Elizabeth Dole A Quieter Hillary

I am impressed by Elizabeth Hanford Dole.

I wonder how long it will last.

As the wife of Republican nominee-to-be Bob Dole and an accomplished woman in her own right, Dole will become this campaign season a new icon of American womanhood. If her husband wins in November, well, watch the icon be put on a pedestal.

For a while, anyhow.

Already there are the inevitable comparisons between her and the prevailing icon, Hillary Clinton. On paper, they have much in common: Both are Ivy League lawyers; both are devout Methodists; both come from affluent professional families. Their husbands had to put aside physical or social disabilities to get to the top. They, by contrast, began life a few notches up on the ladder, secure and well-prepared, the only barrier to success being their gender.

So it’s tempting to see them as flip sides of the coin. Vanity Fair says that its September issue will feature a photo of Dole in a red, first lady suit that, with a tweak of photographic license, is transformed into an image of Clinton wearing the same suit, waving the same flag.

No doubt Democratic strategists would be thrilled if the public viewed Dole as simply an older, more conservative version of Clinton, as if to prove that independent, career-minded women who wear three names are mainstream, no matter whether they party in San Diego or Chicago this month.

But what impresses me about Dole is that she’s not Tweedledum to Clinton’s Tweedledee. This is a woman who seems entirely focused on three things: her career, her husband and his career, and her religion. There are no distracting journeys, no conflicting messages. There are no public pronouncements of spiritual angst or confusion about her role in life; that is clear. She is on a mission.

Through three decades in Washington’s fishbowl, she has projected a remarkably unswerving image of a highly successful public-service CEO, who rose without rocking the boat, and without appearing to leave her husband’s side. Even her hairstyles vary little.

In the language of politics, Elizabeth Dole knows how to stay “on message.” It’s as if life has been one long, carefully managed campaign, and she wrote the script.

She ignored what was expected of a well-bred Carolina woman in the 1950s, and after graduation from Duke University, chose to work rather than marry. But while driven by Washington ambitions, Dole never shed her Southern roots, nor her Southern charm. Stories today describe how her “velvety” drawl softens the edges of her husband’s laconic, Midwestern flatness.

From all accounts, theirs is an unusual marriage. Hardly picket-fence America. They don’t own a home, but share the same cramped, two-bedroom Washington apartment Bob Dole moved into when he divorced his first wife. They have no children, no ongoing family obligations (except the dog, of course).

In their book, “Unlimited Partners” - a 1988 biography updated for this election - are accounts of Thanksgivings, Christmases, wedding anniversaries spent apart. Since Elizabeth Dole took a leave of absence from her presidency of the American Red Cross, she has mostly campaigned alone for her husband.

Yet to the public, the Doles are a cameo of marital stability. I doubt they’ll be going on “60 Minutes” to beat back some “bimbo eruption.”

Even when Dole does change something about herself, she does so smoothly, seamlessly. Her years in Washington have taken her from an avowed Democrat to an increasingly conservative Republican, but who today remembers that?

There is one change in her life she does openly acknowledge: a spiritual crisis in the early 1980s that led her to a deeper commitment to prayer. But unlike her Democratic counterpart, Dole did not bare her religious soul until the crisis was over, the new direction set.

Should her husband win in November, Dole has let it be known that she won’t fret about what kind of first lady she’ll be. She intends to return to her $200,000-a-year job at the Red Cross (its headquarters are conveniently close to the White House). And she’s sure there’ll be no conflicts. Really?

Here’s where she loses me. Much as I admire her independence, I don’t see how she can preside over the Red Cross and its massive and controversial blood-supply operation.

Bob Dole’s Republican colleagues in Congress are trying to strip the FDA of its power to regulate the nation’s blood banks. If a President Dole should sign such a bill, the Red Cross would be its primary beneficiary.

xxxx