Dole's Week

Bob Dole had a tough week. He started off with a tough anti-crime message, which segued into an anti-drug message toward the end of the week. But his crime speech in Villanova, Pa., on Monday was overshadowed by Clinton's endorsement from the nation's largest police union (see below). Dole headed to Phoenix and San Diego on Tuesday, but he was knocked from the headlines by the decision to exclude Ross Perot from the presidential debates. The news was welcome, though; Dole's campaign feels that the less exposure Perot gets, the better for Dole.

Wednesday saw Dole travel to California, where he tried to shake one too many hands. The image of the week was of Dole pitching himself from a stage in Chico, Calif., where he bruised his eye but was not seriously injured. (1.3 MB QuickTime movie) But the spill knocked his new anti-drug slogan -- "Just Don't Do It" -- from the headlines for a third straight day.

The message got back on track on Thursday, with Dole in Las Vegas and Denver. He swung hard at Clinton's record on drug enforcement and drug use. Dole hoofed it back to Washington, D.C., on Friday, stayed home and let the airwaves carry his message. He released a strong new television ad criticizing Clinton's record on drugs.

Here's how Charles Cook and Stuart Rothenberg rate the states Dole visited this week:

Clinton's Week

Clinton's week went pretty much as planned. He headed to Cincinnati on Monday to pick up the National Fraternal Order of Police endorsement, which took the wind out of Dole's sails on the anti-crime front for the day. He popped up to Michigan and Illinois on Tuesday, where he visited a vocational education center and pushed his plan for reading volunteers and pension portability. Clinton had no new proposal for the day, and lost less than Dole for being buried by the reaction to Perot's being excluded from the debates.

Wednesday was Clinton's big photo-op day, as he headed to the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona and declared 1.8 million acres in Utah a national monument. He then flew up to Seattle, Washington, whose 11 electoral votes are leaning Democratic but which tossed out an awful lot of Democrats from office in 1994.

Vice President Al Gore joined Clinton on Thursday, and they hopped on a bus that took them on a non-controversial face-time trip from Seattle to Portland, Ore. Clinton took the opportunity in the high-tech Pacific Northwest to talk about space policy. On Friday, Clinton talked up his and Gore's efforts in "reinventing government."

Clinton is planning to cut back on his travel schedule as he begins to prepare for the debates. Look for a little less blue on next week's map.

Here's how political analysts Charles Cook and Stuart Rothenberg rate the states Clinton visited this week:

Tracking The Candidates

• The Week Ending Setember 13, 1996

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