A presidential campaign pitting Bill Clinton against Bob Dole would offer a striking generational contrast between a gregarious baby boomer and a reserved World War II hero, two men who share a knack for consensus and small-town roots but have vastly different styles.
Clinton is a policy wonk; Dole is accustomed to fashioning a plan by blending the ideas of others. Clinton is a glad-hander who thrives on crowds and unscripted speeches; Dole is an often-awkward campaigner who reads from note cards.Eight months before the general election, Clinton enjoys a double-digit lead over Dole in national polls and the considerable power and trappings of incumbency.
But recent history favors Republicans in presidential elections, and Dole's Midwest roots and close ties to GOP governors give him a base of support in the battleground states likely to be pivotal in November.
Early handicapping of a Clinton-Dole contest consumed Washington on Wednesday, one day after Dole secured a virtual lock on the GOP nomination.
Many Democrats relished the prospect of the 50-year-old Clinton coming up in fall debates against the 72-year-old Senate majority leader. But even they concede the early election skirmishes will come on Dole's turf - in spring and summer legislative fights.
That portends a summer of legislative brinkmanship between two power brokers who place a premium on getting things done, even as they prepare to face one another in November.
"If there is something like balancing the budget that we can get done, we ought to get it done regardless of politics," Dole said in a weekend interview. "Maybe he benefits, maybe I benefit, maybe we both benefit. I don't know, but I think the American people expect us to get some things done."
In interviews Wednesday, political strategists in both parties said Dole's biggest challenge was to frame the race as a classic challenger vs. incumbent contest, making Clinton the major issue.
This will be no easy task for Dole, since he is so closely identified with a Republican Congress that is out of favor with the majority of voters.
Clinton, on the other hand, has risen to the best poll standing of his presidency by casting himself as a defender of the middle ground against an "extremist" GOP.
This strategy is likely to continue, with the White House trying to link Dole to House Speaker Newt Gingrich and other Republicans who have high negative ratings, including Dole rival Pat Buchanan.
"The Buchanan-Dole-Gingrich group" was how Vice President Al Gore put it. "Those way over on the extreme right-wing fringe have gained an incredible amount of influence over the Republican Party, not just in this campaign for the nomination but in Congress."
With Democratic and Republican loyalists remarkably polarized since the 1994 elections, such rhetoric is a bald attempt to convince independent-minded voters to side with Clinton in the fall.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Early look at possible split in electoral votes
A consensus overview of what the Electoral College battle might look like in a Dole-Clinton presidential race. It takes a majority, or 270, of the 538 electoral votes to win the presidency. States were categorized after interviews with a dozen Democratic and Republican strategists, who were about evenly split, including officials from both the Dole and Clinton campaigns.
- Likely Republican (121): Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Kansas, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Virginia, Indiana, Utah, Alaska.
- Leaning Republican: : Florida, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, New Hampshire.
- Likely Democratic (195): California, Washington, Oregon, New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Arkansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Iowa, Hawaii, Illinois, District of Columbia.
- Tossup (146): Delaware, Michigan, Missouri, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Georgia, Montana.