Dole: 'It would be futile to continue'

With a near-wistful nod to the historic implications, President Clinton called Dole's departure from the race "a loss to the Republican Party and a loss to the country that she couldn't go forward" because of finances.

The fifth GOP candidate to drop out months before the first primaries, Dole left a field of seven, dominated by Bush.

AP PHOTO Elizabeth Dole, accompanied by husband Bob Dole, announces in Washington

Allies buzzed about Dole's prospects for second place on any GOP ticket hoping to draw women voters. While Dole said emphatically she has not considered the vice presidency, she added, "I'm a long way from the twilight."

Dole's campaign attracted new voters to the Republican Party. She finished strong in Iowa's non-binding straw poll in August and displayed a practiced polish on the campaign trail.

She was unable to translate that into better poll rankings or fund raising. Though second place in many national polls - she hovered around 10 percent - she trailed Arizona Sen. John McCain in New Hampshire and lagged well behind Bush everywhere.

After weeks of rumors that she would quit, Dole turned the talk to truth in a speech tinged with bitterness for the fortunes held by Bush and publisher Steve Forbes.

Her schedule had her racing through 108 fund raisers this year, but still she came up with just $5 million to Bush's $56 million. ''It's money, money, money,'' she complained to her finance committee as she told them of her decision in a morning conference call.

She made up her mind alone on Sunday night, she said, during the five-hour flight home from a Seattle campaign stop.

Insistent on meticulous preparation, Dole frustrated some supporters by putting off big policy addresses and neglecting to take advantage of her Iowa straw-poll finish.

Rather than stick it out and hope for a revival in upcoming GOP debates, Dole wanted to get out now, aides said, before spending herself into debt just to meet ballot-access deadlines in key states.

Beginning "quietly but effectively" in 1996, Bush locked up GOP endorsements and big money raisers before Dole had even resigned her presidency of the nonpartisan American Red Cross, she said.

Republican strategist Mary Matalin, a Bush ally, scoffed, "What's the implication? That she didn't have a network? That's ridiculous, the wife of a former senator."

Dole's televised concession in a cramped hotel meeting room echoed exactly the promise her husband made to supporters when he lost the 1996 presidential election: "We will meet again, and often."

Bob Dole stood behind his wife yesterday, his whole face trembling as he fought tears.

Mary O'Connor, who ran Dole's fund raising in Georgia, said the country wasn't ready for a woman president. "I found, 'Oh, I'd love her as No. 2,' from both men and women," O'Connor said.

Dole said she would "take some time" before endorsing another Republican. One aide said Dole is likely to support Bush but had figured on holding off that endorsement as long as McCain was in the race - reciprocation for the way McCain hung in with Bob Dole in 1996.

That calculus no longer holds, the aide said on condition of anonymity, now that Elizabeth Dole blames McCain's campaign for peddling the "Dole's getting out" rumors that further hurt her fund raising.

Campaigning in New Hampshire, McCain saluted Dole's "dignity and grace" and said, "Someday a woman will be president of the United States and Elizabeth Dole will have led the way."

Bush called her a friend who shared with him the same ideas on education and defense.

After Dole's press conference, her pollster Linda DiVall predicted Dole would "go to the top of the list" of vice presidential candidates because the GOP, which loses huge numbers of women voters to Democrats, needs a woman to counter the "dour, sort of scolding demeanor" of the Republican Congress.

Bush's advisers said the Texas governor would consider Dole but is more likely to favor a running mate who's already been elected to public office. Dole would be an obvious choice for a post in Bush's Cabinet, these advisers said.

The former Cabinet secretary said nothing of her future, except that she wanted to help get other women involved in politics. On the campaign trail, Dole said, she saw women in her audiences "sit up a little straighter," empowered by her candidacy.

Even Democrats who despise Dole's take on policy, seemed to mourn her campaign's demise.

Dole "helped get it into the public mind that a woman could do this and be taken seriously," said Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women.

Geraldine Ferraro, who ran as the No. 2 on Walter Mondale's 1984 Democratic ticket, said: "I would have loved it if (Dole) had gotten to the point where she would have been in debate with these guys because you would have really seen her able to address the issues calmly and well."

At Dole's New Hampshire headquarters, a hand-lettered poster board went up Wednesday, reading, "We made history."

yesterday that she is dropping out of the Republican presidential race.

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