Bob Dole had an affair with Meredith Roberts, an Australian-born secretary, from 1968 to 1972. At the time, Dole was still married to his first wife, Phyllis Holden, whom he divorced in 1973. Roberts decided to speak out, she said, because she was offended by the way Dole has been promoting the theme of "family values".

Writing in the Electronic Telegraph, a British on-line newspaper, reporter Ambrose Evans-Pritchard mordantly remarks that "The senator can gnash his teeth and curse the media for alluding to a single affair in the late 1960's, while his opponent seems to get off scot-free for compulsive philandering. But such is politics."