By Ted Barrett and Veronica Stracqualursi | CNN
Former Senate majority leader and 1996 Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole will lie in state in the US Capitol Rotunda on Thursday, congressional leaders said in an announcement.
“Senator Dole was an extraordinary patriot, who devoted his entire life to serving our nation with dignity and integrity,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a joint statement with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Dole died Sunday at age 98. He had announced in February that he was being treated for advanced lung cancer.
In their statement, Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said he always admired the Kansas Republican’s “steadfast advocacy for veterans and for Americans with disabilities and his love for his country.”
“Senator Dole exemplified the greatest generation, and while I never had the pleasure of serving in the Senate with him, his reputation and his achievements, and most of all his character preceded him.”
The joint announcement also included remarks from Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell who said, “We look forward to honoring his life and legacy at the Capitol.”
“A bright light of patriotic good cheer burned all the way from Bob’s teenage combat heroics through his whole career in Washington and through the years since,” McConnell said.
Arriving in Washington at the dawn of the Kennedy administration, Dole would serve for 27 years as a US senator from Kansas, including two stints as the Senate majority leader, though he might be best known for his unsuccessful run as the Republican presidential nominee against Bill Clinton in 1996, his third attempt at the White House. He also served as President Gerald Ford’s running mate in 1976 after Nelson Rockefeller declined to stay on as vice president.