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Elizabeth Dole

Mary Elizabeth Hanford "Liddy" Dole (born July 29, 1936) is an American politician who served in both the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush presidential administrations, and currently serves as a United States senator from North Carolina. She was elected to the Senate in 2002 and is the first female senator for North Carolina. She is running for re-election in the United States Senate election in North Carolina, 2008.

She is a member of the Republican Party and former chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. She is married to former U.S. Senate Majority Leader and 1996 Republican presidential nominee Sen. Bob Dole.

Early life and career

Dole was born Mary Elizabeth Hanford in Salisbury, North Carolina, to Mary Ella Cathey (1901-2004) and John Van Hanford (1893-1978). She still speaks with a noticeable Southern accent.

She attended Duke University, graduating in 1958, and followed that with post-graduate work at Oxford University in 1959. She earned a master's degree in education from Harvard University in 1960 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1965. She is an alumna of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society and was recognized for being their leading orchid grower several times.

Dole first met her future husband, Senator Bob Dole in the spring of 1972 at a meeting arranged by her boss and mentor, Virginia Knauer. The couple dated, and she became his second wife on December 6, 1975. They have no children, though she is stepmother to Bob's adult daughter Robin from his first marriage of 24 years that ended in divorce in 1972.

White House years

Johnson Administration

Dole, who had campaigned for the Kennedy-Johnson presidential ticket in 1960, worked in the White House in the latter years of the administration of Lyndon Johnson.

Nixon and Ford Administrations

When many Democrats left the White House following Richard Nixon's replacement of Johnson, Dole did not. From 1969 to 1973, Elizabeth Dole served as Deputy Assistant to President Nixon for Consumer Affairs. In 1973, Nixon appointed her to a seven-year term on the Federal Trade Commission. In 1975, she became a Republican. She took a leave from her post as a Federal Trade Commissioner for several months in 1976 to campaign for her husband for Vice President of the United States. She later resigned from the FTC in 1979 to campaign for her husband's 1980 presidential run.

Reagan Administration and Secretary of Transportation

She served as United States Secretary of Transportation from 1983 to 1987 under Ronald Reagan, the first woman appointed to that position. In this role, she was the first woman to have served as the head of a branch of the United States Military, the United States Coast Guard being under the Department of Transportation at the time.

During her tenure the implementation of the "third eye" brake light on passenger cars was made mandatory. She worked with MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) to pass laws withholding federal highway funding from any state that had a drinking age below twenty-one. The state government of South Dakota opposed the drinking age law and sued Dole in the case South Dakota v. Dole, but the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Dole. She oversaw the privatization of the national freight railroad, CONRAIL. She initiated random drug testing within the Department of Transportation.

Bush Administration and Secretary of Labor

Dole served as United States Secretary of Labor from 1989 to 1990 under George H. W. Bush; she is the first woman to serve in two different Cabinet positions in the administrations of two Presidents.

Red Cross presidency

In 1991 Dole became the president of the American Red Cross. She served until 1999 when she resigned, leaving little doubt she intended to pursue the Presidency of the United States.

1996 Republican National Convention

Dole's husband Bob Dole was the Republican nominee in the US presidential election of 1996. Elizabeth Dole, who would have become First Lady had her husband won the election, received recognition for her speech at the 1996 Republican National Convention, during which she walked out into the audience while talking conversationally about her husband's qualities.

2000 United States Presidential candidacy

Elizabeth Dole ran for the Republican nomination in the US presidential election of 2000, but pulled out of the race in October 1999 before any of the primaries, largely due to inadequate fundraising. Dole placed third – behind George W. Bush and Steve Forbes – in a large field in the Iowa Straw Poll (the first, non-binding, test of electability for the Republican Party nomination). The Iowa Straw Poll differed from the national polls where Mrs. Dole was second only to Bush and Senator John McCain was in third.

In July 2000, shortly before the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Bush campaign sources said Mrs. Dole was on the short list to be named the vice-presidential nominee, along with Michigan Governor John Engler, New York Governor George Pataki, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, author and political figure Lynne Cheney, and former Missouri Senator John Danforth . Many pundits believed that Dole was the frontrunner for the Vice Presidential nomination. Bush then surprised most pundits by selecting former U.S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, who was actually in charge of leading Bush's search for a vice presidential nominee.

U.S. Senate career

In late December 2001, Dole shifted her official residency from the Doles' Watergate condominium to her mother's home in Salisbury to seek election to the U.S. Senate. The seat was made available by the retirement of Jesse Helms (R). Despite having not lived regularly in the state since 1959, she quickly gained the support of the state and national Republican establishment. She handily won the Republican primary with 80 percent of the vote over nominal opposition. In the November general election, she defeated her Democratic opponent Erskine Bowles, a former chief of staff to former President Bill Clinton, by a surprisingly large eight-point margin.

Her election to the Senate marked the first time a spouse of a former Senator was elected to the Senate from a different state from that of her spouse. (Although Kansas Senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum married former Tennessee Senator Howard Baker, the marriage occurred after Kassebaum and Baker both had finished their service in the Senate).

In November 2004, following Republican gains in the United States Senate, Dole narrowly edged out Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota for the post of chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. She is first woman to become chair of the NRSC. During her election cycle as chairperson, her Democratic Party counterpart, Senator Chuck Schumer raised significantly more money, and also had more success in recruiting candidates. In the November election, Dole's party lost six U.S. Senate seats to the Democrats, thus losing control of the U.S. Senate. Dole was replaced as NRSC chair by Senator John Ensign of Nevada following the 2006 midterms.

Dole is running for reelection in 2008. Democratic congressman Brad Miller had expressed an interest in challenging her, but had decided against it. On May 6, 2008, State Senator Kay Hagan won the Democratic primary election and became Dole's general election opponent. Recent reports suggest that Dole, once considered a "safe" seat for the Republicans, is fighting for her political life as Democrats surge in the polls and Republicans continue their decline in light of the Wall Street bailout, which Dole voted against.

In September 2008, Dole joined the Gang of 20, a bipartisan group working towards comprehensive energy reform. The group is pushing for a bill that would encourage state-by-state decisions on offshore drilling and authorize billions of dollars for conservation and alternative energy.

Committee assignments

Dole is a member of the following U.S. Senate committees:

U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services

Emerging Threats and Capabilities (Ranking Member)
Personnel
Readiness and Management Support

U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

Financial Institutions
Housing, Transportation, and Community Development
Security and International Trade and Finance

U.S. Senate Select Committee on Aging
U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship

Books

Elizabeth Dole has authored three books:

Dole, Bob & Elizabeth with Richard Norton Smith (1988). The Doles: Unlimited Partners. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-60202-0. The book was first released during Bob Dole's presidential candidacy.

(re-release) Unlimited Partners: Our American Story. Simon & Schuster, 1996. ISBN 0-684-83401-4

Dole, Elizabeth (2004) Hearts Touched by Fire: My 500 Most Inspirational Quotations. Carroll & Graf. ISBN 0-7867-1428-X
Lucas, Eileen (1998) Elizabeth Dole: A Leader In Washington. The Millbrook Press. ISBN 0-7613-0203-4