”Say it isn`t so, Liddy Dole. Say it isn`t so.”
Like sports fans disappointed in the frailties of athletic heroes, many American career women were stunned when Elizabeth Dole, one of the highest-ranking women in Washington, the only woman in President Reagan`s Cabinet and a rumored vice presidential possibility herself, did what women have done for generations. She quit her job to help her husband`s career.
One-half of the duo widely regarded as ”Washington`s power couple,”
Dole announced Sept. 14 that she is resigning as Secretary of Transportation effective Oct. 1 to work full time in the presidential campaign of her husband, Republican Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas.
”Why can`t she have a career of her own?” demanded an irate working woman, a product of the liberated 1970s. ”Why does she give up her career for him?”
It is a question Dole, 51, seems to be facing these days as often as any she faced during her tenure at the Transportation Department, which has 100,000 employees and a $26-billion budget.
”Isn`t this what women have been working for?” Dole asked last week in a phone interview. ”To have a choice about what we do? I have been secretary at DOT for 4 1/2 years, the longest secretary in that post. This is my choice. How could anything be more important than being involved in choosing the leader of the free world? Is that insignificant?”
NO SURPRISES?
No one should be surprised by her recent decision, she said.
”I believe very strongly in my husband. This isn`t the first time I`ve done this. I participated in the 1979 campaign and was just six months from the FTC (she resigned as a member of the Federal Trade Commission in 1979 to campaign for her husband). We are four months to (primaries in) Hawaii and Michigan.
”This is not insignificant. It`s going to be an active and involved role. I`ll be standing in for him, doing some fundraising. . . . We`re partners in this and partners in life.” Indeed, some analysts contend the North Carolina native is her husband`s most effective political weapon. She is bright, charming, attractive and a charismatic speaker. She is all that a presidential candidate`s wife-or a candidate-should be, a fact not lost on her many admirers, including scores of women who saw her as a career-minded role model.
A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Duke University, where she was both May Queen and president of the student body at the Women`s College, Elizabeth Hanford earned both a law degree and a master`s degree in education and government from Harvard.
When she married Dole in 1975, she was a member of the FTC and had already worked as director of the President`s Committee on Consumer Interests and as deputy special assistant to the president for consumer affairs. Before joining Reagan`s cabinet, Liddy (a name she gave herself as a child) was assistant to the president for public liaison at the White House.
UNDER SCRUTINY
Her decision to leave the Reagan Cabinet comes only 16 months before the administration changes. Her departure comes amid growing complaints about aviation safety and airline service.
”I`m not setting aside my career,” she said of her resignation. ”You don`t have to be paid to have a career. You aren`t throwing away a career when you are involved. My goal is to make some sort of difference for people whether it is a paid job, First Lady or something else.”
And to dispel the notion that the present Dole campaign is really a two-possible-candidates-for-the-price-of-one run, Liddy Dole insists, ”No, I`m not a candidate for anything.”
If others see a clash of careers here, she said she does not. It was not something the couple discussed when they married.
”I didn`t think of that,” Dole said. The decision on who will help whom and how ”flows sort of naturally.”
”I wonder what kind of marriage it would be if you said, `Goodbye, and I`ll see you when it`s over,` ” Dole said. ”It`s part of a loving, caring relationship that you are interested and want to be part of a spouse`s campaign.”
Next time, Bob Dole, it`s your turn. –
