Bob Dole says the Republican Party should consider putting a woman on the 2000 presidential ticket, and he suggested that his wife, Elizabeth, would make an ideal candidate.
Dole, President Clinton's unsuccessful challenger for the White House last year, said Sunday that "I've still got one chance to get there, if Elizabeth runs."In an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," he said he has not spoken to his wife about running, "but I think she is certainly qualified."
What's more, he said, "if we are going to close the gender gap in the Republican Party we ought to think about a woman on the ticket in the year 2000."
Polls show that a majority of women consistently support Democratic candidates and policies, just as a majority of men back the Republican Party.
Elizabeth Dole has served as secretary of the Labor and Transportation departments and now is president of the American Red Cross. She frequently has been mentioned as a potential candidate in 2000. She scores well in polls where Republican voters list their favorite would-be candidates.
Dole said he had joked to his wife that "all I wanted was a car and a driver if she gets elected, and a beeper. In case somebody leaves me behind, I want to be able to phone in."
Dole also said that Ross Perot nearly threw his support behind him in the final days of the 1996 campaign, but then changed his mind.
He said Perot told him in a telephone conversation that a deal could be worked out. But he said that when "I called him back about three hours later, he had a totally different attitude, he had changed his mind completely."
Dole said the decision of Perot, who got 8.4 percent of the popular vote, to withhold his support "probably cost us one state maybe, maybe a couple of others" but did not change the outcome of the election.