Posted on 06/05/2014 10:33:42 AM PDT by Morgana
WAKEENEY, Kansas, June 4, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In 1974, pro-life voters helped up-and-coming Senator Bob Dole narrowly defeat a Democratic congressman and abortionist who gave Dole the closest national election of his career. Nearly 40 years later, Dole has apologized to the abortionist for what he now views as over-the-top rhetoric from some of his pro-life supporters.
The former U.S. senator and three-time presidential hopeful, now 90, reminisced about his first Senate re-election in the town of WaKeeney, Kansas (population 1,852) last Thursday. Presidential candidate Bob Dole speaks in California during his 1996 presidential campaign. Credit: Spirit of America / Shutterstock.com
In the shadow of the Watergate scandal, the 1974 midterm elections saw Democrats pick up 49 seats in the House and four in the Senate. Dole who served as chairman of the Republican Party during Watergate, nearly became the fifth casualty. His Democratic opponent, Dr. William Roy, a two-term congressman and physician from Topeka, led the incumbent by six percentage points that fall.
But Roy had his own vulnerability: The OB/GYN and law school graduate had performed abortions and written a legal defense of abortion based on privacy rights that predated Roe.
Newly mobilized pro-life activists swept into action, taking out ads, knocking on doors, and highlighting the barbarity of abortion. They also distributed 50,000 anti-Roy pamphlets that featured a picture of an aborted baby in a trash can.
After the election, Dole distanced himself from the pro-life leaflets. However, his election filings reported pro-life literature as an in-kind donation – something that implies the campaign itself authorized or gave its approval to its contents.
Not all of the pro-life campaigning was carried out by Dole's surrogates. Failing to connect with his business message, he raised the abortion issue in what was supposed to be a debate on farm policy. Dole reportedly turned to Roy and demanded, “I want to know how many abortions you've done.”
On election night, Dole won by a mere 13,532 votes, or one percent of the vote.
The election, which some have called the pro-life movement's “first political victory,” became a flashpoint in the culture wars. In her 10-part history of abortion in America, National Right to Life President Carol Tobias called the Dole vs. Roy showdown “the first major statewide political battle after the Roe v. Wade decision.”
Four decades later, Dole still remembers it, but in a less flattering light. “That was a race where abortion was a big issue. It got sort of nasty, because some of our campaigners were going over the top,” Dole said last week, according to the Hays (Kansas) Post. William Roy in a 1974 campaign ad. William Roy in a 1974 campaign ad.
Then Dole revealed, “I called Bill [Roy] about four years ago, and I said ‘Bill we haven’t talked since a long time ago, but if I said anything during the campaign that was offensive to you, I apologize.’ He said, ‘No you didn’t, but some of the people who were campaigning for you did.’”
“I apologized and told him that sometimes you can’t control what people do for you,” Dole said.
The election proved pivotal for both men. Roy made one more stab at electoral office in 1976, losing to pro-abortion Republican Nancy Landon Kassebaum. He then became a liberal newspaper columnist where, among other things, he defended legalized abortion. Roy died last Monday at the age of 88.
Dole himself never looked back. Just two years later, President Gerald Ford would tap the Kansas senator as his running mate to replace pro-abortion Republican Nelson Rockefeller, who declined to run for election. In time, Dole became Republican leader in the U.S. Senate. He unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1980 and 1988 before winning in 1996.
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For the keynote speaker of the 1996 convention in San Diego, he chose then-Congresswoman Susan Molinari, a New York native who supported abortion-on-demand. He also tried unsuccessfully to add a plank welcoming pro-abortion Republicans into the GOP. After supporters of runner-up candidate Pat Buchanan drafted a conservative, pro-life platform, Dole said he was “not bound by the platform,” and he and running mate Jack Kemp both denied they had even read it.
Dole lost the general election by more than 8.2 million votes, or 8.5 percent of the electorate.
Dole, who recently criticized the Republican Party for its unwillingness to compromise with President Obama, warned the crowd in WaKeeney of the negative impact conservatives may have on the 2016 Republican presidential primaries. “In the Republican Party, we have the traditional Republican conservatives, like most people are in Kansas. And then we have people who are a part of this right wing ‘fringe,’” he said, “people who are extremely conservative, who don’t contribute much and just vote against everything.” Truth. Delivered daily.
“people who are extremely conservative, who don’t contribute much and just vote against everything.”
They just contribute their life’s blood, and a majority of collected taxes.
And vote against evil and oppression (which Dole must consider ‘everything’.
What's over the top about that? Some truths are intrinsically ugly - yet must be told.
They don’t want the truth told.
It’s amazing that Dole won. Oh, wait....
Sen. Dole is the same age as my father would have been (he passed away 18 years ago), and they thought very much alike, believing they lived in a world where abortion was undesirable but sometimes hush-hush necessary. The demon of child sacrifice is brazenly out of the closet, and must be as brazenly confronted and subdued in the power of the Almighty.
I do not wish Sen. Dole’s death, but in terms of understanding the times, the man is unfortunately dead already.
How about apologizing for the Viagra ads? Now that would be something to apologize for!
RINOs will always, always, always stab Conservatives in the back after they’re done with them.
Bob Dole the grat ‘compomiser’ incrementally gave the Democrats what they want over time. If anyone is to blame for where we are it is Republican leadership exhibited by Bob Dole. Weak then and senile now.
Why can’t these idiots just go away, far far away! These so called conservatives embarrass true Conservatives the way they constantly fall over themselves trying to appease liberals.
That's exactly how I feel about my Senators.
Bob Dole: milquetoast, timewasting, timeserver.
Bob Dole and the bitch he is married to have supporters?
Who knew?
What a weak idiot.
The GOPe always apologizes for conservatives it seems.
The new Bob Dole Doctrine...hmmm...where have I read something like that before...it was just recently...oh, yeah, the Obama Doctrine: Stop doing stupid s***!!!
That was seriously the most embarrassing non-election the GOP-Es have ever produced.
Mr Dole is apparently still alive, but has yet to be led away from the microphone by embarrassed family members.
This is what happens when you don;t see the doctor after four hours.
No fool like an old fool.
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