Bob Dole stars in TV ad for Pat Roberts in Kansas Senate race

Bob Dole is making a return to political campaigning, appearing in a new TV ad Thursday for the suddenly endangered Republican Sen. Pat Roberts in their home state of Kansas.

"Hello everyone — in case you've forgotten, I'm Bob Dole," the former Senate Majority Leader and 1996 Republican nominee for president says, in a friendly and perhaps tongue-in-cheek reintroduction. "And I want to talk about my good friend, Pat Roberts. Pat's a fourth-generation Kansan, who shares our values, and fights for Kansas every day."

"The stakes are high, the choice is clear: We need to keep Pat Roberts in the Senate," Dole concludes, in a clear reference to the possibility that this race could very well determine control of the U.S. Senate, if independent challenger Greg Orman were to hold the balance of power and be successfully courted by the Democrats.

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Roberts is trailing in the polls against Orman — who got a big boost when the Democratic nominee Chad Taylor dropped out of the race — in a state that has only sent Republicans to the Senate since the 1930s. --Eric Kleefeld