the number of democrats who attended and who spoke to him, and in his last actual day in the senate, was remarkable. the chamber was full. the number of members who came up to him who acknowledged how remarkable he had thebeen as a member of that body, where they fought over issues, but the respect with which they held him was culpable in the chamber. it was a tough decision. -- they held him was palpable in the chamber. it shows the respect he had in the institution. whether it was danny ioye, george mitchell, robert see byrd, tom harkin, and the

disability work they had done, ted kennedy on voting rights. on the other side of the aisle as well as his own colleagues, there was an acknowledgement of change that would occur with his departure. >> what did you feel that day? >> for me, i would say it was shock, because i felt it more as a kansan. it was a palpable sense of loss for our state. i have learned enough by then that to know that, either the leverage, the power, the seniority that senator dole had brought to the congress in representing our state was so significant and probably would never be replicated.

from that perspective, as a campaign operative, i frankly, was happy on one hand because i knew it would be easier to concentrate and focus on the general election that we were facing, which was an uphill battle to start with, but more is somebody from home, i felt a sense of loss of the representation that he had built up for our state over the years. one other thing i want to add in retrospect, it struck me that the example he set, not only stepping down as majority leader, but leaving the senate, as the party's nominee was a particular graceful way to exit his congressional career. more recent examples of kerry and mccain.

their decisions to go back in the senate are less than graceful. they have prevented up -- presented a host of ordnance -- awkwardness. i think senator dole gracefully avoided it, much to his credit. >> bob, did you have anything to add? >> arkansas remember that day vividly. it was a day of some sadness -- i remember that day vividly. there wasn't a majority leader quite like him. there have been some great majority leaders before and after, but he gave a moving speech. there wasn't a dry eye in the room. and that was a packed room top of the hart building, this

cavernous place. >> it was true on the floor. both speeches, his last speech in the senate, as well as the speech acknowledging he made the decision to leave. both were remarkably graceful in his acknowledgment of the institution and the people with whom he had worked. >> let's talk about his leadership style. i never worked for him on the hill. i was on the hill in various roles some campaigns, seeing how he did things. one of the most amazing things i ever saw was how he would have the majority leader's office multiple meetings. he would circulate among them. tell us a little bit about how that were. >> he was a master of meetings. -- how that worked. >> a remarkable set of meetings that was a courageous effort

that did not result in legislation and there 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 43 meetings of various members he would pull together. and dave stockman was part of that effort from omb, looking at different ways to trim the budget. programs that have long since outlived their usefulness. we would have ended them. and we got that actually together. we voted it out of the senate,

and the house did not end up taking it. a lot of those programs that have long since outlived their usefulness, and 1985, are still in place today. -- in 1985, are still in place today. that was a tour de force of massaging the list and putting it together. this really was the dynamic of his personality, his never-say- die energy. he would keep pushing. someone would say, i cannot have that. i remember are heated discussion between david stockman and another that made every other member look at their shoes. it was embarrassing. he pushed ahead, but together the package, and got the

package and acted out of the senate and into the house. -- enacted and into the house. >> he was never happier than when there were multiple meetings. you have a meeting taking place in its conference room, his personal office, taking place back in my conference room, or rod's, and he would move between meetings. he encouraged people to stay. but he was quite adept at going outside the box. weather was the passage of notes between he and patrick moynihan which brought the rescue of social security. 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 across the aisle and work a deal. the catastrophic health-

insurance bill, he and senator mitchell bound themselves together to move that ford, believing it was going to be in the countries interests to do that kind of thing -- and move that forward. it was persuasion. it was extraordinary knowledge. he never ceased with it -- to amaze with my new shockey -- we were forgotten. -- with minutae we would have forgotten. rarely did he give up. he would wander on and off the senate floor and in and out of meetings, and someone would be arguing, and he would make a comment about, i am see we are making progress. he knew just when to bring humor into the room when things were

getting to a crawl. and when -- getting difficult. mark hattfield had a longstanding and firm point of view on issues around the death penalty, and on of variety -- vietnam -- and dole would know the line you could not cross a bridge the new members who have views that were formerly held. -- he knew memebebers have views that were firmly held. dole was trying to work out a consent agreement with senator byrd. he was the majority leader at the time. senator byrd was in the minority. senator dole gave the senator byrd the consent agreement. -- agreeing to a set of rules

that would allow us the order of amendments and so on. senator byrd, who is a very formal person and felt strongly about personal relationships, took the consent agreement and went into his office. he began to play his fiddle. we could hear him playing the fiddle. of course, we are all vibrating about trying to get out. senator dole simply sat. senator byrd came back to us at 2:00 in the morning. we sat there. senator dole waited him out. there were times when he was not as patient. he was remarkable in his sense of that. >> how was he so successful at getting senators consistently, when he was leader, minority or majority, to take votes that maybe they would have preferred not to make?

>> i think it was personal persuasion, that he would talk to people. waiting people out and working with people. i remember at the last day of one session in when he was the finance committee chair, and going with him and it is sitting on the senate floor, and we had a number of bills that were hung out for one reason or another. there was an amendment that a person wanted to have. holds on bills. we had a dozen bills hung up. he started with bill one, and he would get people on the telephone, try to work out their problems in to see if compromises would work. he would work that bill. we got it free in passed it, or it was so hung up that he would move to the next one. we did that all day long, into

the night. she would be calling people, trying -- listening to what they would say -- he would be calling people, trying to find where that magic formula. he was very clever, he would try different things. how about this? he had a great sense of where compromises could be into managed to find them. >there was some discussion of tefra, my favorite bill. i do not know who does not like that name. my longtime mentor, for whom i started practicing tax law, at the university of virginia law school, always told me that we mispronounce it, --

it should have been called "tea-fra", tea for two. it was a remarkable solo performance by dole to deal with the problem we find insurmountable now, which is dealing with the deficit. at that time, we had very high interest rates. --i in the order of 18%. dole and members of the finance committee met with paul volcker, and he said if you pass a big package that cuts the deficit by a specified amount, he would ease off on interest rates. that was the motive they had, and the members of the finance

committee, particularly republicans, it took that as a challenge, and we put together in 1982, and tefra was the tax piece, but there was a spending cuts piece. it was the three-legged stool. it was tax increases, spending cuts, and interest savings. it did get enacted, and volcker cut interest rates and that broke the back on high interest rates. it was a remarkable payoff for the country. it was a political exercise. while the compromise with people, -- while he compromised with people, he put together that package without a single democratic vote in the senate.

chairman rostenkowski passed it without a republican vote in the house. it was the democrats that supported it in the house, and the republicans in the senate. it was a remarkably bipartisan in a bicameral way, because both chairmen realize they have the responsibility of doing something. it was a tough, unpleasant said the votes, but they did it appeared >> from my perspective, by the time he was elected majority leader, he had been on the national stage in a political way for 25 years. my experience of seeing him up with the senators, members, outside of washington was that he had an encyclopedic and in- depth knowledge of their political position in their districts and states. he probably knew, definitely

knew when they're coming up for reelection. he probably knew the percentage of votes they got in their past election. probably knew how much money they had in the bank. all of those factors, no, in the way he was able to bifurcate his roles as politicians -- you know, in the way he was able to bifurcate his roles as politicians was brought to bear. it gave him a significant advantage. >> that is a very good point. that sets up a couple of his other accomplishments. let's talk about a couple of other things. americans with disabilities act. he was committed to americans with disabilities his entire career, one of his first speeches --

>> his first speech on the senate floor was about disability. longstanding interest. one of the remarkable things that senator dole -- mike described what he was like in a crowd -- he would instinctively go toward peoplewh who had some of this disability if they were in a room. if it were somebody in a wheelchair, somebody in any way impaired, he was drawn to those people. it was something he felt very strongly about. it was not something high on the list of a number of republicans. but he had a keen appreciation for what he believed to be the appropriate and important role the government can play in helping people help themselves. whether it was the provisions we also dealt with to the medicaid program to allow people to keep their coverage when they went back to work so there was no

disincentive to work because then suddenly you lost your health coverage. those kinds of accommodations, again, recognizing people need a helping hand up in order to help themselves. i think he approached that with harkin and others as an acknowledgement 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. it was recognizing the extraordinary need in the role that government can play in a responsible way. -- to help people help themselves. i think both of those are evidence of his ability to cross the aisle and to do things that were at odds with his party at the time. but his acknowledgement of the balancing act for the appropriate role for government. in the right way. >> one of his other great accomplishment that he remains proud of is hit -- solving

social security. >> -- salvaging social security. >> i often hear today that we need to put together the greenspan commission that salt social security. the greenspan commission was about to put out a report that made no recommendation because they could not solve the problem. senator dole was a member of that commission, as was senator daniel patrick moynihan from new york. senator moynihan and loved the social security program. he was a devoted to it. he and senator dole got together, and senator moynihan said, we cannot let this go like this. the commission put out a set of options with no recommendation. the two of them started a dialogue. they got dave stockman involved to try to hash out a

proposal that everybody could agree on, where everybody gave on increasing and accelerating the scheduled tax increases, and to tax a half of the benefits and benefit cuts and greater coverage. and then they got of gang of nine and build more consensus. it started really with the conviction of senator dole and senator moynihan, and putting that together, that that sort of lifelong bond that they had. and they had a remarkable relationship. a couple of years later, i remember going on the congressional delegation through asia, which was another work fast. >> it became known as the bataan death march. >> it was a lot of work.

we brought one democrat, and it was senator moynihan. that was a singular achievement. that rescued social security. we were at a point where it was about to go under. we need to have a next generation of senator dole and senator moynihan to deal with the train wreck that is not too far away. >> i was just going to say, there are those remarkable, very large pieces of legislation. an enormous amount of medicare- medicate policy, the coverage of children that occurred during the 1980's and 1990's was as a result of senator dole and henry waxman. in addition to those of big things we know about, there were

also the small things. we had a young man on our staff who was an intern from kansas, as a matter of fact. a young college student. and he was -- had hemophilia. he came to work for us when summer. as a direct result of his having been on our staff, having had the opportunity to meet the senator, having talked with us about the challenges he faces and his family faced, one of them was a small issue which had to do with whether or not he needed of clotting factor -- hemophiliacs tend to believe they are injured -- there is a drug you can use to help that clotting factor. at that time, medicare would only pay for it if you were going into the hospital to have the service provided. although it was something that could be administered at home and would be much more reasonable for our young man of

his age to be able to deal with this issue. a direct result of that young man was the passage of a provision to provide self administration of this drug. the creation of the medicare hospice benefit was a direct result of bob dole. the creation of the coverage for health clinics in rural locations around the country, and medicare's acknowledgement of those services and the challenges faced by small hospitals was a direct result of bob dole. while we all acknowledge and celebrate the social security salvation ,tefra, cobra, there was a series of those, there were other things for which she gets little credit but for which she was directly responsible -- for which he gets little credit but for which he was directly responsible. >> i was going to comment on the dole and moynihan relationship.

i can recall during a primary campaign in 1988, presidential campaign, senator moynihan asked senator dole's permission to use his image in one of his campaign commercials in new york, which i thought was a remarkable display of bipartisanship. it illustrates the closeness of their relationship. >> that relationship repeated itself in a situation is similar to the social security situation, although it did not play out as well that social security event occurred because of a conversation on the senate floor between moynihan and dole. during the debate over health reform in 1994, through that period of the clinton reforms, a similar conversation occurred and a note passed between moynihan and dole saying, isn't it time for us to step in and make this work? and a set of circumstances prevented that from occurring,

not the least of which was the antipathy between moynihan and the clinton administration. that opportunity was there for a brief shining moment where we might have been able to get something done. >> we will open it up to your questions in a moment, after i ask one more. if you have a question, we have two students with cordless microphones. raise your hand. they will bring the microphone to you. we will call on you. my question for all three of you. how was the senate of bob dole and ted kennedy and robert byrd of 30 years ago, how was that so effective and how was it different from the senate we see today? >> >some of the activities we engaged and in the senate were long debates.

i do not think we have any debates in consideration today quite like they had then. maybe they did not have the same work ethic, but the windfall profit tax debate in late 1979 and early 1980, was on the floor for months. i did not know we debate bills for months today. so people had an opportunity to offer amendments. many times over. there was perhaps of greater collegiality between the members, even though there was a very partisan votes then and very partisan activities. as i said, tefra was created in the senate, passed in the

senate entirely by republicans. there were no democrats that chose to join in that particular bill. there were others that were much for bipartisan -- much more bipartisian. -- bipartisan. i think it might be the tradition of long friendships. members served a long time. and they worked together across party lines so that, even where there was party-line votes, they still could be assembled with one another. >> i think we are all struggling to understand why things have become so bitterly partisan. much more obviously than they were in the period of time we served in the senate. that is not to suggest that there were not battles that occurred, because there were,

quite pitched at times. clearly, there were partisan -- senator dole could be very partisan. but he also knew when to reach across the aisle. the think there was a sense of the importance of legislating to a conclusion. i can remember senator dole on more than one occasion commenting that he rarely thought it was a win it to lose. simply putting think -- simply putting something up to force people to vote to put people in a corner, rarely serve anyone's purpose. the purpose of legislating -- he was criticized as a candidate for being too legislative and talking and legislators speak and talking like somebody who was a legislator. well, in fact, he was. there is less sense of that now. there is more of a sense of blocking people into a corner and forcing them to take positions at odds with where

they need to be. less risk taking. there is a history, many of these members had served together for a long period of time. there are some who would suggest there is a greater presence of former house members in the senate now. there is a desire for the senate to operate more like the house. the senate is a messy place. the house is a very structured, a very controlled environment where the majority has absolute control. the senate is not a body that functions that way his starkly. it largely visits -- conduct business by consensus. most of the bills we were involved in were done by consent. the leaders would agree to what the structure would be and what you would get done and the rules in which you were able to get it done. at the end of the day, you worked to try to come to closure. there is less sense of that now. whether it is the nature of the individuals, the lack of history.