The Man From Kansas

Robert Dole, who died earlier this week at 98, was a lion of the Senate much like twentieth-century senators such as Robert Taft and Hubert Humphrey and nineteenth-century figures such as Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.  A right-of-center Republican from Kansas - a state that has been reliably Republican for most of its 160 years of statehood - he took a pragmatic approach to governing by standing up for his own principles in advocating for leaner government.  Yet he supported Social Security and worked with George McGovern to shore up the nation's food-stamp program and worked with Edward Kennedy o pass the Americans with Disabilities Act  - a personal issue for him, given the limited ability in his right arm that resulted from being severely wounded in World War II.  He proved to be the adult in the room when then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich initiated government shutdown in late 1995 and helped broker a deal to pass a budget and re-open the government.   He was also very resourceful, as he got himself name recognition in Kansas politics by serving Dole pineapple juice in his campaigns, boasting once that he had drowned his electoral opponents in pineapple juice.

Dole had a quick wit and a penchant for brief statements that led him to be thought of as a sour man, but he was always straightforward and to the point.  He had no desire to indulge in the flowery language of his peers and he did not suffer fools gladly, even when he was on the receiving end of skullduggery at his expense, such as when George H.W. Bush discombobulated him with misrepresentations of his record in the contest for the 1988 Republican presidential nomination.  But he regarded people like Bush and Bill Clinton as opponents, not enemies, and toward the end of his life he lamented the polarization of the times.   

If you come to bury, not praise Dole with snide comments under this post, those comments will be deleted.  Dole was a decent person, which is more than I can say for today's Republicans, and he served his country well in a career that reminded all of us that politics is the art of the possible.  RIP.