What It Takes

by Richard Ben Cramer

  “... Suppose Matt needs you? ...

  “You’re the one ... he’s close to ...”

  So often it came down to Matt: ever since he’d gotten so sick as a baby—cancer at one and a half years old, their firstborn; he was the one they worried for. And now, when he so much wanted Dick to be there. ... Jane didn’t worry so much for the girls. Chrissie would have a ball on the campaign, watching the people. Chrissie and Dick would get going on people—she noticed the tiniest details—and they’d never stop laughing. Katie would be fine, too: she’d motor right through it, organize her way through it. (Katie was only eight, yet she was the one who got her sister off to school. “Okay, here’s your lunch, here’s your backpack. Bye!”) Matt was the tender one ... so angry now. ...

  “It’ll be fine,” Dick said. “It might be good, meet a lot of people, it could give him something, you know, a focus, outside himself ...”

  (Dick could talk while he ran—never puffed or paused. In St. Louis, he used to run in Bermuda shorts and a golf shirt. He’d finish his run in Tower Grove Park and walk right into a bakery for donuts, start saying hi, shaking hands. Dick was such a white guy, he’d never even sweat.)

  “It could give him confidence,” Dick said. He always saw the positives. That’s how he worked on Jane:

  “It’ll be great. We’ll all be in Iowa together ...

  “Sundays home, that’s for sure ... Wednesday nights, too, at least ...

  “Won’t have to run back and forth to St. Louis ...”

  Jane knew he was working on her. And she knew herself. She could get through a campaign, if she had to, one day at a time ... she could do anything—for a while—she’d learned that, when Matt got sick, she learned what she could do ... but what if Dick won? Four years! Eight years? ...

  “If we win, we could sell this house, you know, and there’s the college money, right there ...”

  Dick was so full of good hopes. That’s what made it so hard for Jane. By the time they started to talk about it, he was so into the thing, he was on that weird white tractor beam, that focus he got, that made everything else small ... and she knew she wouldn’t stop him. How could she? Holding him back, saying no to him—that would be terrible for her. And she knew he’d haul them all into it ... carry them into his zone of zombie will. She knew she’d fold, but ... couldn’t they talk?

  So Dick would say, “Well, let’s make a time when we can really sit down, you know, decide ...” And they’d set a date: July Fourth ... and then Labor Day, and then Thanksgiving—Thanksgiving for sure ... but it was hard to get the time carved out, you know, with everything else. ...

  Meanwhile, Matt would lash out ... to Jane: “I don’t want him to do this. It’s just wrong ...” She was driving Matt to a tennis lesson. Old Dominion Lane, on the way to McLean.

  “It’s just ... selfish. He isn’t even thinking about us. Just for him. Why does he want to do it?”

  And Jane would say softly, “Matt, don’t tell me this. You have to tell your dad this ...”

  But Matt would not tell his father: he would not be weak, he would not disappoint. To Dick, he’d say, “Whatever you want, Dad.” And then he’d scream at his mother, with an edge of tears near the top of his throat: “I don’t wanna be looked at. I don’t want to be ... I don’t want them LOOKING AT ME.”

  And Jane would tell Dick, who’d try to have a talk, some night, when he was home for dinner ... and Katie, on his right, would make a face: “Aw, Daaad. Stupid conversation ... again?” But Matt would listen, eyes down, while his father tried to emphasize the good things.

  “Think of the people you could meet ...

  “This’ll help you get into a really good college ...

  “Don’t you think it’d give you a special, uh, identity at school?”

  Matt’s answers were short, conclusive—mostly said to his plate.

  “People’ll look at me funny ...

  “I don’t wanna go with Secret Service ...

  “I’m gonna get into college on my own.”

  And sometimes, all the kids would start piling on:

  “Am I gonna get to go to my same school?”

  “We’ll never see you!”

  Dick would say, “No, it’ll be greeaat ... we’ll be together in the White House.”

  “It won’t be the same ...”

  “We gonna go out and shoot baskets on the garage?”

  “You’ll have people around you all the time!”

  They knew he was different when there were people around. No more tickle wars on the floor. No more wrestling and cackling, no nicknames in front of the Secret Service. They knew ... but they also knew they would not stop him—it would only hurt to try. So they tried instead to have a good attitude. They were Gephardt’s kids, after all.

  And one day—it was a Sunday, Dick was home—they went to a movie. It was Rocky IV. And coming out of the mall, Matt said to Dick:

  “That’s you, Dad. You’re like Rocky. You have to do this. ...Don’t worry. I know that. You just go ahead.”

  Her first son, Don—sometimes Loreen thought he was Lou all over again: the same sharp features, the musical ability, the long silences she’d hear when they’d visit the farm in Missouri. Don was neat, organized, persistent. He wouldn’t go to sleep with something out of place in his half of the boys’ room.

  And Dick was just like her—she knew it the minute she saw him born. He had her smile, her curiosity ... before he could walk, he’d crawl across the floor to visitors in the living room: “Whuzzat? ...” he’d say, and he’d point. He wanted to know everything. He wanted to hear what everybody had to say. And she bred this in him, praised it steadily, took such joy in him, and pride. ...

  She loved both her sons: fine boys. But so different from one another, it was ... a miracle, the way God worked. She knew it was God’s hand, His plan manifest on Earth. A strong faith was Loreen’s, and this, too, she bred into the boys—with faith, they could do anything in the world. That’s what they heard, too, each Sunday, at Third Baptist, a large and imposing church, all the way downtown, where during the war, when the boys were young, fifteen hundred worshipers would pack the place, four deep in the balconies ... and while the flags of the church and the nation were marched down the center aisle, the great and stentorian pastor, Dr. C.O. Johnson, would boom out: “All those who will pray for our military men, until the lights come back on, STAND WITH ME NOW ...” And the place would leap up with a roar.

  That was a new church for the Gephardts, when Dick was born. So many things changed when Dick came along: they moved to the house on Reber Place, a two-story brick bungalow, with a wooden front porch behind a low white railing. On the first floor, there was a living room, dining room, kitchen ... and behind, a tiny backyard, and then the alley. Upstairs, the boys shared the front bedroom; then there was a bathroom, with Lou and Loreen’s room behind. It was a modest house, by any standard, but a wonderful place for the boys. Reber Place was a dead end, with lots of kids—perfect for ball games in the street. There was the Mason School, where both boys went, only three blocks from their own back alley (and just a block past Hill’s and Bill’s, the corner store, with penny candy, and bubble gum). The backyard was just the right size for one red-haired kid (in his red Cardinals’ ballcap) to throw a baseball against the wall, and catch it, and throw it again ... calling the play-by-play of his game, like Harry Caray did for the Cardinals. In the basement, there was just space enough for Loreen to host the Cub Scouts and the den mothers ... most of the basement was taken up by the furnace and the big coal bin, where Don had to shovel. Of course, just as Dick came of age for shoveling—wouldn’t you know it?—the Gephardts made the switch to oil heat.

  Everything changed just in time for Dick: even Lou, who didn’t do much changing. ... But when Dick got interested in the church, Lou took an interest, too. He became a deacon, and president of the Agoga Bible Class. When Dick became a Boy Scout, Lou joined the club of Scout dads, went on the cookouts,
cooked for the camping trips. (Somehow, he never had the time when Don was a Scout.) And in time, with steady application, Dick made Eagle Scout. (Don just missed.) It was strange, the way it always happened for Dick, though he was never loud, never demanding ... like he was the heavy lump of iron, and the magnetic field of the family bent around him. ... When Lou and Loreen would start to scrap—always about attitude—it was Dick who took it to heart. Don would just go up to his room, close the door, and practice his saxophone ... but Dick couldn’t block it out like that. Sometimes, he’d have to jump on his bike and ride away. But then, as he came of age, he could do more: he could deflect trouble, he could talk his dad off a streak (“Dad, isn’t that just like you used to do on the farm?”), he could josh him out of sourness, he could change the subject (“D’you see Musial was four for four?”), he could turn the tide with a joke about Ike. ... Dick himself, in his person, at the dining room table, could be the bridge ... to straddle the poles of the household ... to make the family work.

  He was always so good with adults, so respectful, so interested ... better than he was with kids. When the relatives—uncles, aunts, cousins—came for dinner, and all the kids went outside to play, Dick would stay in the living room, listening to what the grownups said. His aunt, Lucy Cassell, used to call him Hothouse Rose, because he always stayed inside with her. He was great, too, with his uncle, Loreen’s younger brother Bob, who was a commercial artist, had a studio downtown (on a boat, anchored at a river dock—very Bohemian for those days!), and he used to ask Dick to model for him. And Dick would catch a streetcar on Southwest Avenue, and ride downtown—quite a trip for a twelve-year-old—and go to the boat to pose for Bob ... he was terrific at that. Bob would say: “Okay, now look like you’re reading ...” or “Good. Now put the book down and just gaze off, like you’re thinking about it...” And whatever Bob asked, Dick could just do it ... no problem. It was fun! And, then, too, on that riverboat, apart from Bob, the studio was staffed entirely by women, and they loved Dick—he was so cute, with his freckles, that red hair!—they praised everything he did.

  It was always praise with Dick. That’s how Loreen ran her home: she meant to fill those boys with confidence. ... If they told her they had an assignment for school, she’d reply: “Oh, I know you’ll do wonderfully. You are so good at writing.” When Don would play his clarinet in the school orchestra, she’d tell him how beautiful that music sounded. When Dick had the lead in the Mason School play, she stopped him in his costume, as he went out the door, and bent down, with him looking straight into her eyes (she insisted her boys look right at her, whenever she talked—that way they’d know she meant what she said), and she told him:

  “You know ... I am so proud of you ...”

  And she was. She knew she was doing God’s work in the building she did: that self-assurance, that will... Loreen always knew that if you were doing God’s will, He would help you work your will on this Earth. She told her boys, over and over: “Ask and ye shall receive. ...” Except with her, they didn’t have to ask—they had only to do, to shine in the world, to hear her praises flow.

  And they did shine. The principal of Mason School, Miss Marie Thole, personally called Loreen to the school office, to tell her: “Mrs. Gephardt, your boys are college material. I would like to see them both go to college. And I would like to see them go away to college, because that is an education in itself.”

  So by the next week, Loreen had a job—two days a week, at a law firm downtown, to save money for college. The Lord does answer the prayers of the faithful.

  And lest a son go, for an afternoon or two, without reminder of his opportunities, and his talents, she brought in a teacher from the Mason School, a lovely younger woman named Helen Baldwin, to stay with the boys on Reber Place, while Loreen was at work. And Helen, too, a woman of faith, reinforced the message.

  When Dick graduated from the Mason School, at the end of eighth grade, he had a little autograph book, which he passed around for the signatures of his classmates, as memento. Most of the entries were kids’ block printing, with well-worn rhymes and jokes:

  Roses are red, violets are blue,

  If skunks had a college, they’d call it PU.

  But in the center double page—where the book would open naturally, if Dick ever chose to look in it again—there was a long, tightly written poem about teaching, and molding men. This was from Helen Baldwin, who followed the verse with this reminder:

  “This little bit of poetry inspires me, Dick, and reminds me of you. Of all the boys I know (and that’s quite a few), you have the greatest potential for doing great things.”

  It’s ten days before announcement now, and Dick is supposed to be rolling, presenting himself to the people—today, it’s New Hampshire, and the morning bids fair: sunshine on white snow, white steam whenever you talk, and Dick and Jane, campaigning together, as promised ... this is how it ought to be, right?

  But on the schedule, it’s one morning speech (a poli-sci class at Daniel Webster College—twenty sleepy, vacant-eyed kids and two Minicams—with Dick pounding the lectern and decrying the problems, like it’s a hall packed with five thousand union men ...) and then mostly private meetings: lunch with the Mayor of Nashua, kiss-ass at the statehouse in Concord. ... What happened to the famous door-to-door Dick? (“He’ll do it,” his press guy, Foley, insists. “That’s how he really is. Do you know that in his first Congress campaign, ’76, he hit thirty thousand doors?”)

  Well, the day holds promise of one such event, a visit to Jean Wallin, ice-cream parlor proprietress, a “Democratic activist,” the kind of woman around whom campaigns in New Hampshire are built. She’s only had the ice-cream shop for the last six months, but she’s had winners for the last twenty years: McCarthy in ’68, then McGovern, Carter in ’76, Carter again, and then Mondale. She has a nose for nominees, and Dick is coming to ask for her support.

  In the Chevrolet, Jim Demers, a local pol, is driving, and Dick is riding shotgun. Jane is hunched in the back, just behind Dick, and next to her rides the new body man, Brad Harris. Brad, a Georgian, about twenty-two, with razor-cut hair and premature jowls, with the standard Washington aluminum-siding suit and a quiet, responsible, striped rep tie, is the first bit of bubble that Dick has accreted for his new road show. The body man holds the briefcase, writes down the names of people who’ll help, holds the notecards or the text of the speech, sees to the phone calls and messages, gets water to the podium and snacks to the car, lines up the plane tickets and hotel rooms ... he is a man of all work, an indispensable man, and of this last fact, Brad is aware. “Dick, this is people-to-people,” Brad says now, with the air of a major explaining a mission to a young lieutenant. “Jean ... Wallin ...”

  In the parking lot, someone says to Jane: Hey, this is more like it! Pretty soon, Jane and Dick would be peddling brochures on doorsteps in the Manchester suburbs. “Well,” Jane says brightly, “door-to-door is something we can really do! You should see us go door-to-door! In 1976, we hit fifty thousand doors, you know. And Dick’s mother! She won’t leave the porch until she gets a commitment. She won’t leave!” It is the most voluble speech from Jane all day. Here is something she knows. Meanwhile, Dick is still in the car, fidgeting with his shirt. Turns out CBS has him miked up for this homey little people-to-people. ... Later, it emerges that Jean, the ice-cream lady, is miked up, too. God bless America!

  Dick walks into the ice-cream store and seven cameras swing around. The anchormen-to-be are yelling questions into their own microphones:

  “What are you going to do about being an asterisk in the polls?”

  “Congressman! Are you counting on your trade bill to raise your polls?”

  Dick tries to answer, as he edges through the Minicams, toward the counter, to meet Jean and get some ice cream. Jane is in already, carrying the freight with Jean ... “Mmmm, good! That’s great! Our kids’ll love this! ...” Dick fishes in his pocket for two dollars. The TV lenses are whirring in full zoom for t
his picture of democracy at work. Jane asks for coffee. She got to sleep at 1:00 A.M. and they woke her again at 4:30.

  Finally, one of the TVs shouts at Dick:

  “How much help can Jean be?”

  “Well, she can be of immense help,” Dick says, forbearing. “But we’ve got to sit down and ask her if she’s willing to help.”

  So they sit: Dick, Jean, Jane, and Jim Demers, hemmed in with their knees together like people in a crowded bus, all on one side of a tiny ice-cream table; they have to stay in camera frame. Dick tells Jean that he loves this kind of campaigning. “You know, we hit sixty thousand doors in ’76, when I ran for Congress ...”

  “Well, that’s good,” Jean says. “If you’re not out there meeting the voters, you can’t go from Jimmy Who in 1975 to a winner. And frankly, I’m looking for a winner.”

  “Well, you should be,” Dick says. “And I am one. I, uh, am the winner. Um. I’m going to win it ...”

  Jean stares at him, waiting. Dick adds lamely: “See, I believe in talking to people one-on-one.”

  “Well, uh ...” Jean is trying to help, prompting: “What do you tell them when you sit down?”

  “Well, you tell them why you’re running. I tell them we can do better than a deficit of two hundred billion, and we have to get a policy that makes this country Number One again in trade. You know, there’s no reason why this country ...”

  Dick is rolling now. Through trade, to retraining, education, our schools, our kids, our values. ... He’s got the baby blues locked onto her face and he’s telling her, quietly, firmly, what he tries to tell people in his stump speech, while he’s busy pounding the lectern. And all of a sudden, it starts to click. The private foreign policy, Iran-contra, is lawless, and lawlessness is seeping out of the Reagan White House, into the country at large. It’s greed that’s the message when Deaver and his ilk leave government to cash in as lobbyists. It’s lawless greed that’s the ethic now, and that’s what Dick wants to change. And she looks into his boy face (he’s got her eyes now, she couldn’t turn if she tried) and she can see that he means it, that everything he is to his marrow is a good boy, clean of heart, so different from the hard-eyed men in the White House, and that’s what he’s saying: Put me in and it’ll be different. It has to be me because I am the policy, myself, the embodiment, the difference, look! Here in my eyes. Don’t you want it to be different? Can’t we be better?