Dole is a bona fide war hero and would have been a much better president than Clinton, but didn't come out swinging till the very end. BTW it's never mentioned that it was Ross Perot's relentless scandal attacks on Clinton that brought the soiler to under 50% of the reelection vote. Oddly, no one recalls that during the election Perot predicted Clinton would be impeached and cause a constitutional crisis.
He never wanted to be President, he just wanted to be the spoiler.