Bob Dole

SAN DIEGO -- Tonight is Bob Dole's big night at the GOP convention. But a select group of Republicans in San Diego is already thinking about tomorrow.They are the party's rising stars, its next generation of presidential candidates. And unless Dole wins in November, their moment has arrived.The Republican Class of 2000 -- the Millennial Class -- would include some veterans of past campaigns, certainly Patrick J. Buchanan and quite likely Jack Kemp, now given a second chance at presidential politics.

WASHINGTON -- If there were any danger Bob Dole could use foreign policy as a campaign issue, President Clinton squelched it last week with his pledge to expand the Atlantic alliance by the turn of the century.Deciding to risk offending Russia, Clinton moved toward a long-held Republican position in laying out a timetable for bringing Eastern European states into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He also stood to gain votes from Republicans with roots in the Cold War's captive nations, much as he won support among Florida's Cuban exiles by adopting new sanctions against Fidel Castro.

"Tattoos are the big hair of the '90s -- Wake up!"-- Graffiti scrawled on a men's-room stall at a Boston club"That is so cool," says Cher, when told of this bit of mid-'90s pop-cultural wisdom. And she should know. Cher is Ms. Original Rose Tattoo.Cher has six tattoos, including, as she puts it, "a garden on my butt."She got her first one in 1972."My mother was appalled. Everybody was appalled. And that suited me just fine. Now everybody has tattoos. I bet Dole has got a tattoo someplace," she says, referring to Bob Dole, the presidential candidate.

WASHINGTON -- Once upon a time, polls were conducted to learn what people think. Now, political scientists wonder whether polls are telling people what to think.Has a simple tool of commerce intended to help match products with markets evolved into a force of its own in this society obsessed with focus groups and numbers? When a candidate such as Bob Dole trails so far behind in public opinion surveys that his cause is declared by the press to be all but lost two months before an election, does that become a self-fulfilling prophecy?

WASHINGTON -- Finally, some fun. Finally, in a presidential race that has had all the excitement of back-to-back reruns of "The Lawrence Welk Show," someone is firing up the dialogue.Right now, for instance, Republican partisan and radio talk show host Mary Matalin is offering her analysis of President Clinton. Let's tune in:"Bill Clinton's the worst human being I've ever seen," says Matalin, who was George Bush's deputy campaign manager in 1992 and now is an ardent volunteer in Bob Dole's presidential campaign.

RUSSELL, Kan. -- Like the hard red winter wheat that is its lifeblood, this lonely town on the prairie is waiting to bloom.At least, that's the view of some in wind-swept Russell, Kan., where Bob Dole was born 73 years ago today. The actual spot where he entered the world is no longer standing: his family's three-room house, not much bigger than a shack, beside the Union Pacific railroad tracks -- on the wrong side of the tracks, as Dole has said.Other landmarks from his early days remain, though.

MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa -- Eating a pork tenderloin sandwich the size of a catcher's mitt, Chad Binder is puzzled by an apparent contradiction in Marshall County's reaction to the Republican presidential campaign.He says there has been enough activity so there should be a big turnout at the caucuses Monday night. But, he adds, "A lot of people here have been turned off by the negativity of the campaign."All the candidates have passed through this community of 26,000 an hour's drive northeast of Des Moines, a town typical of those the campaigns have been targeting for weeks.

MANCHESTER, N.H., Nov. 4 -- Bob Dole had decided to conclude his bid for the presidency by campaigning for 96 straight hours, in effect turning his death march into a death marathon, and there was no way I was going to miss it.So, peeling off from Bill Clinton's entourage in San Francisco, I jetted back to East Lansing, Mich., to hook up with the Bobster and then stick with him for a two-day slice of his 'round-the-clock ramble.On the flight out, I was seated next to a yuppie executive from the cosmetics firm Helene Curtis, who served the useful function of reminding me just how odd this avocation of mine is."

WASHINGTON -- If last night's oratorical duel between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole was really a preview of the 1996 general election, maybe they should call off the campaign.To a striking extent, Mr. Clinton's shrewdly crafted speech could have been delivered by Mr. Dole, the current favorite to win the Republican nomination, or several other GOP presidential contenders, for that matter.Offering his opponents little running room, Mr. Clinton admitted that government can't do everything, called for families to stay together, challenged Hollywood to clean up its act, proposed tough new laws to curb crime and illegal immigration, and showed off his new drug czar, a highly decorated four-star general.

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Three months ago, the wise guys of American politics had the Republican campaign all figured out. With Colin L. Powell and Jack Kemp on the sidelines, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole appeared to have a clear path to the nomination.Indeed, the conventional wisdom agreed that, barring some gaffe of the kind he had committed in the past, Mr. Dole might lock it up by winning the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.But today, as voters go to the polling places here, Mr. Dole's stature as the front-runner appears to be hanging by a thread, although he has committed no such gaffe.