c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Frederica Mathewes-Green is a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church. She is the author of the recent book”Real Choices”(Multnomah) and a frequent contributor to Christianity Today magazine.)

(UNDATED) Sunday night’s episode of”The Simpsons”showed a briefcase-toting Bob Dole being scooped off the steps of the Republican National Committee and beamed up to a space ship. He responded with a typical mutter,”Bob Dole doesn’t need this.” At this point in a miserable political season, alien abduction might be a good move for Dole. Anything to break from the plodding, earthbound meta-campaign that seems to be only about campaigning: Elect me, so I’ll be elected. Bob Dole has disappointed would-be allies with his inability to focus beyond self. He hasn’t demonstrated a fondness for any values higher than the accumulation of power.

A year ago I was able to interview Dole. I had spent time with each Republican contender, and discovered they varied greatly in their face-to-face effect. I was not just an interviewer, but a typical voter, someone they hoped eventually to represent. If they treated me, a sample citizen, badly, how would they treat 240 million?

Some hopefuls were men of ideas, consumed with a need to verbalize their convictions and almost unaware of me. Some were deferential, impeccably polite. Some were familiar and homey. Most presented the complexity typical of interview subjects: I want to be honest and I want to be liked.

But in Dole there dwells a form of durable, flat-footed honesty that results in a thick-skinned inability to care whether or not he is liked. This is his strong point, of course, because few politicians are so incapable of dissembling.

But, unfortunately, someone who doesn’t care whether you like him can give the impression he doesn’t care much about you at all. Dole greeted me with a brisk gesture to sit, and sat down opposite looking wary, or maybe even resentful. He looked for all the world like a very important and powerful man compelled to spend a half-hour with a Lady Religion Reporter.

I asked Dole first about the abortion issue, since that is the point at which cultural conservatives would be likely to cling to him. Though his voting record was pro-life, he had not been articulate on the issue, and I wondered if any deep conviction was there. Conservatives who didn’t trust him otherwise might vote for him simply in hopes of pro-life judicial appointments, but Dole has confirmed nearly every nominee Clinton has sent up.

Dole told me,”I view it as taking a human life. It’s fundamental American justice; you don’t discriminate against the unborn child.”Then he went on,”I guess it became an issue for the first time back in ’74 when I raced against Dr. Bill Roy, who allegedly had done abortions. There were a lot of unauthorized ads by some of these anti-people, pretty gruesome ads. Well, I disclaimed any knowledge. People felt strongly about it. The first time there was real expression of concerns. Those people really opposed abortion.” The distancing between himself and people who”really”opposed abortion was puzzling, but it has been borne out in distancing ever since. The Dole campaign has taken cultural conservatives for granted, presuming they had nowhere else to go. They forget that these deeply committed voters don’t have to go anywhere. They can stay home.

Another question drew an answer I found troubling. I asked Dole, as I had the other candidates,”If you were completing your role as president and had been able to accomplish everything that you wanted to do, what would America look like? `I can retire now, I did it all, it is complete.'” Warming to the question, Dole responded,”Like the song, `I Did It My Way?’ Great song.” He was able to tick off a few goals _”balance the budget, reform welfare, provide tax cuts, save Medicare, all these things”_ but soon returned to self. He hoped history would say,”People were able to believe their president. He was honest, had character and he spoke from the heart. And he knew about America, and he knew about sacrifices, and he brought people together. … Ronald Reagan had a way to sort of calm the fears of people, inspire hope.” What did Reagan have that Dole doesn’t have? Where do I start? But one thing he at least appeared to have was humility. Dole’s strong point _ his plain-spoken honesty _ doesn’t go very far when all he honestly wants is the presidency; an end, not a means.

Sorry, Mr. Dole, the presidency is not a gold watch you get for dutiful service in the Senate. Bill Clinton may be a self-indulgent liar unconstrained by morals, but he will be re-elected _ while your would-be supporters stay home _ because he convincingly portrays himself as someone who cares about something more than himself.

It’s not hard to guess on Inauguration Day who will be whistling,”I Did It My Way.”

MJP END GREEN