It is not surprising that Bob Dole is one of the few former GOP candidates who will be attending the GOP National Convention next week. Both he and Mike Pence have been proudly selling tobacco to our youth since 1961.
On June 18, 1996, during his reelection campaign, Bob Dole had this to say about tobacco:
Dole was already on the defensive about tobacco after making a comment comparing cigarettes to milk. Dole said, "We know it (cigarette smoking) is not good for kids, but a lot of other things aren't good. Drinking is not good. Some would say milk is not good."
And on June 29th, 1996, Mr. Dole had this to say:
The Dole campaign released a letter to Dr. C. Everett Koop, the former surgeon general, in which the likely Republican Presidential nominee said that "my personal observations are that for some people it is addictive, and for others it may not be." Dr. Koop said last week that he was baffled by Mr. Dole's reluctance to say tobacco is addictive in light of the emergence of internal documents from the tobacco industry that, he said, show that "even tobacco executives know" that tobacco is addictive.
In the letter, Mr. Dole said he thought each state should enact its own laws on the sale of tobacco to minors, adding: "As President, I will take a very active role in urging young people, as well as pregnant women and others at risk, to just say no to smoking cigarettes."
He reinforced this Thursday in an interview with ABC News, in which Peter Jennings noted that internal industry documents showed that in 1989, a lobbyist for Philip Morris called Mr. Dole, then minority leader of the Senate, "a valuable friend and a good supporter of tobacco."
Now, it seems that Bob Dole has finally found someone to carry on the fight to sell tobacco to our youth in Mike Pence. In 2000, Mike Pence, while running for Congress, had this to say:
In a debate that September, his Democratic opponent pressed him on the suggestion that smoking does not cause cancer and noted his contributions from tobacco companies. According to the Indianapolis Star’s coverage of the exchange, “Pence clarified that he wrote that there was no causal link medically identifying smoking as causing lung cancer.” While cigarette manufacturers might have been still claiming that there was not causal link between smoking and lung cancer, medical science had settled the question years earlier. A landmark report by the U.S. Surgeon General had documented the link — in 1964.
After the debate, the paper reported, Pence acknowledged he had received an estimated $5,000 and $10,000 in contributions from tobacco companies. His actual total was already at least $13,000 in contributions from the political action committees for Brown & Williamson, Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, and US Tobacco, according to Political MoneyLine data reviewed by ThinkProgress. A May 2000 letter from the Reynolds PAC to Pence, now available in the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents archive archives, conveyed a $1,000 check and praised his “position on issues important to our company.”
Furthermore, he voted against the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009, being one of only 97 Congressmen to do so:
In 2009, Pence was one of just 97 people in the U.S. House of Representatives to vote against the bipartisan Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which gave the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate cigarettes and blasted a 2009 bill to expand healthcare for kids as “a tax increase on smokers to pay for a new middle-class entitlement.”
And then, there was this piece by Mr. Pence plugging Big Tobacco. Protesting against the Tobacco Settlement, he wrote:
Time for a quick reality check. Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn't kill. In fact, 2 out of every three smokers does not die from a smoking related illness and 9 out of ten smokers do not contract lung cancer. This is not to say that smoking is good for you.... news flash: smoking is not good for you. If you are reading this article through the blue haze of cigarette smoke you should quit. The relevant question is, what is more harmful to the nation, second hand smoke or back handed big government disguised in do-gooder healthcare rhetoric.
The tobacco settlement is not only about big taxes it's about big government. Under the current Senate version, the deal would require the creation of 17 new government bureaucracies to manage the tax windfall described above. But it is also about big government on a much more profound scale, namely, government big enough to protect us from ourselves.
It seems that Bob Dole has found a worthy successor to carry on the fight to sell tobacco to our youth.