It was one of the two or three oddest developments of the presidential campaign, if anyone is still keeping track Suddenly, sometime around mid- April, Bob Dole uncorked a new bit of rhetoric. “If something happened along the way,” Dole announced at a campaign rally, “and you had to leave your children with Bob Dole or Bill Clinton, I think you’d probably leave your children with Bob Dole.”

The infelicity of the candidate’s thought experiment was immediately apparent In the upbeat atmosphere of a campaign rally, with perky cheerleaders and brass bands poised to go giddy on cue, it’s usually considered unwise to muse aloud to parents in the audience about what would happen if they croaked and theft kids were left alone in the world. . . .