They didn't exactly hate him, either.
He wasn't the most inspiring candidate, but he lost because of the economy and the advantages of incumbency.
Dole gets kicked around now because he lost, but he wasn't wildly unpopular with Republican voters. There just weren't enough Republican voters in 1996. It's not like the GOP owned everybody who ever once voted for Reagan -- a lot of them just voted Republican because of the economy, or because they didn't like Carter.
I'd be ticked off too if I were Bob Dole and was always getting told that Bob Dole lost because Bob Dole was some kind of liberal (and also because Bob Dole is ticked off most of the time).
I had to hold my nose to vote for him. I remembered his unconstitutional budget (bill initiated in the Senate) during Reagan.