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In this episode we fast forward some 20 years to 1996, when Gerald Ford's running mate would be a weekend away from the election day when he would carry the banner for the Republican Party. Bob Dole was giving it his all in a race against a fairly popular, but considerably flawed, incumbent President, in Bill Clinton.  The polls had Dole down by a considerable 20 points and it seemed after giving his lifetime to the Republican  Party its elected leadership  was starting to keep its distance from its struggling nominee. 

But on this final weekend, Bob Dole decided to give it everything he could come up with and started out on a 96 hour nonstop campaign until the final vote would be cast to try and shake the race up. The polls were indeed tightening. Dole had some further issues with an independent candidate named Ross Perot, who was making his second try at the White House and again hurting the numbers of the Republican candidate. 

It was with this backdrop that the men that Bob Dole had fought for his entire career showed back up to help him in the twilight hours of the 1996 campaign. It was the final political battle of the World War 2 Generation that had created the American Century and it all began at a rally in Dayton , Ohio featuring Bob Dole and two Presidents we either have or will put the spotlight on in our podcasts, Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush. Here is a fun episode commemorating that event, those final days of the 1996 campaign, and the memory of this collective group of leaders that created the American Century we have enjoyed. 

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