Bob Dole finally seemed to acknowledge Tuesday night that he would not be able to recruit Colin Powell as his vice presidential running mate.
"I would say it's very doubtful," Dole told CBS News when asked if the retired general would join the ticket."My view is, he made this decision when he made the announcement earlier, last year, when his wife was standing there with him," Dole said. "And I think she feels very strongly about it."
Dole had seemed to be nursing the hope of winning over Powell as recently as Saturday, when the two met in Virginia at a fund-raiser for Sen. John Warner.
"I talked about his ability to help me, maybe show up in some of our campaign appearances," Dole told the Associated Press on Monday. "We didn't broach the thing, we sort of danced around the question."
"You're not going to find anybody out there, in my view, that's going to agree with the candidate for president on every issue," Dole said of the private meeting.
The question, of course, is not so much whether Dole would ask Powell to be his running mate - but whether Powell would accept.
"The position has not changed," said Bill Smullen, a spokesman for the retired general who last year ruled out any elective bid in 1996.