Dole Primed For Speech Of His Life

SAN DIEGO (AllPolitics, Aug. 15) -- Robert Dole has waited 16 years to give an acceptance speech for his party's presidential nomination. Tonight is his night.

Dole has worked painstakingly since April on tonight's speech, revising every word and line to sound consistent with his plain-spoken Kansas style. At the core of his message will be the six-year $548-billion tax cuts and regulatory reforms proposal he unveiled last week. Dole will also stress character and "T-R-U-S-T," as he told reporters today.

The 40-minute address will touch on Dole's history, from his family's economic struggles during the Depression to his World War II military service to his 35 years in the U.S. Congress. Dole will use his life's adversity to reach out to voters who feel they are struggling, too. Dole's speech will be preceded by a seven-minute biographical video of the presidential nominee.

The video, simply called "Bob" by Dole's campaign staff, was filmed during Dole's visit to his hometown Russell, Kansas, last month. The film has little music and no narrator -- just Dole talking about his life's story. Video footage is interspersed with black-and-white photographs taken by Mary Ellen Marks in Russell.

Then Dole will take the podium to deliver what is one of the most practiced and mutated speeches of his political career. Dole has rehearsed the speech daily since he arrived in San Diego, and he set aside all of today to go over the text.

Dole also ordered major changes to the speech Tuesday night, expanding the sections on his economic package while downplaying other areas. Frustrated with the major revisions to his text, speechwriter Mark Helprin, the Harvard-educated novelist and essayist who wrote Dole's Senate resignation speech, packed his bags and left San Diego.

"Speechwriting is a messy process," said John Buckley, one of the men who reworked the speech. He said Dole was "converting it sentence by sentence," making it "fit his voice by taking out 50-cent words and words that would appeal to political scientists at Harvard."

Not being as eloquent at giving speeches as his wife Elizabeth, Dole joked to reporters, "I think I'll let her give mine." Mrs. Dole's speech Wednesday evening, given without notecards or electronic prompters while roving the convention floor, energized the GOP audience. She spoke of how her husband's experiences as a soldier and a senator shaped him into "the strongest and the most compassionate, most tender person I have ever known."

Vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp, scheduled to address the 1,900 delegates before Dole, is expected to stress his favorite themes of America's diversity and the need for inclusive policies. Asked today by a reporter if he was nervous, Kemp, a former member of the Buffalo Bills, quipped that "quarterbacks don't get butterflies."

Though Kemp and Dole have sparred in the past, Kemp appears energized and grew emotional Wednesday as he told reporters, "I'm going to be Bob Dole's right arm. I'm going to be his right hand."

Dole Primed For Speech Of His Life

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