dissimilar role that i had in '88, although i had it much broader responsibilities primarily for the operations, logistics of the campaign. so following '96 campaign, i moved to -- shortly after the '96 campaign, i moved to new york and continues working in a consulting capacity with senator dole through 2000 on a variety of undertakeings. :

at about 7:00 in the morning and my home and my father answered the phone and senator dole never identified himself. it was always hello. you knew immediately who it was. hello, issue of there. and my father said, no senator, i'm sorry she's gone to the hospital. she's gone into labor. i was expecting my first child at the time and there was this that cause when my father described. at which point the senator said, while when will she be back? [laughter]

and you know, i had all three of my children i had when i worked for senator dole. all three of whom happen to be born during congressional recesses. and senator dole never understood by any of our staff ever had children when we were in session. he would always say while sheila have entering their recess. [laughter] on a more serious note, during the budget impasse, during the period of time during the clinton administration the government had been shut down for a period of time and we have been going back and forth with the house in terms of continuing resolutions. in an attempt to try and get the government back operating and to pass a sufficient amount of money for a short period of time to allow the government to operate. in the house was quite determined to essentially force the issue. and mr. gingrich was speaker of the time and armey and others essentially were posed to doing

anything that would allow the government to go forward and wanted to shore to force the issue. and there was an important time in wisconsin something back and forth in the house once again indicated we would be willing to pass something. and senator dole came under the cloak room and said to me, you called armey on the phone and tell him the next time we're not going to stop it. these people have no idea what it's like to live from paycheck to paycheck. and they are essentially doing enormous damage to the people in this country who we depend on. and it was an indication of the things when it really counted to what he cared about. and he had extraordinary respect for the public service nature of government and the people who perform those services. an little tolerance for sort of the indifference to them to be shown in this kind of brinksmanship, were other

people's lives were at risk in a state. and i of course had the opportunity to call dick armey and pass along this message. i wasn't quite as effective as senator joe would have been. nonetheless, it is a memory i will long hold. and i will then give you an indication of the kind of man he is. >> well, i was thinking of a more humorous -- he used humor as a very effective within. i wanted it was self-deprecating, but i remember one particular markup and senator dole was a great fan of the use of ethanol and we had a proposal to enhance the tax benefits for ethanol. and i was down in the witness chair as the staff are explaining to the committee what senator dole's proposal was in the course of a markup and then the senators would be free to amend it and they would vote on

it. and so while i'm describing the proposal and senator bradley, who was at that point a vigorous opponent of the gasohol tax incentives was just torturing me with a million questions. how does this work, what is this level, how much is this subsidy? and i'm just getting sliced up by senator bradley. and senator mill is just sitting there inking, this is his proposal. [laughter] and finally senator bradley said mr. dearment, what is this proposal cost? and at that moment, senator dole broken and he said senator bradley, and it cost just as bad as much transit revision you're interested in. [laughter] and senator bradley says now it's all coming into this.

[laughter] senator bradley had a case to run for president and had a conversion in iowa to see the beauty of ethanol. [laughter] >> mike. >> i think my stories not particularly specific, but more general as to the character of the man. it goes to what sheila was referring to about his ability to communicate with working people in particular. so i think one advantage he had over colleagues, the senate from my website unlike many of them who on the weekends, i don't know what they were doing. i know what he was doing was intending hundreds of town hall meetings. and, you know, states all across the u.s. in particular in iowa, texas, new hampshire. i think through those meetings he had access to far greater

access to real people and engaged in dialogue with them to a far greater extent than his colleagues did, which in turn informed his ability to communicate their needs into legislation when he went back to washington. so i think i was a particular strength he had that was probably a significant advantage for him. as an extent of that, my experience was traveling with and campaigning with that again i think i might go out of powerful petitions and churn politicians come he didn't differentiate between the billionaires and the bottle washers in my experience. so it's a matter of fact, i think you are closely identified with the bottle washers and allow most every case, when we were in a particular location he would make a point of going to the kitchen or behind in the back of the house to meet people, the working people. so again i think that urge them

not instinct for him to engage with the common man was one of his greatest strengths when it came to translating that to legislation policy. >> to the senate elevator operators take like an annual vote on who is the most popular to the guards and staff. he eventually won that. >> well, it was interesting when he made the decision to leave the senate, he made an opportunity for folks to come and say goodbye. little did we know at the time, essentially what ended up recurring for day after day after day she would stand outside and what was known as the gold beach, which was essentially a patio that overlooked the mall outside of our office is. he would stand there waiting for people who essentially lined up for hours, all the operators, all the guards, all the cleaning staff, all of the runners to essentially get their photograph

taken with them. and he would stand there until there is no from the line and it went on for days. and even today, when you go off -- when i go up and i'm sure this is true for trained for. when any of us are in the senate, there's an immediate technology and of having been a dole staff person. and the fondness with which he is held by the folks who worked the bad calls in the senate is an indication that he never, never hesitated to stop, never hesitated to ask of someone was, knew them by name, introduced them. you know, you got gorbachev or someone in the office and some poor cleaning woman would come in and martha, have you met president gorbachev? [laughter] the poor leader is standing there saying what are you doing? but that mike, is exactly right. he was beloved and it was essentially because he knew they were. it was never walk past them and essentially click your fingers waiting for them to open your

door. he was remarkable. i was quite wet this later but that i really said that this question perfectly. talk a little bit about that last day in the senate. the decision to leave to go full time for the campaign kind of your thoughts on that and then i'd like to find out rod and mike were counseled to get to them on that issue because i know that was a really difficult decision. >> it was. and his decision to do it in and then today we announce them were somewhat afraid. but it was clearly a remarkable decision for him to make and it was one that i think he made recognizing that it was going to become increasingly difficult to manage the business of the senate. it was something which was given to in terms to his remarkable skills on the senate floor and in legislating. and that is at odds with running for president are running for

anything full-time. and i think he acknowledged that he would be unfair to his constituents in the sense of his own caucus as well as to the body to trying to go and do perhaps neither well. he made the decision. and he made the announcement over in the hearts and senate office building and the word had gotten out. and the number of democrats who attended and you spoke to him this last actual day in the senate was remarkable. the chamber was completely full. there wasn't an empty seat. and the number of members who came up to in him, with have remarkable he had then asked a member of that body, with a fight over issues, but the respect with which they hope was just palpable in the chamber. but it was a tough decision, but i think he felt it was the right one for the body of much of anything else.

and i think again it shows the respect he holds the institution and how important their relationship was for him. and again whether with danny and awake which he shared a hospital and from world war ii. his long history with pat moynihan in george mcgovern robert c. byrd, tom harkin and that is to build the work they've done and 10 kennedy on voting rights. i mean, on the other side of the as well as his own colleagues. i think an acknowledgment of a change that would occur with his departure. >> mike, what did you feel? >> for me it was more of a -- while i would say we shocked. in particular because i felt it more to canada. if it was really a palpable lost for our state because i knew --

you know i learned enough by then that the leverage in the power of the seniority that under dole had arrived to the congress and representing our state was so significant and probably would never be replicated. so from my days, it was as a campaign operative i frankly was happy on one hand because i knew that it would be easier to concentrate and focus on the general election that we were facing, which was an uphill battle to start with. the more somebody from home i felt a sense of loss of the representation that he had built up for estate over the years. wonder this thing i wanted to add about that is not how i felt that they come up but in retrospect. it struck me that the example he

said of leaving not only stepping out as majority leader but leaving the senate as the party's nominee was a particularly graceful way to exit his congressional career. i know more recent examples of kerry and mccain. i think their decisions to go back in the senate are frankly less than graceful. and have presented a whole host of sort of awkward -- awkwardness of having we think that pinnacle and then sort of back down on legislative process that i think senator dole gracefully avoided, much to his credit. >> bob, did you have anything to add? >> i remember that day vividly. it was a day of some sadness for me because i sort of thought and still think it was the passing of an error although there wasn't a majority leader quite like him. there hasn't been one since. that the great majority leader

post before and after, but it was -- he gave a moving speech. there wasn't a dry eye in the room. and you know it was a packed room in the top of the heart elting. this great big cavernous place and everybody was moved. >> and it was true on the floor as well. again, both speeches, both his last speech in the united states senate as well as the speech acknowledging yet made a decision to leave were both remarkably graceful. and it's acknowledgment of the institution of the people with whom he had worked. >> let's talk about his leadership style. as the three of you know i never worked for him on the bill, but i was on the hill with various roles in the campaign seen how he did. and one of the most amazing things i saw rod, sheila and mike, was how he would literally

have the majority leaders multiple meanings and he basically just circularly among broad, sheila, tell us a little bit about that. >> he was a master of meetings. and i'll tell you a remarkable set of meanings that was a courageous effort that didn't result in legislation and that was an effort to seriously tackle the budget and cut spending in 1985. and he went after that. he assembled groups of members, sort of small groups, large groups. i think we finally counted when we were done the best we could and we had like 40 some -- like 43 meetings of various members that he would pull together and dave stockman was i think heart of that, that's effort from: be

looking at the different ways to trim the budget, programs they had long since outlived their usefulness. we would've ended and we got back actually to gather. we voted it out of the senate and the house did not end up taking it. and a lot of those programs that had long since outlived their usefulness in 1985 are still in place today. so there is probably some nuggets that we could go back and find there. but that was a tour de force of massaging the list in putting it together as really was the dynamic of his personality, his never say die energy, that he would just keep pushing and somebody would say i can't have

that. there will real flashes i remember and be very heated discussion between and be very heated discussion between and be very heated discussion between and david stockman that made every other members sort of look at their shoes and it was so embarrassing that particular name. but he just pushed ahead, put together the package and got the package and act did out of the senate into the house. >> he -- i mean, rod is exactly right. he was never happier than when there were multiple meetings going on. you would have a meeting in his combo term, and his personal office, a meeting taking place back in my conference room for rod's as my predecessor and he would move between the meetings. andy would encourage people to stay. that he was also quite adept at essentially going outside the box. and whether it was the sort of passage of notes between he and moynihan that brought us the rescue of social security,

whether with the conversations with tom harkin that brought us the disabilities act. he was fully capable of going outside the boundaries of his own party and his own caucus and to cross the aisle and essentially work a deal. but topic -- catastrophic, catastrophic health insurance bill essentially he and senator mitchell essentially bound themselves together to try and move that forward, believing that in fact it was going to be in the country's interest to do those kinds of things. but it was -- it was persuasion. it was an extraordinary knowledge. he never cease to amaze us with sort of minutia that we would have forgotten. and he would have dug up from someplace that e-mail and particular member needed something. and he was deferential where he needed to be an and quite firm where he needed to be. and barely averted the

essentially give up. and so you didn't leave the room. and he would wander on and off the senate floor and cut in and out of the meetings in something horrific, someone would the arguing and he would make some comment about well, if we were making progress. he knew just when to bring humor into the room when things were getting very difficult and when essentially to let people go. mark hatfield, for example, the senator from oregon had a long-standing and from points of view on issues around the death penalty and on a variety of vietnam, the number of things about which hatfield felt very strongly. and dole would know the one you couldn't cross. he knew that there were members who had views that essentially were firmly held and that she couldn't push them and knew when to stop. but he also had extraordinary patience. and he would wake people out. rot and die on the way out, i was remembering an instance

where we had been in session and delay was working on a consent agreement. senator dole was the majority and senator dole gave senator byrd to consent agreement that would've allowed us to be seen on a piece of legislation agreeing to a set of rules that would allow us to essentially the order from evidence and so forth. and senator byrd, who is a very formal% and felt very strongly about personal relationships, took the consent agreement from senator dole and went into his office and began to play his fiddle. and we could hear him playing the fiddle. and of course we're all vibrating about trying to get back and senator dole simply sat and i think senator byrd and got about two or 3:00 in the morning. but we essentially just sat there and senator dole just waited them out, knew that he needed whatever time he needed. new essentially the pressure of

time needed to move things forward but it was the time to way. there were times when he wasn't as patient, but he was remarkable sort of his sense of that. >> how was he so successful at getting senators consistently when he was later, either minority leader or majority leader to take boats that maybe they would have preferred not to make? >> i think it was personal persuasion that he would talk to people. and this sort of weeding people out and working people. i remember that the last day of one session when he was finance committee chair and going with him and sitting on the senate floor and we had a number of those that were hung up from one reason or another. there was amendment that a person wanted to have that they had to have and hold on bills. and we had maybe a dozen bills and he started with the one and

he would get people on the phone, try to work out their problems, see if the compromises would work. and he would work that bill until we either got it free and passed it before it was so hung up that he moved to the next one. and we did that all day long and into the night. we just kept working down those and he would be calling people, trying to -- listening to what they had to say, knowing which he needed to have two try and find where that magic formula and he was very clever at, you know, he would try different things and how about this and he had a great sense of where compromises could be found and managed to find them. i think that something people -- there was some discussion of tax for a calm my favorite bill that i named. i don't know who doesn't like that name.

although i had a longtime mentor for whom i started practicing tax law with, the press for edwin coe went out of the law school always told me i'm a wee mispronounces it should uncalled be for a be for a be for a see for two. tephra was a remarkable solo performance by bob dole to deal with exactly the problem that we find insurmountable now, which is dealing with the deficit, although at that time we had a huge deficit and we had very high interest rate and in the order of 18% interest rates. and/or some other members of the finance committee met with paul volker, who was the fed chair at

the time and he said if you pass a big package that cuts the deficit by specified amount, he would ease off on the interest rate. and so, that was the motive that they had in the members of the finance committee, particularly the republicans took that on as a challenge and we put together in 1982 and tephra was mainly the tax piece, but there is a spending cut a piece and it was called the three-legged stool, the often talked about the three-legged stool. and it was tax increases, spending cuts and interest savings, which did get in a good and volker did cut the interest rates and that broke the back of those high interest rate at a remarkable payoff for the

country, but a terrific cost. and there was a political exercise while a compromise with people on that, he put together tephra and that package with i don't take a single democratic vote in the senate. chairman russ czajkowski passed it without a republican vote in the house. so it was the democrat that supported it in the house and the republicans in the senate. and so it was remarkably bipartisan in a bicameral way because both jim and realized they had the responsibility of doing something and it was a tough unpleasant side of oats, but they did it. tonight bill, can i have something from my perspective. they think it's important by the time he had to let good leader he had been on stage in a political way for 25 years.

so, i think from experience of seeing him with the senators and members outside of washington was that he had an encyclopedic and exceedingly in-depth knowledge of their political position in their districts and states. he probably nail -- well he definitely knew when they were coming up for reelection. he probably did the percentage of the vote they've gotten in the past election. probably knew how much money they had have in the bank for their next election. so i think all those factors, you know, in the way she was able to write for k2's roles of politicians and legislature, to take all that data to was brought to bear his negotiations and the senate with members and how to get their votes and who wouldn't be with him anyway. and i think i made a significant advantage in being overcome in

his majorities. >> that's a very important point, mike. that kind of setup talking about tephra. a couple of his other accomplishments he's very proud of. a stack about a couple other things. americans with disability act obviously he was committed to americans with disabilities his entire career think one of his very first -- >> is first speech on the senate floor was about disabilities. long-standing interest. i mean, one of the remarkable things about senator dole. my described what he was late when he was in the crowd. it always amazed me. he would instinctively go towards people who had some obvious disability if you are in a room, to where someone in a wheelchair, if it were someone who was in any way impaired, he was drawn to those people. it was obviously something he felt very strongly about. it was obviously not something high on the list of a number of

republicans. he had a keen appreciation for what he believed to be the appropriate and important role for government came to play in helping people help themselves. and whether it was the provisions that we also dealt with through the medicaid are grim to allow people to essentially keep their coverage when they were back to work so that there was no disincentive to work because suddenly you osterhaus coverage. those kinds of accommodations again recognizing that people need a helping hand up in order to help themselves. and i think he approached that with harkin and others as an acknowledgment that there was a population that needed remarkable consideration. the same is true of the food stamp program and the work he did with george mcgovern, essentially recognizing the extraordinary need in the role that government came in fact play in a responsible way to help people help themselves. so i think both of those are