Kemp Has Inside Track in Dole VP Race, Sources Say

Bob Dole neared a decision on his running mate Thursday, and after meeting with Jack Kemp, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee seems close to settling on him for the job, sources said.

In an interview late Thursday night, Kemp, who had just arrived in Florida, said he had not yet been asked to take the job. “That only comes from Dole, and that has not happened,” he said.

Asked if he would accept the job if it were offered, Kemp said, “I don’t answer questions I haven’t been asked.” But he added that Dole has only a small number of finalists for the job and “I am one of them.”

“I’m not going to seek it or go after it,” Kemp said. But he notably did not deny interest in the job.

A source close to the former Housing secretary said, “I don’t know if Dole has officially offered it to Kemp, but Kemp knows that if he says yes, the offer almost surely will come. It is close.”

A second source said Kemp had been surprised by the overture from the Dole camp and was trying to prepare himself mentally for the rigors of a campaign and an intense public spotlight. The source added that Dole was expecting an answer from Kemp about his availability no later than this morning, a point confirmed by Kemp.

Complicating the picture is Dole’s history of keeping major decisions closely guarded and, after indicating he was leaning in one direction, surprising even his top-ranking advisors with his ultimate decision.

Dole is scheduled to announce his choice on Saturday in his hometown of Russell, Kan., and then, with his running mate, arrive in San Diego on Sunday on the eve of the start of the Republican National Convention.

Kemp, described by one Dole campaign source as “a late entry into the sweepstakes,” met with the nominee-to-be Wednesday night in Washington.

On Thursday, Kemp met with senior Dole advisors, sources said. In the afternoon, Dole staffers launched the vetting process for Kemp--poring over his record and personal life to ensure that nothing would prove embarrassing should he be picked.

“He is in play. . . . I think it is possible,” one top campaign official said Thursday.

But the sources continued to emphasize that no final decision has been made and that several other prospects remain in contention.

Those other candidates were said to include Sens. Connie Mack of Florida, John McCain of Arizona and Don Nickles of Oklahoma, as well as Gov. John Engler of Michigan and former Gov. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. of South Carolina. Like Kemp, they all have been asked by the Dole campaign for their schedules--so that the candidate can easily contact them in the hours ahead, according to a top Dole aide.

Kemp, a longtime congressman from the Buffalo, N.Y., area who served in the Bush administration Cabinet, would be something of a surprise for several reasons. Both he and Dole vied unsuccessfully for the GOP presidential nomination in 1988, and earlier this year, Kemp endorsed publisher Steve Forbes, not Dole, during the primaries.

At the time, Kemp’s endorsement struck many political observers as folly--it came in early March, just as Dole had clearly established himself as the prohibitive favorite in the GOP field and, as it turned out, just a few days before Forbes folded his presidential bid.

Kemp is a longtime advocate of supply-side economics and has ardently pushed for big tax cuts--which Dole had long derided.

Just this week, however, Dole embraced the Kemp approach when he unveiled an economic plan that calls for a 15% across-the-board cut in tax rates. In line with supply-side theory, the plan envisions that part of the subsequent reduction in tax revenue would be made up by growth in the private sector.

Kemp, a Los Angeles native, graduate of Occidental College and a former pro football quarterback, would offer several strengths to a Dole ticket, but also some potentially damaging problems.

Perhaps the greatest strength is that by contrast with the other candidates Dole has had under consideration, Kemp has a national reputation and a considerable following within the GOP. As a result, choosing him as the running mate would generate considerable excitement among Republicans--perhaps counteracting the gloom Dole’s poor poll numbers have caused.

But the potential problems also loom large. When Kemp decided last year not to make a run for the ’96 presidential nomination, friends said one reason was his feeling that he was now out of touch with the party on several issues dear to him.

For example, in 1994, Kemp openly opposed California’s Proposition 187, the anti-illegal-immigration measure on the state ballot. Kemp felt that the measure was unduly punitive, particularly its provisions to exclude the children of illegal immigrants from public schools.

Not only has Dole endorsed Proposition 187, but the party’s platform calls for making many of its provisions--including the schooling ban--national in scope. Indeed, the platform would go further--endorsing a constitutional amendment to deny citizenship to children born in the United States of parents who are here illegally.

Kemp has also advocated policies toward the poor that are far more moderate than those encompassed by the welfare reform legislation passed by the GOP Congress this month. And on the issue of affirmative action, he has expressed doubts about the drive by many Republicans to eliminate all government programs that involve race-based decisions.

Dole has been downplaying these issues in his own campaign, instead emphasizing the economic issues on which he has moved closer to Kemp’s views.

A second set of problems involves Kemp’s personality. Throughout his political career, political analysts repeatedly said Kemp’s most serious handicap was his own lack of discipline as a campaigner.

Aides found he would often digress from his intended message of the day to indulge in lengthy orations on pet subjects, such as the desirability of returning to some form of a gold standard for American currency or, more recently, the need for the GOP to reach out more aggressively to blacks and other minorities.

Given that Dole suffers from much the same problem--although in his case his digressions tend to be in the form of laconic asides rather than lengthy speeches--a ticket pairing the two could prove a nightmare for campaign aides trying to convey a consistent message to voters.

On the other hand, several former Kemp advisors now work for Dole, including Dole campaign manager Scott Reed and speech writer Kevin Stach. As a result, they would at least have some experience in handling him as a candidate.

Times staff writers Dave Lesher in Sacramento and Robert Shogan in San Diego contributed to this story.