Dole Responds To Clinton's NATO Plans

GRAND BLANC, Mich. (AllPolitics, Oct. 22) -- They call the town of Frankenmuth Michigan's Little Bavaria. It was as good a place as any for Republican nominee Bob Dole to jump off his campaign bus and offer his take on Bill Clinton's plan for expanding the NATO alliance. The president, Dole charged, has been dragging his feet for three years.

Dole told a rally in Frankenmuth, "The time to begin expansion for Hungary and Poland and the Czech Republic is now. As I declared in Philadelphia last June we should set a firm deadline of 1998 to begin the expansion of NATO to include these countries." (160K WAV sound)

That said, Dole headed south through Michigan, battling the odds and a cold. His voice is rough but his words are defiant. He stopped in Grand Blanc, Mich., where he told the crowds, "I know what the polls say and I know what the press says. I know what they said about the Dewey-Truman race too. I never got the chance to meet President Dewey because he didn't make it."

In Michigan, Dole is drawing good, though not spectacular crowds but Republican Party Chairman Haley Barbour insists people are giving it up where it counts. "We've had a record number of small donors. We had our one millionth donor in September," Barbour said.

The question for Dole now is how to keep going when so many people say it's over. After his Grand Blanc rally Dole said, "We're going to keep doing what we're doing."

On the stump Dole culls from the many speeches of a year-long campaign, offering a little bit of everything. The issues he talks about range from his tax plan to criticizing the president's campaign fund-raising techniques. (128K WAV sound)

As the candidate puddle-jumped through Michigan, his aides were moving into California where they are committed to an all-out assault. There are whispers that the Dole camp wants some distance from Gov. Pete Wilson whose popularity in the state has plummeted.

Wilson's issues of affirmative action and immigration are our issues, said one top staffer, and that is less than a full embrace. But the bottom line is that Dole is running for president and his campaign will do what it can to make that happen.

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

Dole Responds To Clinton's NATO Plans

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