Bob Dole

He told us this extraordinary story that when he became...

the minority leader in the Senate, he got in touch with his opposite number, Bob Dole, and said, look, you're older than I am, you're more experienced than I am, but I really think it'd be good for the institution of the country if we had a good relationship.

And he said that thereafter, they had lunch together every week They had a deal that they would never attack each other personally.

They had a deal that they would share confidences where they felt that was appropriate.

by finding those places where everybody is frustrated at a system that doesn't work for them anymore.

He talked about looking up to Bob Dole.

Bob Dole, of course, being a legend of Kansas politics.

He was a senator from there for eons.

He almost went back to the sort of post-war era.

And it's kind of a uniquely dovish region of the country.

Now, this is not Bob Dole's Kansas anymore because It's actually a pretty white-collar state.

It's not just the growth of the KC suburbs.

Wichita has a thriving aerospace and R&D sector.

And I know he's taken a bit of a hit on the reputation because of the Jeffrey Epstein stuff.

He told us this extraordinary story that when he became the minority leader in the Senate, he got in touch with his opposite number, Bob Dole, and said, look, you're older than I am, you're more experienced than I am, but I really think it'd be good for the institution of the country if we had a good relationship.

And he said that thereafter, they had lunch together every week, They had a deal that they would never attack each other personally.

They had a deal that they would share confidences where they felt that was appropriate.

You don't know where the man stands.

He's like Bob Dole.

He's able to talk for an hour and never say a word.

You have no idea where the guy stands.

Tomorrow, we are going to bring you our interview with UMass President Marty Mee, and we mentioned the Mee Center over at UMass Lowell.

marty me and sat in studio with us and yeah we will update you on what's happening uh with the university a couple of things we talked about it last night the future of the indian conference center uh marty we recorded this podcast last thursday so things that the council has talked about last night marty mian was talking about here last thursday you'll get to hear that discussion tomorrow more importantly though i feel anyway my my take is you're gonna like the second half of that conversation because we actually talked about washington dc with a guy who lived there and worked there for, oh God, I think he was there for 14 plus years as a United States Congressman at a time when Marty Meehan could walk into Ted Kennedy's house and hang around with Bob Dole and Lindsey Graham and Orrin Hatch and other big Democratic leaders.

And they could all talk, they could all enjoy each other, they could all say nice things about each other privately, publicly, and they could actually get stuff done for the people of the United States of America.

Marty Meehan doesn't know if those days are ever coming back.

I was doing

a hand gesture at Bob Dole.

Well, Clinton did do a thumb thing, too.

Yeah.

I mean, why, though? Why? I mean, what makes anybody in this country think that it's okay for the United States government or any other government to go after an individual and truly, at the point of a gun, which is what taxation is, you may not see the gun, but the gun could be there if it needs to be, take a percentage of your wealth, especially if they're singling you out because of your success.

Do you think that's fair? Pay your fair share? What's your fair share? The only time I've seen anybody talk about a fair share was when Bob Dole was running for president in 1996, and he talked about a flat federal tax.

What was that, 15%? I don't think it was 25%.

I think it was a 15% flat tax.