Dole: ‘Wake Up, America!’ Media Accused Of Covering Up Controversies In White House

A frustrated Bob Dole campaigned for votes in Republican territory Thursday with an urgent appeal: “Wake up, America! You’re about to do yourselves an injustice if you vote for Bill Clinton.”

Dole angrily criticized President Clinton’s ethics and claimed the “liberal media” was trying to reelect the Democratic incumbent.

To Clinton, Dole said, “this is all a power game. It’s a game. It’s a game. It’s a game …. We’ve lost respect all around the world.”

With polls showing him consistently trailing Clinton even in many Republican strongholds, Dole acknowledged his frustration to supporters at a rally in a Pensacola Junior College gym.

“I know everybody gets frustrated. I even get frustrated, and I’m the most optimistic man in America,” Dole said, clusters of rainbow-colored balloons suspended above his head.

“I wonder sometimes what people are thinking about or if people are thinking at all - if they’ve really watched this administration, watched what’s happened in this White House.”

Dole’s effort to lock up traditionally Republican states also took him Thursday to Alabama, Louisiana and Texas, where polls find him neckand-neck with Clinton. Wrapping up a New Orleans rally with a plug for his school-choice plan, Dole said “We better start focusing on education in America or this country’s going to hell in a handbasket before we know it.”

The president, too, was campaigning in Alabama and Louisiana on Thursday. White House press secretary Mike McCurry called it political “shadow boxing.”

Without mentioning Dole by name, Clinton indirectly answered the Republican’s criticism about the issues of character and trust.

“This is not a question of who’s good and bad,” Clinton said during a speech in Birmingham, Ala. “It’s a question of what’s right and wrong for our future.”

Dole later appeared on the steps of the Alabama statehouse in Montgomery and told supporters, “Is there no honor in this administration or in this White House? When will the American people have enough? … Don’t inflict this on America for four more years, we can’t take it.”

Dole also picked up an endorsement from former Gov. George Wallace, who, confined to a wheelchair, waved to the crowd from behind Dole’s podium.

Before leaving Florida, Dole reminded voters that there were just 12 days left until the election.

“Wake up America!,” he said. “You’re about to do yourselves an injustice if you vote for Bill Clinton. …If you want to see this country go down the hill in the next four years, you vote for Bill Clinton.”

Asked why he sounded so angry, Dole shook his head and said, “I’m fired up.” Indeed, once the candidate shook a few hands in his Georgia crowd, he jumped onto the band’s platform, commandeered a drumstick and briefly hit the snare drum.

Heading to Texas for rallies today in Houston and Dallas, Dole was haunted by Gov. George W. Bush’s words to reporters last April: “If Senator Dole has to campaign in Texas in October, it would be a sign we are in trouble.” The state hasn’t voted Democrat for president since 1976, when Jimmy Carter won there by 3 percentage points.

In Florida, Dole accused the media of covering up controversies in the Clinton White House - most recently, questionable campaign donations from foreign interests.

“We know the liberal media is not going to report on all these things. They want him re-elected,” Dole said. “The truth is, Bill Clinton ought to be voted out in a landslide.”

From Lee Greenwood’s musical performance to Dole’s rhetorical one, the rally recalled the waning days of George Bush’s 1992 campaign, when he too upbraided the media and the voters. Greenwood, whose music was a staple of Bush’s road show, made his first appearance with Dole on Thursday.

Dole worked in a dig at Clinton’s much-traveled energy secretary even as he promoted the GOP plan to cut income taxes by 15 percent, which he said would let families save for things like vacation.

“It’s your money,” he said. “It’s better that you take a vacation than Hazel O’Leary, who flies all over the world.”