Robert J. Dole, whose small-town roots and virtues were central to his politics, dies at 98

Bob Dole (Photo: David Ake, AFP/Getty)

Bob Dole, a son of small-town Kansas who dominated the Senate for a decade and was the 1996 Republican nominee for vice president and president 20 years apart, died Sunday morning. He was 98.

Robert J. Dole was born in Russell, a county-seat town in the heart of the state. It had about 2,000 people at the time, grew to 6,500 by the time he was elected to the state House in 1950 and now has 4,400. The story of his upbringing there, and the town's efforts to help him recover from the nearly fatal injuries he suffered in World War II, were central to the narrative of his political career.

"Russell was a speck on the flat Kansas prairie, but in the Dole biography it took on mythic significance. In his political campaigns, Russell was cast as the shaper of noble, small-town virtues and Mr. Dole as their personification," writes Katharine Q. Seelye of The New York Times.

"Remembering that period, and the generosity of his neighbors, often brought him to tears. In his first appearance with President Ford in Russell in 1976, with 10,000 well-wishers crammed into the downtown business district, he thanked the townspeople for their support after the war. Then he started to cry and couldn’t go on. The audience fell silent. Finally, Mr. Ford stood and began clapping, and the audience joined in. Regaining his composure, Mr. Dole said: 'That was a long time ago.' And yet even in 1996, long after Russell and his recovery had become a staple of his origin story, he could hardly mention that period without choking up."

"Bob’s lifetime of service was rooted in a simple mission: looking out for his neighbors," Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said in a press release. "His Dust Bowl roots fueled a special commitment to vulnerable Americans, and sure enough, Bob’s work on food security, veterans’ issues, and the rights of disabled Americans have continued to have an especially lasting impact."

Dole also ran for president in 1988, winning the Iowa caucuses but losing to George H.W. Bush in New Hampshire after refusing to pledge not to raise taxes. "If he had won the nomination, he almost certainly would have won the White House because Americans then wanted something more like a third Ronald Reagan term than a first Michael Dukakis term," writes columnist George Will in The Washington Post. "Dole probably would have won that nomination if he had won New Hampshire’s primary. And he could have, if he had campaigned as what he really wasn’t — a fervent conservative."

Will adds, "Dole was never one of those puffed-up politicians who constantly act as though they are unveiling statues of themselves. He had a Midwestern cheerfulness — see Ronald Reagan, of Dixon, Ill. — about the United States’ possibilities, but his mordant, sometimes acidic wit fit a man with some grievances against life’s close calls."

"Though Mr. Dole had promised that he would return to his Russell roots if he lost the race, that didn’t happen," writes Gerald Seib of The Wall Street Journal. "He was far too much a fixture in the nation’s capital by then, both in his own right and as the spouse of former senator and Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole. So he became a high-powered member of Washington law firms, working for clients such as the government of Taiwan."