Dole's Disability Not An Issue With Voters

By Gene Randall/CNN

WASHINGTON (May 27) -- Fifty-year-old Max Cleland lost an arm and both legs to a grenade in Vietnam. A Democrat and Georgia's former secretary of state, Cleland is running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Sam Nunn.

On his physical disability, Cleland says, "I don't want to be known as the best triple amputee in politics. I want to be known as the best U.S. senator."

Michela Alioto, 28, is the granddaughter of former San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto. She is a former domestic policy advisor to Vice President Al Gore. Paralyzed from the waist down, the price of a ski-lift accident when she was thirteen, Ms. Alioto is running for Congress, challenging a Republican incumbent in California's heavily Democratic 1st District.

Michela Alioto talks about barriers. "It's hard to break through to society and say I am qualified. I may have a disability, but that's only a small part of who I am. I can also provide, you know, A, B, C and D to the community."

Translation: Physical disability should not be politically disabling. Presumptive Republican presidential candidate Robert Dole, his body ravaged in World War II, says he is a better person for it (128K WAV sound).

"The point is that it was pretty bad and it took me about 39 months to recover, before I could feed myself, dress myself and a lot of the little things we think about..." Dole says.

How times have changed. Franklin D. Roosevelt worked to keep his true physical condition a secret -- convinced, he said, that voters wouldn't support a president hobbled by steel braces on his paralyzed legs, a result of polio.

President John F. Kennedy's chronic back problems and Addison's disease were lost in the image of a youthful president from Camelot.

At the National Organization on Disability, there is talk of 1996 as a watershed year.

"It really brings into sharp juxtaposition times past, when politicians preferred to hide their disabilities, with the present day, when it may even be perceived as a source of strength," said Alan Reich, the group's president.

Reich's organization has polling numbers that indicate Dole's disability is a non-issue with voters. Meanwhile, out in California's 1st Congressional District, Alioto campaigns as someone who understands that people must overcome obstacles.

"You know, the barriers, the physical barriers that we have, it makes life more difficult," Alioto said. "It certainly doesn't make it any less wonderful. It doesn't take the quality away. It just makes it harder (160K WAV sound)."

In Georgia, Cleland says his disability puts him in touch with people in difficulty, but there is a special bond with some.

At one appearance, a veteran told him: "I just want to say, I'm an amputee, that when I lost my right leg four years ago, I thought my life was ended, but after listening to someone like you talk, you've been an inspiration (192K WAV sound)."

One of Cleland's potential Republican opponents, Paul Broun Jr., said this recently about Cleland:

"He plays that wheelchair up to the Nth degree. He just shows people that wheelchair going and coming. It's certainly worth a lot of points."

Broun was ridiculed in an editorial cartoon, and he apologized the next day, conceding the obvious, that for Max Cleland, a wheelchair is a fact of life.

A footnote: There is an FDR Memorial under construction in Washington. Its plans call for three statues, but not one shows Roosevelt in braces or a wheelchair.

The National Organization on Disability says that is wrong and asks who would deny that FDR's courage, determination, compassion and spirit of optimism were forged by his struggle with disability.

This story originally appeared on CNN's "Inside Politics."

Federal Voting Act Gets Disabled To Polls -- Nov. 16, 1995
TIME: Truth in Memory -- May 20, 1996

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