In Bob Dole’s Hometown, Kansans Grieve for the Man and His Political Style
The New York Times
Residents of Russell, the town in Kansas where Mr. Dole grew up, spoke longingly of a bygone era of bipartisanship.
RUSSELL, Kan. — A quarter-century has passed since Bob Dole left the Senate and lost his bid for the presidency. But in his hometown on the Kansas Plains, a place Mr. Dole gave near-mythic status in his political origin story, he is still everywhere: On the side of the grain elevator. On a downtown mural. On street signs and plaques and, at the local historical society, in black-and-white photos where he is hunting jack rabbits and wearing a Russell High Broncos basketball jersey.
As Russell’s 4,400 residents mourned Mr. Dole, who died on Sunday at age 98, many also grieved for their hometown senator’s approach to governance, one in which compromises were celebrated and opponents were not enemies. They said a little more Bob, as people in Russell called him, might just help detoxify the national discourse.
“The fighting we’ve got going on now, I know he was so against that,” said Lance Waymaster, who farms outside Russell and who got to know Mr. Dole through the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post, which is situated just off Bob Dole Drive.
