Robert J Dole

Bob Dole got in hot water this year when he questioned whether his wife, GOP presidential hopeful Elizabeth Hanford Dole, could raise enough money to be viable in the 2000 race. Now, it seems, he's at it again. The former Kansas senator, in Wednesday's Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, said the lead that Texas Gov. George W. Bush holds over his rivals for the GOP nomination might be insurmountable.

Hoping to improve sales of its Viagra drug, Pfizer Inc. has hired former presidential contender Bob Dole for a television advertising campaign to raise awareness about impotence. Dole, a former Senate majority leader, will participate in a series of public service activities, including speaking engagements and educational advertising that focus on impotence and men's health in general, the company said.

The Federal Election Commission unanimously decided against ordering the campaigns of President Clinton and Republican challenger Bob Dole to repay millions of federal dollars for violating spending limits. The commission rejected its auditors' argument that millions of dollars worth of TV ads run by the Democratic and Republican parties should count against spending limits agreed to by Clinton and Dole in exchange for receiving federal campaign funds.

The Federal Election Commission signaled Wednesday that it will overrule most, if not all, of its own staff's recommendations that the Bill Clinton and Bob Dole presidential campaigns repay millions of dollars that they allegedly overspent in the 1996 battle for the White House. Following two days of debate, Scott E. Thomas, the commission's acting chairman, said: "The chances are pretty darn slim there will be any repayment."

Finding that both the Clinton and Dole campaigns broke laws and misused federal funds during their 1996 bids for the presidency, Federal Election Commission staffers recommended Tuesday that the Clinton campaign repay $7 million and that the Bob Dole campaign repay $17.7 million to public coffers. The announcement came as Congress sought to broaden its impeachment inquiry of the president to include allegations of campaign finance abuse and as Atty. Gen.

Endocare Inc., a tiny Irvine medical-device maker, has hired former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole to help spread the word about its minimally invasive procedure for treating prostate cancer. The 75-year-old former Senate majority leader and 1996 Republican presidential nominee has been an outspoken champion of early detection as the key to his successful treatment of the disease in 1991.

Endocare Inc., an Irvine medical-device maker, has lined up former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole to promote its minimally invasive procedure for treating prostate cancer. The company is seeking Medicare approval to cover the $18,000 procedure, which freezes and kills tumors. Dole, treated for prostate cancer in 1991, has been an outspoken champion of early detection. He agreed to join Endocare's board as an "honorary" member.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) will pay off a $300,000 rules violations penalty without tapping a loan offered by ex-Sen. Bob Dole, the House Ethics Committee said. Gingrich, who will continue to use personal funds, is due to make payments in November and January to pay off the remaining $200,000. Gingrich has used only personal funds so far. Dole's arrangement with Gingrich was a contingency.

Bob Dole, the Republican presidential candidate who lost to Bill Clinton in 1996, on Saturday urged GOP loyalists to show restraint as Congress investigates allegations of perjury endangering the Clinton presidency. Dole resisted attacking Clinton for alleged improprieties surrounding the president's affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, saying "everybody makes mistakes in life."

He didn't have to come, and neither did they. Preoccupied with his Beltway life, Bob Dole has more important things to do than take the old highways he once rode deep into small-town Kansas over four decades in Congress. And the people who once voted for him have their own lives to get on with, routines that could do without interruption from an idled former senator no longer beholden to them.