Historic Quote: “He couldn’t sell beer on a troop ship.” Ohio Senator William Saxbe, a Republican who served with Bob Dole in the Senate, on his antagonistic demeanor. It was Saxbe who gave dole the name “Hatchet Man.”
Oh, to be a fly on the wall during Sebelius-Gilligan family gatherings. In an earlier piece, I detailed how Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s father is former Ohio Governor John Gilligan, a Democrat. But there’s a political lineage that is deeper, and in her adoptive state. Keith Sebelius, a five term Republican Congressman who was on the losing end to Bob Dole in the future Presidential candidate’s first winning Congressional race, was her father-in-law.
It was a fascinating story.
Sebelius had the kind of background that may have been dreams for many in this prairie country district. A George Washington University Law graduate, Sebelius would serve in the Army in both World War II and Korea, then go on to become a Norton Township Mayor and County Attorney.
Sebelius’s loss to Dole came amid a whispering campaign by Dole supporters that Sebelius had a drinking problem. The race came in Kansas’s 6th Congressional district, when Republican Wint “The General” Smith began pondering retirement, but only if the right person could be found to succeed him. Sebelius clearly was not that person. He had challenged Smith, at the time a six-term incumbent, in the 1958 Republican primary, and came within 51 votes of ousting him. And in a splendid Democratic year, that was enough to weaken Smith in November. “The General” would barely be able to hold his own troops, and again took a squeaker, 233 votes. So Smith determined that Dole was the person to succeed him, which meant the mobilization of the still vibrant Alf Landon mackine. Dole would be “Smith’s Golden Boy.”
But 1958 was an anomaly and Sebelius wasn’t about to let a one in a generation fairly safe Republican seat go by without a fight. He jumped into the primary and portrayed Dole as “the candidate of the special interests.” Therefore, the primary featured two wunderkinds: Dole, a 37 year old Russell County District Attorney and ex-State Senator, and Sebelius, a county attorney from the other side of the district.
But there was a third candidate whom Dole supporters saw as a dirty trick. Phillip Doyle had almost no following, but his name was close enough to Dole’s that many thought was designed to siphon off votes from Dole. His first wife said as much. “In those rural areas, people often pronounced ‘Dole” and “Doyle’ the same way, so they were confused as to which one Bob was. In addition, Doyle’s first name was Phillip, which was similar to mine, and he had the middle initial “J,” which was also Bob’s middle initial.
But Sebelius found himself on the wrong end of political games as well. He would often bring groceries to the needy at his church, and one of the boxes that he was using bore the name of an alcoholic beverage. That led to rumors that not only was Sebelius bringing liquor into church, but that he himself was an alcoholic. The Women’s Christian Temperance Movement got in on the act. But the Dole name was fortuitous for further capitalizing on this. He organized “Dolls for Dole” and served the pineapple juice bearing the Dole name at his rallies (with the permission of the company).
Dole won by 978 votes (16,033 to 15,051). Doyle managed a surprisingly large 4,000 votes and 12%, evidence that the name confusion worked to some extent. Sebelius would win a seat in the Kansas State Senate but get another chance at the Congressional seat. It would come in 1968, when Dole moved on to the Senate. Sebelius could again have less than unanimous support among Republicans, but win the primary 48-39%. But in this case, the general would prove the struggle.
Redistricting had merged the 6th district with the 1st (which meant that in ’62 Dole had to fend off a Democratic incumbent), and the sprawling district has rarely given a Democrat as much as 40% since that time. But one exception involved Sebelius. His primary win seemed to make him a shoe-in for the seat. Yet his general election margin was a bare 5,000 votes, 51-49% out of 169,000 cast. Some ticket splitting was evident, as Nixon won 57%. He and Dole had both made it to Washington and by all accounts, both worked well together.
In office, Sebelius looked after his farmers, and announced on the floor that he would be ovveriding Nixon’s veto of an Agriculture bill with great “reluctance.” On the Agriculture Committee, he was one of just three Republicans to back compensating farmers in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas who sold their early wheat at low prices when Soviet prices were soaring. And he sponsored a bill that called for the inspection of rabbit meat, only to see President Carter veto it.
For the dozen years Sebelius held the Salinas-Dodge City based 1st, he rarely encountered electoral difficulties. In 1980, he announced his retirement and died less than two years later at 66. Dole spoke of him warmly.
When Dole was running for President, Sebelius’ widow would say she and her husband forgave Dole but “I think (he) just has something burning inside of him that makes him want to win no matter what.” Still, the bitterness was enough that she reportedly refused to invite him back to their home after his funeral.