BARRING a political miracle, this time next week Bob Dole will be history.

Defeat will almost certainly mean political oblivion; firstly because of his age and secondly because political oblivion is what happens to most failed candidates and rejected presidents.

Mr Dole has lived in Washington for the past 40 years and will probably retire there. Expresidents traditionally get out of town - George Bush went to Texas, Ronald Reagan to California, Jimmy Carter to Georgia - but defeated nominees are under no such obligation.

As for work, the former senator and master deal maker won't be short of offers. Many of his friends in big business will want to repay years of favours by dishing out a few lucrative honorary directorships and chairmanships.

Mr Carter has carved out an honourable career championing self help community house building projects and doing humanitarian work for institutions such as the UN. The man he beat in 1976, former president Gerald Ford, has done little but play golf since leaving office.

Walter Mondale, Mr Carter's vice president, did better than many. After leaving office, he had a successful diplomatic career, culminating in a stint in Tokyo, George McGovern, another Democratic presidential failure, returned to academe as an historian. He also wrote an anguished book about the death of his daughter.

Gary Hart, famously ruined when photographed cavorting with a lady not his wife (on a yacht called Monkey Business) is heard of today only as an occasional media pundit.

Ex senator Michael Dukakis, demolished by Mr Bush in 1988 in one of the dirtiest campaigns ever, now works for a financial institution in Boston.