Poll Stable After Kemp Chosen

Voters approve of Bob Dole’s choice of Jack Kemp as his GOP running mate, but the selection failed to give the former Kansas senator an initial boost in a new poll. The ABC poll, conducted Friday and Saturday nights, showed Dole 19 percentage points behind President Clinton in a two-way race, about the margin in other polls taken before it became clear Kemp was his choice. In a three-way race with Texas billionaire Ross Perot running as the Reform Party candidate, Dole trails still Clinton by 19 percentage points, the poll found, with Perot pulling 12% of the vote. Among the 1,007 registered voters questioned, 56% said they approved of Kemp’s addition to the GOP ticket. Only 15% said they disapproved, while 29%--two-thirds of them Clinton supporters--offered no opinion, ABC said. The poll has a margin of error of 3 percent points.

Clinton Expected Mack to Get Nod

Despite his well-known political savvy, President Clinton bet on the wrong man to win the GOP vice presidential nod. In an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, Clinton confessed that he expected Bob Dole to select Sen. Connie Mack of Florida as his running mate.