Bob Dole, a former Kansas senator and former Republican Party presidential nominee, died Sunday morning at age 98. That’s what the named after his wife Elizabeth Dole Foundation announced. Dole spent decades at the highest level of American politics. In February, he announced suffer from advanced lung cancer.
Dole began his political career in 1952, when he was elected to the United States House of Representatives from his home state of Kansas. Six years later, he managed to secure a seat in the federal House of Representatives in Washington DC. From that moment on he climbed the ladder of national politics: eight years later he was elected to the Senate, where he stayed for more than a quarter of a century.
In 1976, Dole was elected by the Republican Party as a candidate for vice president under Gerald Ford, twenty years later, Dole ran as a candidate for the highest office. In both cases, the Republicans lost: in 1976 Democrat Jimmy Carter was elected president, in 1996 his party colleague Bill Clinton. Dole was certainly not a tough opponent for Clinton. The Democrat won by 9 percentage points.
Longest-serving party leader
Dole also ran for president in 1980 and 1988, but was not nominated by his party. The senator was able to write another title to his name for years: in 1985 he became the leader of the Republicans in the Senate, a position he held until his run for the presidency. He was the longest-serving Republican party leader for many years. Current front man Mitch McConnell overtook Dole in 2018.
The Kansas politician was a staunch supporter and defender of Richard Nixon, the Republican president who was fired in 1974 after it was revealed that he was trying to cover up evidence around Watergate. Even during the wiretapping scandal, Dole had remained loyal. He defended his president with fervor, and less than a year before Nixon’s resignation he tried – unsuccessfully – to enforce a resolution that had been tabled to stop the live televised broadcasts of the Watergate hearings. At Nixon’s funeral in 1994, Dole gave an emotional speech.
Dole leaves behind his wife and daughter. His wife Elizabeth Hanford Dole was also a Republican Party politician. In the eighties and nineties she was, among other things, Minister of Transport and later of Employment. For the 2000 election, Elizabeth Dole ran for president, but lost out to George W. Bush.
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