions (about $11,000 worth bundled through his companies) to the (1986 Kansas Governor Mike) Hayden campaign as business expenses and that these were improper deductions." Owen spent just more than seven months in Leavenworth Prison and maintains that Dole had tried to strong-arm him into raising the money for Hayden, whom Owen credited with destroying his own 1982 gubernatorial bid by backing Owen's opponent.
"I told him (Dole) why I was not supporting Hayden," Owen said in an interview. Nonetheless, Dole had pressed him to raise the money, Owen said, because Dole wanted a Republican governor in Kansas. Owen claimed he has done nothing illegal.
Dole declined to be interviewed for this book, but his press secretary, Nelson Warfield, in a letter responding to questions about the senator's relationship with Owen and these incidents said:
"As to David Owen, neither Senator Dole nor his wife knew of Owen's involvement with Mrs. Dole's blind trust (in the 1988 campaign). When this came to light, Senator Dole promptly requested his resignation from his post with the campaign, Mr. Owen's subsequent conviction was for conduct unrelated to any activities he undertook on Senator Dole's behalf or that of his wife."
"We don't need that in this campaign," Dole said after Owen resigned from the 1988 race amid controversy about his handling of Elizabeth Dole's trust. "In our campaign, if there is an appearance of bad judgment or misjudgment, or somebody has a problem, I think you should just step aside."
Still more problems plagued Dole's 1988 presidential bid when it was later learned that the campaign had accepted more than $350,000 in illegal contributions and in-kind contributions of trips and services from corporations, individuals, and Dole's own leadership PAC, Campaign America. As a result, in 1993 the FEC fined Dole's presidential campaign and Campaign America $122,975, to that date the largest penalty levied against a campaign.