WALLACE: What do you think of your party, of the Republicans, today?
DOLE: I think 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.
WALLACE: You describe the GOP of your generation as Eisenhower Republicans, moderate Republicans.
Could people like Bob Dole, even Ronald Reagan, could you make it in today’s Republican Party?
DOLE: I doubt it. And I — Reagan wouldn’t have made it. Certainly Nixon couldn’t have made it, because he had ideas and, we might have made it, but I doubt it. I mean —
WALLACE: Too moderate? Too willing to compromise?
DOLE: I just consider myself a Republican, none of this hyphenated stuff. I was a mainstream conservative Republican, and most people are in that category.
You are right.
I had it wrong!
If Dole had his way, "Reagan wouldn’t have made it" in 1980!
That was when Dole dropped out of the GOP presidential primaries (because Reagan was kicking his ass) and urged Ford to jump in as a "stop Reagan candidate".
Since Ford had already proved himself (with Dole as VP candidate) unable to beat Carter in 1976, it seems Dole was less concerned with stopping Carter than he was with stopping Reagan.
And that tells us what kind of Republican Dole was then and is now.