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Who doesn't admire former Republican Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole? Wounded World War II veteran, part-time comedian (Dole once described a meeting of former presidents Carter, Ford and Nixon as "see no evil, hear no evil -- and evil"), former presidential candidate and all-around decent man, Dole was a part of government for much of his life. Therein lies the problem for some who stay in politics and government so long that it is easy to lose perspective and think cutting deals is more important than winning the argument. In a Memorial Day weekend interview with Chris Wallace on "Fox...

The Democrats are in a swoon over the fact that Senator Dole is complaining about the Republicans. The former Republican leader in the upper house told Christopher Wallace of Fox News that the GOP “ought to put a sign on the national committee doors that says ‘closed for repairs.’” He reckons the GOP lacks for “ideas and positive agendas.” Mr. Wallace asked Mr. Dole whether he could make it in today’s Republican Party “I doubt it,” Mr. Dole said dolefully. “Reagan couldn’t have made it. Certainly Nixon couldn’t have made it, cause he had ideas. We might have made it,...

I can't wait for Chris Wallace of Fox News to ask - really ask - a Democrat if JFK could get the nomination today, and/or if the Democrat Party really is big-tent (accepting of Dems who are pro-second amendment, pro-across-the board tax cuts, pro-life, pro-traditional marriage), etc... If one could go back to JFK's time and ask him personally if he would support same-sex marriage, I wonder what he would say. And JFK supported across-the-board tax cuts, too, btw. One thing that we could take from the interview though is that there is no reason for the GOP to say...

Former Senate Majority Leader and 1996 GOP Presidential nominee Bob Dole excoriated the Republican Party on Fox News Sunday, saying the Party lacked new ideas and engaged in too much obstructionist activity in the upper chamber. "They ought to put a sign on the National Committee doors that says 'Closed for repairs,' until New Year's Day next year and spend that time going over ideas and positive agendas," he said. Additionally, Dole remarked that not only was he doubtful he could "make it" in today's Republican Party, but he believes Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon could not make it either...

The Republican Party has changed so drastically in recent years, the current GOP wouldn’t welcome the likes of Ronald Reagan, former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole(R) said Sunday. The current GOP ought to be “closed for repairs” because it lacks a vision and is unable to strike deals with Democrats, Dole said during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday”. The Kansas Republican said he was disturbed by his party’s obstructionist behavior on Capitol Hill. “It seems almost unreal that we can’t get together on a budget or legislation,” he said. -snip Asked whether he...

Conservative legend Phyllis Schlafly told the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday that the Republican establishment had given America a series of losers as presidential candidates over the last two decades—and the last time they picked a winner, George W. Bush, he was a bigger spender than the Democrats. “Why is it that the establishment has given us this bunch of losers?” Schlafly said. “The establishment has given us a whole series of losers: Bob Dole and John McCain and Mitt Romney.” … Schlafly said the establishment wants candidates that “will only talk about economic issues” and not social or...

Lately, you’ve probably been asking: “What ever happened to Rick Santorum? The guy who ran for president in the sweater vest? The one who compared homosexuality to bestiality and did 50 push-ups every morning?” It’s certainly been on my mind. Santorum is still in there swinging. Lately, he’s been on a crusade against a dangerous attempt by the United Nations to help disabled people around the world. This week, he won! The Senate refused to ratify a U.N. treaty on the subject. The vote, which fell five short of the necessary two-thirds majority, came right after 89-year-old Bob Dole, the...

Former Senator Bob Dole, 89 years old and in a wheelchair, went onto to the floor of the Senate today to urge his former colleagues to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities. Mr. Dole, a disabled veteran, has been one of the leading voices urging ratification of the treaty, which seeks to bring the world closer to the high standard set by the Americans with Disabilities Act, the landmark civil-rights law enacted under President George H.W. Bush.

When the facts and law are not in one’s favor, there is a natural temptation to appeal to the emotions of your target audience in order to win an argument. This is referred to as argumentum ad passiones—an attempt to manipulate an audience’s emotions by pulling on their heartstrings in order to bring them to your side. Such is the case with Senator John Kerry’s (D–MA) appeal in today’s Huffington Post in support of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), an international human rights treaty that is scheduled for an up-or-down vote tomorrow at noon. …...

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney plans to talk up some specifics of his economic proposals as he enters a critical period of his campaign and tries to erase a small lead that President Barack Obama has built in the polls.

Bob Dole Urges Mitt Romney To Confront The Republican Party's Right Wing Jon Swaine, The Telegraph August 23, 2012, 5:34 PM Wikimedia Commons Mr. Dole, a former Kansas Senator defeated by Bill Clinton 16 years ago, said the party should follow his example of "mainstream" Republicanism and become more appealing to ethnic minorities and young people to secure its future. "We have got to be open," he said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. "We cannot be a single-issue party or single-philosophy party". He added: "There's a big split in our party. There's this undercurrent of rigid conservatism where...

Bob Dole, the last Republican to challenge a Democratic president, has urged Mitt Romney to confront their party's Right wing and likened the Romney-Ryan ticket to his own ultimately unsuccessful partnership with Jack Kemp in 1996. Mr Dole, a former Kansas Senator defeated by Bill Clinton 16 years ago, said the party should follow his example of "mainstream" Republicanism and become more appealing to ethnic minorities and young people to secure its future. "We have got to be open," he said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. "We cannot be a single-issue party or single-philosophy party". He added: "There's...

Frederick, Md. - Newt Gingrich says the finish line for Mitt Romney's path to the GOP nomination is further down the road than what current delegate counts indicate. The longshot hopeful, who has said he won't get out of the race until Romney secures 1144 delegates, is stressing that the delegates have to be "uncontested" in order to count. The frontrunner's rivals argue some of the states that awarded Romney all of their delegates violated Republican National Committee rules when they moved their contests ahead of April 1 and therefore should distribute delegates proportionally. This dispute, if it continues, would...

Rick Santorum is regarded by many of his supporters as the “real” conservative in the GOP presidential race, and most Democrats pay him the unintended compliment of considering him an arch-conservative. Undoubtedly, Santorum is a conservative of a certain type, but how far to the right was his voting record during the three terms he spent in the United States Senate? To answer this question, I went to the American Conservative Union’s ratings archive for 2006, Santorum’s last year as a senator, and looked up the lifetime ratings of those who were in the Senate at that time. One could...

Dole thinks Romney is in a tough spot over his role in crafting the Massachusetts health plan that the White House says was a blueprint for ObamaCare. He called it a liability for Romney but said it wasn’t “fatal.” “In the first place, you’re dealing with the state level rather than the national level,” Dole said. “And I haven’t gone over the Massachusetts plan, but there are mandates in it. That’s the one thing that Romney has to answer to, about mandates.” Dole added: “But I think he’s, you know, when he stands up and says, ‘One of the first...

The fact that Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is a “good family man” is why he has gained traction recently with voters, according to radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh. “My guess [why Santorum’s popularity is rising] might have to do with the fact that it’s now widely known that Santorum is a loving, devoted father,” Rush argued. A recent Washington Post/ABC News story stated that Santorum is winning more support from Republican women and is “less unpopular” among Democrat and independent women than his GOP rivals Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich despite his views on abortion, contraception, and prenatal screenings...

The Romney campaign sends along a statement by Bob Dole pasted below. Relations between Dole — an establishment figure in the party — and Gingrich were well known to be tense during the 1990s. Here it is: I have not been critical of Newt Gingrich but it is now time to take a stand before it is too late. If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices. Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a...

All the members of the Republican Party who have been complicit and collaborative in the destruction of our nation in the past few decades always talking about smaller government while never fighting against the tide of creeping socialism have now come out against Newt Gingrich. Yesterday, at National Review, Elliot Abrams attacked Newt Gingrich for attacking Ronald Reagan from the right. Today, it is Bob Dole’s turn. Bob Dole, you will remember from George Stephanoupolos’s memoir of his time in Clinton’s White House, totally cut the legs out from under Newt Gingrich and House Republicans during the government shut down....

Mitt Romney, whose liberal past and questionable conservative credentials are at the heart of his problems securing the Republican presidential nomination, is being supported by three prior Republican nominees--all of whom lost their bids for the presidency while running as moderates.Sen. John McCain, the 2008 nominee who lost to Barack Obama, endorsed Romney on January 4 heading into the New Hampshire primary.Former Sen. Bob Dole, the 1996 nomineee who lost to Bill Clinton, endorsed Romney in December before the Iowa caucus.Former President George H.W. Bush, who lost to Bill Clinton in 1992, 'unofficially' endorsed Romney in December in remarks to...

Bob Dole, the 1996 GOP Republican presidential nominee, unleashed an attack on Newt Gingrich today, saying not only is he unsuited to be president, he’ll crush the party’s candidates at the state and local levels. “Gingrich had a new idea every minute and most of them were off the wall,” Dole said in a statement published by National Review. Dole was a senator from 1969 to 1996, overlapping with some of Gingrich’s time as speaker of the House. In his statement, Dole said he’s decided to speak out against Gingrich “before it is too late” and Republicans nominate someone who...