What It Takes

by Richard Ben Cramer

  God knows. Bush and Reagan hadn’t lifted a finger for the Party last time, in ’84. Everything was for Reagan and Bush. The President spent the last day in Minnesota, trying to win Mondale’s own state, for a clean sweep. The Gipper wanted a landslide—well, he got it. But meanwhile they lost two seats in the Senate: down to fifty-three Republicans, and some of those you couldn’t count on. This time, it could turn out worse! Paula Hawkins in Florida, Jim Abdnor in South Dakota, Mark Andrews from North Dakota, Mack Mattingly in Georgia, Jerry Denton in Alabama, Slade Gorton from Washington ... might lose any one of those seats! It was so tough out there, they finally had to wake Reagan up from his nap. Now the President was going to come out in the last couple of weeks, to campaign for the Senators—but the White House didn’t know how tight things were.

  Bob Dole knew. Day by day, Dole got the tracking polls from across the country, every state. He knew the issues in those states, the voting districts, their histories, knew some of the County Chairmen. He wasn’t shy about calling them, either.

  “Heyy! Bob Dohhhll! Anything goin’ on out there?”

  Then he’d listen for a minute or two, while the chairman gave him a fill: whether his man was gaining or losing, what was behind the change in the polls ...

  “Okayyy,” Dole would say, as the chairman wound down. “Gotta gooo!”

  If he got twenty minutes to spend on the phone, it meant days of hell for the Scheduler. That was always his last call: to Molly Walsh, the Scheduler, or Jo-Anne Coe, his all-purpose Office Drill Sergeant. One of them would pick up a phone, and Dole’s voice would rasp in the earpiece:

  “Gotta go to South Dakota.”

  “When?”

  “Pretty sooonn.”

  That meant now, tomorrow, this weekend—whenever they could work it out.

  He was on the road every weekend, all weekend, usually from Friday afternoon, or Thursday night if the Senate load was light, flying west in a borrowed corporate jet, picking up a time zone or two, flying against the clock to get to a Plains state, the Rockies, or the West Coast, in time for an airport press conference, a dinner, fund-raiser, or a rally for some Republican faithful, who’d light up when Dole hit the room: Bob Dole! Here is juice!

  This weekend would be light: the Senate was winding up its term for the fall, and Dole wouldn’t get away till Saturday morning—just time for a flight to Akron, a press conference and a fund-raising breakfast for two Congressional candidates, then a speech to a rally in the airport; then a quick flight to Sandusky, O., for a press conference and another speech at a luncheon rally; then a flight to Cleveland for a rally speech and a joint press conference on behalf of four GOP hopefuls; then a flight to Findlay, O., for another press conference and a mix-and-mingle for Congressman Oxley; then a flight to Cincinnati for a press conference with gubernatorial candidate James Rhodes and his running mate, Bob Taft, and a few remarks at their big-money funder at the home of former Senator Taft; then an hour-and-a-half flight east to Monmouth, New Jersey, followed by a twenty-minute drive to a Hilton, where Dole was scheduled to get in about midnight for his Saturday night’s sleep. Sunday, he’d start with a twenty-five-minute ride to a country club in Manalapan Township to do a press conference and speech at a buffet breakfast; then another drive, another flight, this time to Jamestown, New York, near Buffalo, for a joint news conference with a House candidate; and a drive to another country club for the candidate’s funder-brunch, where Dole would make a few more brief remarks; then another drive to another speech, this to a Chautauqua County veterans’ group, a photo op with members of the County Veterans Council and the dedication of a bridge in honor of the nation’s veterans; then another flight to State College, Pennsylvania, for a speech to five hundred Penn State students, and another press conference with a Congressman, Bill Clinger, and another drive to another hotel for another speech at a fund-raiser, and then another drive and a wheels-up for Washington, National Airport, where the Lincoln Town Car would be waiting in the dark to take him back to the Watergate—unless he decided to stop at the office to get ready for the Senate, Monday.

  He never missed a vote in the Senate. There was a certain dogged Kansas dogma to this record: a day’s work for a day’s pay, and the citizens of Kansas paid him to vote. So he never missed a roll call that anyone could remember, not even on wacko amendments, or a 95–0 resolution on National Teacher Week. Of course, that was easier now that he was Majority Leader: now, he was the man to schedule the roll calls; he was the potentate to cross the aisle, to work it out with Democrat Bob Byrd; he held the floor to suggest to the chair the absence of a quorum; now it was up to him when the tyrannical bells went off.

  So that meant he could tuck in some time each night, for the Other Thing. He wasn’t going to drop that, either. He wasn’t going to do it like he did in ’80, running around the country with no campaign, not enough money, no organization.

  Six hundred votes! That’s all he got in New Hampshire last time. It was a national humiliation! He almost gave it up, after that, after the ’80 campaign. Thought about leaving the Senate, joining some fancy megamillions law firm. ... Thought about it maybe a week.

  Dole called that ’80 race his “noncampaign.” He always brought it up himself to audiences:

  “You may not know this ...

  “... but I ran for President ...”

  Here, the low chuckles would start to ripple through the crowd, laughter that would swell as Dole piled on line after line about his failure.

  “... Well, losing’s tough, but you get over it ...

  “... Night after New Hampshire, I went home and slept like a baby ...

  “... Every two hours, I woke up and cried ...”

  But Dole was going to make this time different: he wouldn’t have to make a joke out of this attempt. Anyway, if he lost the majority in the Senate, ’88 might be his last chance, his only chance to hold on to power. He wasn’t going to play out the rest of his years in the powerless minority—that was for sure. Bob Dole had known powerlessness.

  He knew what it was to live in the minority, to scrape along in the opposition, scrambling to get into the papers, struggling to make a difference, on the edge of the fights, scrapping over the language of the farm bill, nickel-and-diming every issue for some kind of wedge, to get in on the action ... knew it too well: he spent a political lifetime in that sour, still pond, after he came to Congress in 1961.

  It was twenty years before he made it to the center of the action. He got his first heady taste of power after Reagan’s first election, 1980: the GOP at last took over the Senate, and Bob Dole became the Finance Committee Chairman. Finally, he had the votes on his side of the aisle. Finally, he got a chance to show what he could do. Reagan swept into office with a mandate for tax cuts, and cuts in the budget. That was the business of the Finance Committee. But Washington’s wise men were convinced it couldn’t be done: once the House and Senate restored the funds to everybody’s pet bill, maybe there’d be a few million cut—maybe a few hundred million. That’s the way it always went. ... Then, one day, in 1981, while he was in the Ag Committee, rewriting the farm bill, Dole stood up and excused himself: “Agh, hav’ta run over to Finance ... got a little package of cuts to consider.” The budget cuts actually ran to twenty-four legal-sized pages, single-spaced: they covered Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment, and the biggest welfare programs. In total, they would chop out $10 billion in fiscal ’82, and another $12 billion the following year. In total, that was a billion dollars more than Reagan’s own people suggested. In the committee room, Moynihan and Bradley started to howl: they’d had no time to consider ... draconian reductions! ... millions of people! ... But then, the former chairman, the Louisiana Democrat, Russell Long, endorsed the whole package with a simple “Aye ...” and everyone knew what had happened. Dole had greased the skids. The deal was done. So Dole let everyone talk for a few hours, then he rammed the vote home, eighteen to two. In all, he cut $22 billion in one afternoon.

 
By 1984, when Howard Baker retired, there was some talk that Dole wouldn’t go for the Leader’s job. He had power, with the Finance Committee. He might want to run for President again, might not want to be chained to the Senate’s agenda day and night. But the talkers didn’t know Bob Dole. If there was something to run for, Dole was running.

  Still, there were more than a few doubters, and a dogfight for the job in the caucus. Wasn’t Dole a slasher? Would he give every Senator a decent shake, a chance to get his bill considered, a chance to get on TV? What if the Democrats started a fight, and Dole’s switch went off: What would he say? Was there anything he wouldn’t say? There were four secret ballots in the caucus before Dole emerged with the job in his teeth.

  There was never any doubt in Dole’s mind: he’d been waiting for this chance his whole life. Now it didn’t matter what the issue was—whatever—they’d all have to reckon with Bob Dole. The ’85 farm bill, that was Dole’s farm bill: he put it together brick by brick while the Ag Committee Chairman, Jesse Helms, sat on his hands; judicial appointments, Dole would get them through; Gramm-Rudman, the budget, the contras, the tax code, small business, Social Security, Star Wars. ... There was no limit to his reach.

  And now, almost two years into his term, they all came to deal with him, came to him in the morning, while he held court in his armchair in the cloakroom. “Bob, I’d really like to move this, if you could. It’s been checked off, both sides of the committee—if you don’t see any problem ...”

  On the floor, they called him “the Leader,” or “the Distinguished Majority Leader.”

  “Would the Distinguished Leader yield for a moment?”

  “I’d be happy to yield to my friend from Massachusetts.”

  And they were friends, or as close as he had. If knowing about them was a mark of friendship, then Dole was a friend. Bob Dole probably never swung a golf club in his life, even back when he had two hands to do it. In Doran Dole’s house, in Russell, Kansas, golf was a sport for rich loafers. But if Quayle from Indiana slipped away for an afternoon at Burning Tree, it was Dole who’d know who made up the foursome. “Agh, s’pretty good, I guess,” Dole mentioned once, to a stunned staff guy. “Handicap’s ’bout seven.” How the hell did he know that? How’d he know what a handicap was?

  There didn’t seem to be any limit to the facts he stored for instant access, the elaborate filigree of his neural connections.

  Tuck the scenic river bill on the calendar for Friday?

  “Agh, better not.”

  Dole might offer no explanation, but there were things he knew. ... There’s a Senator, border state, got a tough reelection—Dole was out there for him twice already—and his Democrat opponent’s hammering him on environment: he backed a wood pulp mill, three or four years ago. Saved some jobs. But caught heat from the state’s biggest paper. So he might want to be on the bill, that bit that sets aside six miles of the Wammahoochie as a wild scenic preserve. Might want to get on TV. Maybe announce it. Anyway, he’s got a daughter getting married Saturday. Wife’s sort of the nervous kind ...

  “Better make it next Tuesday.”

  Dole never had just a single source of information. That’s one reason he was scary to work for. Dole would set a staffer onto an issue, something massive, like telephone deregulation, and the guy would work for weeks, bust his tail on the memo. Then one nervous, hopeful night, he’d give it to Dole, or set it on Dole’s desk. The next thing the poor guy would see was Dole, wanting to know: What about the access charge? The pass-along from the local companies? What about proprietary networks?

  “Gaghhh! ... Is this the best you could do?”

  See, Dole was working on it in the cloakroom. He knew who the smart guys were on every issue, whose staff was rolling on the bill, what the local companies in Kansas worried about, what GTE’s guy was pushing. Then maybe he’d set another staffer in the other office, the Kansas Senate office, to finding out how much AT&T was going to drop its rates. If he didn’t get the answer, he’d tell another staffer (whoever his favorite was that week, or whoever happened to be in the room) to get the chairman of AT&T on the phone—ask him to come in. ... Of course, the guy comes. Dole is the Leader, Majority Leader.

  The point was that everything, all fruit of this furious gathering, wound up in Dole’s head. And furthermore, the complete set of facts was nowhere else. That’s why the desk was clean, why Dole had no briefcase, and Dean carried only a slim leather folder. Sure, there was a blizzard of paper around Dole, but somehow, the written version always caught up with him after the fact. The schedule: they’d still be typing it Saturday morning, an hour before the car went for Dole at the Watergate; he kept adjusting it, fine-tuning, up to Friday night. And he’d keep changing it on the plane, if he wanted. There was no bible, except in Dole’s head. Most of the speeches were still being typed as Dole made his way to the head table. Then there was the furious dash to the Xerox, for press copies; anyway, it didn’t matter: Dole would keep his own copy in his pocket and say what he wanted, any way he chose. There wasn’t any speech, except in Bob Dole’s head. This was an article of pride with Dole. He didn’t have to read from a card in his pocket to have a talk about politics, the budget, or the tax law, dairy prices, the Russians, or anything else. It was in his head.

  And that suited Dole fine. It didn’t matter how many Washington smart guys told him he’d have to learn to delegate. It didn’t matter how many Respected Analysts wrote columns, saying the key to his success would be to let himself be managed. If someone wanted to manage Bob Dole, they’d have to know more than Dole did. And he made sure that wasn’t going to happen. There wasn’t any one person who was going to know everything in his head. Sometimes, for the profile writers, a staff guy would whisper The Official Secret Explanation:

  It went back to the war wound ... when he got shot up and his arm wouldn’t work. Dole had to go through law school, and he couldn’t write ... couldn’t take notes ...

  He had to keep it in his head!

  And that was true, in a way. But Dole had able notetakers now. The fact was, knowledge was power. If Dole had three people working on an issue, and each talked directly to Dole, then he knew more than any of them, more than anyone else. Better yet, four people digging, or six, and a colleague in the cloakroom, and some smart guys on the phone. The only place they met was in Dole’s head. And there wasn’t a single one of them he had to depend on.

  “Agh, s’pretty good. Said he wanted to help,” Dole was saying, as he got back to the Lincoln, after the Guam event. “Lotta moneyyy! ...” He had a business card from a Washington smart guy, a lobbyist. But he didn’t give it to Dean for follow-up. This was important. Dole stuck the card into his own shirt pocket.

  The pocket was the ultimate action file—just the most important matters. Sometimes, the only thing Dole had in there was his prayer. He always carried the prayer, on a laminated card. It meant a lot to Dole. So, no one knew about the prayer.

  Now the door of the Town Car was closed, the windows were up. It was after nine-thirty. The streets were getting quiet. In the car, silence: Wilbert and Dean waited for Dole to call it a day. In the dark, Dole’s eyes shifted to the glowing green of the quartz clock. Not even 10:00 P.M.

  Dole said to the windshield: “Agh, better stop at the office.”

  At 10:00 P.M., old Dutch Dawson would look up at the clock from the back booth of the drugstore, where he was doing his crossword, with his glasses on top of his head. He’d lift his squat frame out of the booth and walk to the front door. He’d look up Main Street, then down the other way. “Wait a minute. Don’t turn the lights out,” he’d say. “There’s a guy comin’ out of the theater. ... Okay, turn ’em out. He went the other way.” Then, he’d check the two registers at the front, the sundries and the fountain, turn the key, and check the ring-up. Then, he’d get into his car, and head home.

  The boys and Bob Dole stayed behind, cleaning up. Bob had to make syrup for the next day, empty the ice-cream bins, wash
out the soda spigots ... those things had to be clean. It was always closer to eleven when he ran back to Maple Street. Bina would have his supper waiting. And not just a plate of something on the stove, but his place set at the dining room table, homemade bread, soup, a full dinner. There was fresh cake or pie for dessert. Bina’s girls, Bob’s two sisters, had to bake a fresh dessert when they got home from school. There was no halfway, or good-enough, with Bina Dole.

  People used to say there was nothing Bina couldn’t get done. But it had to be done just so. It didn’t matter how much effort it took, or how many hours. When Bob’s older sister, Gloria, started to iron, and a shirt wasn’t just so, Bina’d throw that shirt right back on the pile. “Sista! ...” (That was Gloria’s nickname.) “You have to learn to do things right!” She’d have Gloria, or her youngest child, Norma Jean, standing for hours on a dining room chair, while she got the hem of a skirt just right. “Stand still! ...” When Bina set to cleaning floors, all four kids had to get up on those chairs, and woe to the child who jumped the gun and put a foot down on the damp floor. “You can go out back and cut your switch, right now!” (Bina’s voice could take paint off a wall: even her name rasped with hard prairie vowels; it rhymed with Carolina, or, as she’d likely say, Salina.)

  Around Eleventh and Maple, the neighbors would hear her make those kids hop: “Bob, you sweep off that porch! Kenny! You get that trash together!” Or she’d call down to the grain elevator, light into Doran so hard that the farmers having coffee could hear her on Doley’s end of the line. This was wrong and that was wrong, and if Doran didn’t care, well, that was just too bad! Then she’d slam down the phone without saying goodbye. Doran would just put down the phone and go about his business; he was used to Bina; he toed the mark, best he could. One time, they had a family reunion, and what with all the Talbotts (Bina came from a family of twelve kids), they had to use the second floor of the community hall. Well, it was Doran’s job to set up the tables, and Doran being the way he was, he went the extra mile, got some paper tablecloths, and set all the places—plates and silverware, too. So Bina walked in, and she hit the roof! “Well, my GOD, Doran! Get those papers off the tables! I’ve got tablecloths and we’re SURE not gonna eat on those papers!” Doran just went back and took it all apart. “Well,” he said, quietly, shaking his head, stripping tables, “I knew there’d be somethin’ wrong. I was just wonderin’ what it would be.”