ANALYSTS SEE DOLE AS HANDS-ON PRESIDENT.

Byline: David Hess and Tom Webb Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

What kind of president would Bob Dole be?

Almost certainly, colleagues and scholars say, Dole would be a hands-on chief executive, loath to delegate much authority on important issues. He would be a hard-headed pragmatist who would be interested more in making things work than in scoring ideological points.

It's also clear that Dole would push an agenda of balancing the budget, reforming the welfare system and returning power to the states - causes he has championed in Congress and on the campaign trail.

Less clear is whether Dole could curb his acerbic humor, avoid micromanaging White House affairs, and make the transition from respected legislator to inspirational leader.

"The public part of the presidency would be the hardest part for him," said Burdett Loomis, political scientist at the University of Kansas. "Would he be . . . like Franklin Roosevelt, the happy warrior. Or like Richard Nixon?" Loomis asked. "Dole does have this tongue that can both serve him and betray him."

Most longtime Dole observers, in both parties, said that despite his prickly style and reputation for playing hardball politics, they would not be uncomfortable with Dole in the White House.

One senior Senate Democrat, who asked not to be identified, said: "Look, I'm not a big Bob Dole fan and, obviously, I wouldn't vote for him. But if he were president, I could go to sleep at night and feel safe about waking up in the morning."

A strong personality with a clear sense of who he is and what he wants, Dole would likely bring an assertive style to the White House. But some still wonder whether his abrasive humor and thin-skinned reaction to criticism would plunge him into hot water.

A senior Senate Republican staff member, who has known Dole for more than 20 years, dryly noted: "He will never be cuddly."

But many others say Dole has mellowed over the years, and even some Democrats who have known him a long time say, as did Rep. Sam Gibbons, D-Fla., that Dole is "not nearly as mean as he was when he first came to Congress" in 1961.

Described as a "legislative wizard" by his colleague, Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, R-N.Y., Dole is widely considered a master negotiator and deal-maker.

"I've seen him engaged on three or four issues, simultaneously, moving from one group to another, beating heads together and insisting that agreements be reached, prodding, cajoling, pushing, needling, wheeling and dealing until something got done," said Tom Korologos, a top Washington lobbyist and former White House aide who is close to Dole. "If there's even the slightest glint of hope for a deal, he never gives up."

"Essentially," said Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, "Bob Dole would be a facilitator, a moderator, a coalition-builder. My guess is, he would be a very effective manager of an agenda largely set by Congress, if Republicans remain in control. And he'd be a skilled negotiator if the Democrats regained control of the House or held onto enough votes to sustain filibusters in the Senate."

Like Lyndon Baines Johnson, said Kansas University's Loomis, Dole would be "a big in-box president. . . . Once a policy gets on the agenda, he wants to be able to sign it, he wants to make the deal."

In that sense, though Dole would certainly push a right-of-center domestic agenda, he would probably be a disappointment to the social conservatives that now make up about 35 or 40 percent of the Republican electorate.

"He'd be a semizealot on welfare reform," said Larry Gerston, a political scientist at San Jose State University. "He is a strong believer in the idea that states be given much more latitude to experiment and innovate on welfare programs and education. But I don't think he'd be an adamant advocate of cutting Medicare and Medicaid and assistance for the old and disabled."

Gibbons, who has known Dole for more than 30 years, said he believes, on domestic issues, that Dole would be "a little more progressive than most people think, and despite what he's been saying in the primaries to assuage the right wing of his party . . . He's not a rock-ribbed reactionary."

On such issues as abortion and prayer in public schools, Dole has zigged and zagged for fear of offending one or another faction in the Republican Party.

In 1993, for instance, Dole voted for and praised a bill making it a federal crime to blockade an abortion clinic. A few months later, he opposed the very same bill and condemned it.

On abortion, Gerston said, "Dole has been all over the place, very inconsistent and self-contradictory. Just as affirmative action is cutting the Democrats apart, abortion is splitting the Republicans. And Dole has not found a way to keep that from happening. On school prayer, if he brings that out to the front-burner as a way to appease the social conservatives, he risks offending mainstream Republicans who occupy a place nearer the center (of American politics)."

Washington super lawyer and veteran Democrat Robert Strauss said the first major test of Dole's legendary ability to strike deals on difficult issues will come at the Republican National Convention in August.

"He's got a huge problem ahead of him just in putting his party together before the convention," said Strauss, a longtime Dole friend and admirer. "He's living with (Pat) Buchanan in his guest bedroom, and it's not a happy situation. How the senator handles this (party split) could tell us something about how he might function as a chief executive, since he has no executive experience to date that would guide us. So he's going to get a chance to demonstrate his consensus-building skills quite soon."

In foreign affairs, practically everyone agrees that Dole would not veer sharply from the post-World War II policies of a long train of Democratic and Republican presidents.

"He really seems to perk up when foreign policy is mentioned," said conservative Republican intellectual William Kristol. "He cares strongly about America's role in the world and, I think, would take a direct hand in running foreign policy. For one thing, he knows that a president's real power is in his role as commander in chief, and I'd expect him to exercise that role personally and vigorously."

During the years, people who have dealt with Dole's Senate staff have quietly grumbled that he is so demanding and prone to micromanagement that his aides - with a few exceptions - sometimes seem intimidated and afraid to exercise their own judgment. One former staffer quipped that his tenure with Dole was like "two years in the bathtub with 'Jaws.' "

If Dole tried to run the White House, or the vast federal bureaucracy for that matter, in that manner, it could be disastrous.

"I think he is smart enough to bring in capable people and give them the authority they need to do their jobs," said Craig Rimmerman, a political scientist at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, in Geneva, N.Y.

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PHOTO

Photo Bob Dole, and his wife, Elizabeth, prepare to address supporters at a rally in Tampa, Fla., on Friday. Associated Press