Random call nets absentee ballot for USS Cole commander

Tom Gardner

Monday, Nov. 6, 2000 | 4:45 a.m.

A campaign volunteer making phone calls to whip up support for U.S. Senate hopeful John Ensign stumbled onto a woman who asked for a favor instead.

Her son was in Norfolk, Va., and couldn't find his absentee ballot to vote in Tuesday's election back home in Nevada.

It seems he misplaced it on the USS Cole. Her son, Capt. Kirk Lippold, is the crippled ship's commander.

"I thought it was very considerate of them," Lippold's mother, Bee Staheli of Carson City said Monday. "The Ensign people went out of their ways to get him a ballot so he could vote."

The phone bank worker who fielded Staheli's request Friday passed it on to Scott Bensing, Ensign's deputy campaign manager in Reno.

The Navy provided a fax number so an absentee ballot could be sent to Lippold, a 1977 Carson High graduate. The Carson City Clerk then sent two to make sure the skipper received a legible copy.

Bensing said the captain telephoned to say he originally received an absentee ballot, but had to leave it on the Cole before he could return it.

Seventeen U.S. sailors died in an Oct. 12 terrorist bombing attack that left the ship crippled. Thirty-nine other sailors were injured in the attack.

Bensing said Lippold was returning his ballot by next-day express service to assure that it arrived in the city clerk's office before Tuesday's 7 p.m. deadline.

So did the Ensign camp pick up a GOP vote or did the captain cast a ballot for the Democratic candidate Ed Bernstein?

"I did not ask, but he sounded very favorable," Bensing said. "We're just happy we can help him out and he gets to vote. I know that's a big deal to military folks.

Staheli couldn't offer any clues about her son's political preferences.

"I don't ask him how he votes."