OFFICIALS SAY DOLE STILL HAS HOPE IN STATE

Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole hasn't quit on Missouri and Illinois, campaign officials said Thursday.

Dole sounded the tax-cut theme in a new 30-second television commercial that is airing in 15 states.

"You shouldn't have to apologize for wanting to keep what you earn. It's your money," the TV ad states.

The TV ad wasn't scheduled to air in Missouri and Illinois. An unnamed GOP source suggested in a published report that Dole might be writing off both states.

Polls show Dole trailing Clinton in both states.

But officials in the Dole-Kemp campaign in Missouri and Illinois said both states remain in play this election year.

Dole and running mate Jack Kemp held a Labor Day rally Monday at the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. The rally attracted some 25,000 people.

John "Woody" Cozad, Missouri Republican Party chairman, said Dole and Kemp wouldn't have come to St. Louis if they were ready to concede the state to Clinton.

Clinton campaigned in Cape Girardeau and Southern Illinois last Friday.

"If he thought he had Missouri and Illinois in the bag, he wouldn't waste his effort there," said Cozad.

He dismissed the published report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as wishful thinking by Democrats.

"The Democrats would like you to believe that this election is over in Missouri and Illinois," he said.

Dole has run TV ads in Missouri. But none has run in Southeast Missouri, said Howard Meagle, general manager of KFVS-TV, Channel 12, in Cape Girardeau.

Clinton has run campaign commercials on Channel 12 for about eight months, he said.

Dole seems to be following in the footsteps of George Bush, Meagle said.

"He stumped in Illinois and Missouri, but he didn't campaign in the media," Meagle said.

By contrast, the Clinton campaign has run political commercials on KFVS-TV for the past eight months, Meagle said.

Officials with the Dole campaign offices in St. Louis and Chicago said their candidate will be running more TV ads in Missouri and Illinois this fall.

"They told me, `You are a target state. Go get them,'" said Ray Gruender, executive director of the Dole campaign in Missouri.