This is an awful moment for Bob Dole. He has spent nearly all the money he legally can to win the nomination, and he’s not yet permitted to start spending the money earmarked for the general election. To make his case, he must rely entirely on his own words — and Bob Dole has never been good with words.
Dole will have better moments. But what about his supporters? Obviously America’s conservatives will — and should — hope that Bob Dole wins in November, if only because there is no other way for Bill Clinton to lose. But Dole could not possibly be signaling more clearly his indifference to, even his disdain for, the conservatives for whose support he once begged. The real risk conservatives are running this election season is not that Clinton will be reelected; it’s that he will be replaced by a man uninterested in conservative ideas, hostile to conservatives as individuals, and bent on breaking the conservative grip on the Republican party.
