question:  What was something that Dole, Bauer, and McCain all have in common?
context: But Ames failed to resolve the fate of the candidates who came in third and fourth--Elizabeth Dole and Gary Bauer--and the one who skipped Ames, John McCain. For these three, the post-game spin contest is crucial. Here's a playback of their takes on the straw poll results and a look ahead at their playbook of messages for the remainder of the race. Pundits bought the three-winners line, treating Ames as a horse race ("win, place, and show") and noting that "no one's ever won the Republican nomination without finishing in the top three" at Ames. Newspapers, cramped for space, confined their headlines to Bush, Forbes, and Dole. Though Dole's 14 percent was closer to Bauer's 9 than to Forbes' 21, she earned a "solid third" and a place among the leaders by crossing the "double-digit" threshold. As Fox News' Carl Cameron put it: "The other seven candidates could not crack double digits." The Boston Globe called Dole "the winner of this contest-within-the-contest." Dole touted her "victory" on every talk show and cited the Myers and Globe quotes in a press release. At a news conference, an aide introduced Dole as the straw poll's "real winner." In every TV interview, Dole claimed to have been "outspent by millions of dollars." Her spokesman told reporters that "on a dollar-per-vote basis, Elizabeth Dole trounced George Bush and Steve Forbes." Dismissive coverage of Dole before the straw poll played to her advantage, as everyone marveled at her "surprisingly" strong third. To prevent this, Dole needs to create a semifinal playoff--Forbes vs. Dole--to determine who gets to play Bush. Having narrowed the field to three, Dole needs to focus the contest on criteria that favor her. The first of these is political experience, of which Bush has little and Forbes has almost none.
output:  They were all trying to justify their position in the primaries
options:  They were all trying to justify their position in the primaries  They were all trying to secure financial backing  They all had very small odds of winning overall  They all had things that were actively going against their personal record