Robert Joseph Dole (July 22, 1923 – December 5, 2021) was an American politician and attorney who represented Kansas in the U.S. Senate from 1969 to 1996 as well as in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1961 to 1969. He was the Republican leader of the Senate for the last decade or so of his time in the upper chamber, including service as majority leader from 1985 to 1987 and again from 1995 until his resignation in 1996.
In 1976, President Gerald Ford selected Dole, who was good friends with him since their days in the House, to be his vice presidential running mate in that year's election due to his own vice president Nelson Rockefeller wanting to retire from politics, but the Ford/Dole ticket narrowly lost to the Democrat ticket Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale due to lingering anger over the Watergate scandal and Ford's unpopular pardoning of his predecessor, Richard Nixon, as well as gaffes by the both of them in their respective debates against Carter and Mondale.
Dole is probably better known for being the Republican presidential nominee in the 1996 election, retrospectively dubbed by Politico
as "the least important election of our lives": Incumbent Democratic president Bill Clinton's chances of winning were actually considered slim in the middle of his term, as his party had lost both the House and the Senate in 1994, their House loss being the first in 42 years, but he was able to regain ground as the economy began to recover from the early 1990s recession, accompanied with a relatively stable world stage. Clinton was successful in associating Dole to Newt Gingrich, the unpopular Republican speaker of the House, and warned that Republicans would increase the deficit and slash spending on popular programs like Social Security and Medicare. This, accompanied by Dole's age (being 73 at the time would mean he would be the oldest president if he won the election) being a persistent issue in the election, not to mention gaffes by Dole only exacerbating it. Clinton's lead in the polls was consistent through the election season and he soundly defeated Dole on Election Day.
Dole also served in the United States Army during World War II as a colonel, wherein he earned both the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. He was discharged from the Army in 1947 with the rank of captain and fully left the following year. The injuries he suffered in the war left him with limited mobility in his right arm and numbness in his left arm. He minimized the effect in public by keeping a pen in his right hand, which became something of an Iconic Item for him as a result, as well as learning to write with his left hand.
Following his retirement from politics, Dole found greater fame as a spokesman for various products (most notably Viagra), culminating in an infamous Pepsi commercial where he ogled Britney Spears.
He was married to Phyllis Holden in 1948, with whom he had one child, until they divorced in 1972. He married Elizabeth "Liddy" Hanford in 1975, with whom he had no children. The Doles became a Republican power couple, with Elizabeth (a former Democrat) serving in the cabinets of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, and later serving as a U.S. senator representing North Carolina from 2003 to 2009, and briefly ran her own campaign for the Republican nomination for the 2000 presidential election.
With the death of former Iowa congressman Neal Edward Smith on November 2, 2021, at the age of 101, Dole became the oldest living former or current member of the House of Representatives.note
Dole was diagnosed with lung cancer in February 2021. In December the same year, he died in his sleep at age 98 from complications related to the disease.
In Media
Film (Live-Action)
- Gets name-dropped in Scream 2 by the villain, as he goes on his Motive Rant explaining how he killed people to become famous. He plans to blame the entertainment industry and their violent content for making him a killer to get a sensational trial, and envisions Moral Guardians speaking in his defense in order to portray him as an innocent victim of a culture saturated with violent imagery, with Dole on the witness stand to claim he's an innocent guy (a reference to his infamous 1995 speech attacking the entertainment industry for peddling "nightmares of depravity").
Live-Action Television
- 60 Minutes: He and Bill Clinton served as commentators on the show.
- The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: He served as a commentator for the show's coverage of the 2000 presidential election.
- He appeared in an episode of Murphy Brown.
- Saturday Night Live: He was parodied by Norm Macdonald during the 1996 presidential election campaign. He eventually appeared As Himself on the show, along with Macdonald, parodying himself after the 1996 election. Despite being nearly old enough to be Macdonald's grandfather, Dole would astonishingly survive him by more than two months, and sent his condolences upon learning of his death.
Western Animation
- Family Guy: In "Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington", Bob Dole is one of the officials who offer Peter and the tobacco industry their support. At least he tries to offer his support. He falls asleep muttering his own name.
- Futurama: In "A Head in the Polls," Dole's head in a jar is in the little-visited Closet of Presidential Losers at the Head Museum.
"Bob Dole needs company. LaRouche won't stop with the knock-knock jokes."
- The Simpsons: The 1996 presidential election was parodied in the "Citizen Kang" segment of "Treehouse of Horror VII", in which Dole and Bill Clinton are abducted by Kang and Kodos, who pose as them to run for U.S. President.
Tropes associated with fictional appearances of Dole:
- Third-Person Person: While he would sometimes refer to himself in third person on the election trail, fictional appearances such as The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live have him repeat his name so much it borders on Pokémon Speak.