Dole Wraps Up Midwestern Campaign Swing

CLEVELAND (July 19) -- If Bob Dole looked happy today, it was because he was on the verge of a flub-free week. And he had some good news to tout: retired Gen. Colin Powell's acceptance of an invitation to speak at the Republican convention.

"I'm very proud that he's a Republican and proud that he'll be participating in the festivities," Dole said.

Powell was two states away in Chicago, but Dole couldn't have written his lines any better.

"I think he will bring a distinguished record to the presidency," Powell told reporters. "He's a man of great courage. He's a man who has cared about and served this country for many, many years and I think we're going to have an exciting campaign ahead of us." (160K WAV sound)

It won't win the election, mind you, but anything would be better than when Powell seemed to be playing hard to get and Dole could hardly answer a question without stepping into it.

This week the candidate smiled and waved at reporters, but talked from the controlled area of podiums and platforms.

As in his previous stops in Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Detroit, Dole stuck with the game plan in Cleveland today, pushing education reform. He wants to provide scholarships to elementary and high school kids to help them go to any school they want.

"The president says he wants reform," Dole said. "Even if he wanted reform, he couldn't do it because he is supported by the powerful NEA (National Education Association) and they don't want change." (160K WAV sound)

Dole has proposed offering $1,000 to $1,500 annual scholarships for children and letting families opt out of their local public schools and send their children to public, private or religious schools. The $2.5 billion program would operate in as many as 15 states.

Ohio is considering providing families with educational vouchers that could be used at religious schools, but the American Federation of Teachers has filed a lawsuit against the plan as a violation of the separation of church and state.

"If the Dole plan were implemented, it would create two separate systems of education funded by tax dollars -- one elitist and segregated and the other for literally everybody else," Ron Marec of the Ohio Federation of Teachers told The Associated Press.

The midwest trip not only offered Dole a chance to try to regroup, but also served as a kind of vice presidential tour.

In varying degrees, Governors Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin, John Engler of Michigan and George Voinovich of Ohio are all possibilities.

Monday brings a ready-made hazard for the Dole campaign: it is the candidate's 73rd birthday. He would be, as all the stories will note that day, the oldest man to be elected to a first presidential term.

Dole tends to downplay the age issue with jokes about Strom Thurmond, the 93-year-old Republican senator from South Carolina who is running for re-election.

"Drink your orange juice and your grapefruit juice and take your vitamins as he does, and you just keep going on and on and on like that little Energizer Bunny," Dole said. (96K WAV sound)

Looking years younger than his age, the perpetually tan Dole says he feels fine and has the medical records to prove it. Over the weekend, the campaign will release them.

This story originally appeared on CNN's "Inside Politics."

Dole Wraps Up Midwestern Campaign Swing

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