SEN. BOB DOLE gave a textbook demonstration last week of why he isn't going to be elected president.
That is, as Senate majority-leader-to-be, he wheeled and dealed (dealt? my spell-check approves both) on the GATT for advantages -- some of which seemed parochial, some partisan and some so dimly seen as to be suspect.
That's what Senate floor leaders do best, but it is not what Americans want in a president. The proof? No Senate floor leader has ever been nominated for president.
Now, five were nominated for vice president. Three were actually elected, and one became president eventually. Let's look at the record, as Al Smith liked to say. (Who's Al Smith? Read on, Young Reader.)
* Charles Curtis. Curtis is the only Indian (a Kaw) ever elected vice president. He was a Kansan, like Dole. And like Dole he spent most of his adult life in Congress. He was in the House of Representatives for 14 years, then in the Senate for 20. He was majority (Republican) leader when he sought the presidency in 1928 against Herbert Hoover. Hoover scalped him in the convention balloting, 837 to 64, then picked him as his running mate. They won.
* Joseph Robinson. Robinson was the minority (Democratic) leader in 1928, when Al Smith picked him as his running mate. He had been a representative for 10 years and a senator for 15. He was the first Arkansan ever on a national ticket (and probably the next to last). In '28, obviously, he and Smith lost.
* Charles McNary. He became minority leader when Robinson became majority leader (in 1933). An Oregonian who wanted to be president after 23 years in the Senate, he was regarded as the favorite dark horse of liberal Republicans in 1940, but he got only 13 of 1,000 votes at the convention. Wendell Willkie won and chose him. They lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Henry Wallace.
* Alben Barkley. This Kentuckian was 70 and had been in Congress 36 years and Democratic Senate leader for 10 years when Harry Truman picked him to be his running mate in 1948. They won. He sought the presidential nomination in 1952 and failed miserably.
* Lyndon B. Johnson. LBJ had spent 12 years in the House and 12 in the Senate when he tried to leverage his majority leadership into the presidential nomination. He failed, but John F. Kennedy picked him to be his running mate. They won and -- and you know the rest.
So Dole has the heavy hand of institutional history against him.
Not to mention his own personal history. He was the Republican nominee for vice president in 1976, before he became the leader. He and President Gerald Ford lost in voting close enough that Dole's mean-spirited campaigning probably made the difference.
He also lost a pre-leader presidential nomination bid in 1980, as did then Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker Jr. Then, as minority leader in 1988, Dole failed again in a bid for the presidential nomination.