What It Takes

by Richard Ben Cramer

  Well, talk about weird!

  The way the cameras got it, the picture was Gary Hart on a rock, and Lee and the kids on another, just below, with the mountains behind ... that was fine ... but there wasn’t another human being in sight! In fact, most of the pictures were just Hart and cold stone in a forty-degree wind.

  C’monnnn! Talk about a loner! Chilly ... aloof. ... There it was: right in the focus rings of their Nikons!

  But by that time, it hardly mattered—or it mattered in a different way. Because that day, April 13, was the cover date of the Newsweek with Howard Fineman’s profile, “A Candidate in Search of Himself.” Let history record: smooth Howard it was, who tipped over the soup.

  What he did, he got a wise guy, John McEvoy, who’d worked for Hart in ’84 ... and they’re running through the weirdness ... and Howard says: Everybody knows the guy is getting laid.

  Howard says: It’s so obvious ...

  Howard says: He’s not even watching himself. Someone’s gonna write it, and then there’s hell to pay ...

  So McEvoy finally says: “Yuh, well, you know ... he’ll always be in jeopardy ... if he can’t keep his pants on.”

  Bingo! Howard writes him up ... and there is hell to pay. McEvoy later insisted that line was off the record—and, anyway, pure speculation.

  That’s pretty much what Howard telegraphed, leading into the quote with one of the garbage source-codes:

  “... many political observers expect the rumors to emerge as a campaign issue. ‘He’s always in jeopardy of having the sex issue raised if he can’t keep his pants on,’ said John McEvoy,” etc., etc. ...

  Hey, but what’s the difference? The rumors were in print ... and, therefore, fit matter for questions to Hart.

  “Senator, how do you respond to rumors about your womanizing?”

  In fact, that’s all they were talking about in the plane on the grand announcement tour. Hart now had an official sex problem. The odor of bad fish filled the plane.

  That didn’t mean they could write any more than the rumor. Still, no one had anything, except a secondhand wise-guy quote. ...

  But then came Lois Romano, from the Post, the dread Style Section again. And she was after Hart: Yes or no? ... She insisted: There are rumors.

  Hart went ballistic again: “Come on, Lois, who?” he demanded. “Where do the rumors come from?”

  So she told him they came from the Biden wise guys ... then, too, the Dukakis camp.

  Hart was seething. They were out to get him! (Just as he’d always suspected!) Of course they had to make him the issue: he was five miles ahead on every issue a President might actually have to face! But how the hell could he disprove rumors? He was running for President of the United States, and the only thing anyone wanted to know was whether he slept around.

  Larry Barrett, the urbane chief of political big-feet for Time magazine, was next on the list for tête-à-tête. Barrett’s come-on was calm, respectful. “Gary,” he said, “I’m going to ask you once—and then we can get on with the campaign, okay? ... Now, how ’bout these rumors?”

  Hart made a fatal mistake. “All I know is what reporters tell me,” he said. “If it’s true that other campaigns are spreading the rumors, I think it’s an issue.”

  Well, the back of the plane went crazy. Hart was accusing the other campaigns of starting rumors about his sex life! That was politics. That was fair game! At last, the lid was off, and they could all dip their ladles.

  “He’s gotta come back here and talk to us!” they demanded of Kevin Sweeney. “Kevin! He’s gotta hold a press conference.” Sweeney had no interest in a press conference on sex rumors. This was Hart’s announcement tour. How about one goddam day where the message was why the man was running for President?

  But that was not to be—not even for a day. Hart walked the aisle to the back of the plane and said with forlorn irony: “Anybody want to talk about ideas?”

  No.

  GARY: I’M NO WOMANIZER roared the headline on the front page of the New York Post. Inside, a story with quotes from the plane was flanked by a sidebar with all the rumors. ... Here’s how the paragraphs in the Post began:

  “The whispers ...”

  “A lot of people thought ...”

  “Rumors that Hart strayed ...”

  “Tongues wagged after ...”

  The sidebar ended with this ominous graf:

  “A number of newspaper reporters said around this time that they had received phone calls from women who claimed they had had affairs with Hart.”

  27

  1961

  DOLE WAS THE ONE who met Kennedy—spring of ’61, just after Bob got to D.C. JFK invited the freshmen in Congress to a dinner and reception. Phyllis was so excited—the White House! She set about making a new dress, in chintz with blooming roses, one of those wonderful sixties shapes with a high waist, straight skirt, a bow on the front. It was gorgeous! ... But then Bob wouldn’t say if they could go!

  “Depends.”

  “Bob! On what?”

  “Lotta things.”

  Bob had just been elected president of the House GOP freshmen. He didn’t know if he was supposed to go to Democrat parties—even at the White House.

  Phyllis didn’t get an answer until that night: Bob showed up at their tiny house in Arlington, with a rented tux.

  “Agh, we readyy?”

  They drove to the White House in the Chrysler—then drove around trying to find the right gate. Marines in high-collar dress-blue tunics saluted them up the stairs, through the ceremonial entrance. In the Grand Foyer, the Marine Band, in white dinner jackets, serenaded the swirl of guests.

  “I want to dance,” Phyllis said. “I want to tell my grandchildren that I danced at the White House.”

  Bob and Phyllis stood with the other freshmen from Kansas—four of the six from their state were new. And when a sudden silence fell, and the Marine Band struck up “Hail to the Chief,” the Doles and the others took one or two instinctive steps back, as the President and Mrs. Kennedy swept into the room.

  There was no receiving line, no order, just everybody milling around in a sea of laughter, greeting, smiles. The Kennedys moved through the crowd with no apparent plan, yet they seemed to meet everybody. They were so gloriously at ease.

  “Good evening, Mr. President,” said one Kansas GOP freshman. “I’m Bob Ellsworth, from Kansas.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Kennedy, like he’d been waiting all night to meet the Congressman from Lawrence. He turned to Jackie and said: “Dear, this is Vivian and Bob Ellsworth from Kansas.” The Ellsworths were floored. The President knew Vivian’s name! “Oh, yes!” said Jackie. “I’m so glad to meet you.”

  Then they were gone.

  Bob’s meeting was even briefer—a quick handshake in a hallway—the President had to leave early. (Turned out, that was a terrible night: the invasion of the Bay of Pigs.)

  But Phyllis did have her dance in the White House. And Bob danced with his colleagues’ wives, too. That night, the Marine Band played a song, “Mr. Wonderful,” in honor of the new Commander in Chief. Rose Mary McVey, wife of Walter, the freshman Rep from Independence, said, “Oh, Bob, isn’t it perfect?”

  “Live it up while you can, Rose Mary,” Dole advised. “We’re parked in a ten-minute zone.”

  Glorious ease was not Bob’s style. Another man might have taken a deep breath and told himself he’d arrived—a member of Congress at thirty-seven, president of his class in the Capitol. Not Dole. What he remembered from that election among the freshmen was that he’d fought to beat Clark MacGregor, from Minnesota—by one vote! MacGregor’d prob’ly never forget! ... It was too easy for Dole to see the matter through MacGregor’s eyes (or as he imagined MacGregor must see it): Who is this rube from Dust-burg, Kansas?

  It was a heady climb for anyone coming to Congress at that moment, when Washington seemed to hold not only power, but promise of brilliance, glamor, and grace. There was money coursing through the government’s
pipes, and people who’d spend a private fortune on those with their hands on the spigot. There were lobbyists inviting them to parties, two or three every night—they really ought to go ... and Washington hostesses—they loved these powerful young men. (Some ladies took liberties you’d seldom see in Kansas.) ... All at once, there were reporters who wanted to know what these fellows thought—and cameras, TV cameras, and people holding doors for them, literally bowing them down the hallways of the Capitol.

  Dole barely noticed this stuff.

  Walter McVey, Rose Mary’s husband, went off the deep end. He’d go to twenty parties in a week. He’d end up weary, pressed for time, not knowing where or who he was, yelling at some poor elevator operator, “Let’s go! Don’t you know who I am? I’m Congressman McVey!”

  Walter was a smart man, a good lawyer, who served the southeast section of the state. Dole liked him; but he couldn’t understand why Walter couldn’t see himself. Dole was embarrassed when anyone held an elevator for him, or put him on a plane ahead of other folks. Bob was embarrassed for Walter McVey. ... By the end of their first year, Walter had taken up with a secretary in his office. Rose Mary went home and filed for divorce. And that was the end of McVey. In another year, he lost his seat. People didn’t like how he behaved. He forgot himself.

  Dole could not forget how he’d fought to get to Washington—had to fight! He had a primary against Keith Sebelius, a popular attorney from Norton, Kansas. Sebelius had run before, in ’58, and come within an eyelash of knocking off the incumbent, a giant in that district, Wint Smith.

  Dole stayed loyal to Wint in ’58—Wint had done him some favors, sent him some law books (members of Congress got two copies of the Federal Statutes, each year) ... and Bob Dole was a loyal young man. Anyway, Wint told him that ’58 would be his last turn. Then, too, Bob figured if Sebelius got in, he’d be there for years. So Dole, the four-term County Attorney, was the man who delivered Russell County for Smith. ... Wint held off Sebelius by a margin of fifty-one votes.

  And that’s when it started for Bob. Two years before his 1960 race, he was already meeting the powers in the big Sixth District, showing Wint’s troops that Bob Dole could lead. That meant Bob had to show he was as tough as Wint (“the General” thought Ike, for Christ’s sake, was namby-pamby on the commies). ... Meanwhile, Dole started driving ... twenty-six counties, from Salina west to the Colorado line, and all the way north to Nebraska—Dole hit every town, every country store, every café and filling station.

  He ran the campaign from the basement of his home. Friends from Russell would crowd in, Friday nights, to drink Phyllis’s coffee and get their assignments for the weekend. They weren’t helping because they thought Bob was going to win—no one from Russell ever won anything—it was just that Bob was working so hard.

  The problem wasn’t only Sebelius (though Keith was problem enough—ex-commandant of the American Legion, which meant he had friends in every county post) ... there was a third guy in the race, a State Senator named Phil Doyle ... Doyle, Dole, Philip, Phyllis—it was murder!

  That’s how Bob started with the juice—Dole (not Doyle) Pineapple. The ladies from Russell would ride in the caravans, cutting up Dole-for-Congress labels and pasting Bob’s name on paper cups. When they hit the next town, they’d set up a table on the courthouse square, or a Main Street sidewalk, and fill the cups with pineapple juice from blue-and-yellow Dole cans. After a while, they bought out the warehouse, they had to use Libby’s juice. But that was their little secret—they washed out the Dole cans and refilled them with Libby’s.

  Then Phyllis made sixteen red felt skirts for the Dolls for Dole—each with a blue elephant (trimmed with sequins), and on the elephant’s trunk, lettering that read, “Dole for Congress” ... but not just that, there was a banner across each skirt: ROLL WITH DOLE. That oh was the crucial vowel!

  That’s why it was perfect when Leo Meyer and Fay built that Conestoga wagon, a scale model you could take apart and put in the trunk of a car (Kenny had to beg or borrow a big car because the wagon only fit in a Lincoln or Cadillac)—that was the Roll-with-Dole wagon ... and Fay’s two girls each got skirts from Phyllis that said I’M FOR ROBIN’S DADDY! so they could ride the wagon, while the men, in red clip-on Roll-with-Dole ties, pulled it up Main Street or rode it on the back of Harlan Boxburger’s flatbed, while Bob walked along, if it was a parade—Bob always walked in parades.

  That’s why he had his girl singers, whom Dole called the Bob-o-Links—though sometimes they were introduced as the Dolls for Dole Quartet—college girls who sang harmony (to the accompaniment of a ukulele) on Bob’s theme song:

  Everyone here

  Kindly step to the rear ...

  Which let people know that Bob Dole was coming! That was the point: Bob was afraid that people wouldn’t notice he was out there!

  And that was certainly the point of Bob’s appearance at Kansas Day, an annual GOP affair in the Jayhawk Hotel in downtown Topeka, where the faithful stood around sipping Cokes in the public rooms while the nabobs held court, with stronger drink and cigars, upstairs. All in all, a staid affair, midwinter, gray, like the snow outside—until Bob Dole showed up, with his wagon Roll-with-Doleing through the lobby, and the Bob-o-Links in red Roll-with-Dole skirts hammering at their ukulele, and twenty men and women all dressed up to Roll with Dole, descending in ranks down the Jayhawk’s grand staircase, singing:

  Everyone here

  Kindly step to the rear

  And let a winner lead the way! ...

  And then, there was a young man riding a Dole unicycle through the crowd; and a Russell farmer dressed in an elephant’s head; and eight pallbearers toting an open coffin, in which sat Frankenstein’s Monster, bearing a sign: YOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR WITH DOLE.

  People noticed.

  In fact, they talked about nothing else that day, save the young fellow from Russell (There he is! ... “Bob Dohhlll! Goodta meetcha!”) who had such a tough primary, against Sebelius—but, well ... looked like he might have a shot!

  To the other candidates at the Jayhawk, here was something to fear: Dole was a palpable energy force in that hotel. He was throwing himself at that crowd with such abandon, it was almost frantic. Bob Ellsworth saw Dole for the first time that day, and thought no other politician would have done that—maybe they couldn’t have. Dole was turning himself inside out.

  Of course, Sebelius wasn’t standing still. As commandant, he had a list of American Legion members, and he was using it for mailings ... almost drove Dole crazy, the unfairness: Bob was a Legion man! And Doran before him! Why shouldn’t Bob Dole have the list, too? He complained to the Legion. He argued that the bylaws prohibited help to any candidate. He threatened a legal challenge. He whined and wailed about this in the newspapers, in speeches. By the end of the campaign, the issue did Dole more good than any list.

  By the end, there would be other mailings, too. Kansas was teetotal country—home of Carry Nation. (Bob used to joke, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union was the only union that ever endorsed him.) ... So imagine the impact, when all those letters arrived, revealing that Sebelius was a lush!

  Keith’s own mother was a life member of the WCTU. She got a letter (with a Washington State postmark) that said her son was an alcoholic. She was in tears, and Keith was so enraged, he was close to crying, too. His mother had been a widow since Keith was six. He’d never do anything to disappoint her. Keith said to his wife, Bette: “If a guy wants an office this bad ... well, it just isn’t worth it.” Of course, he assumed it was Dole’s people doing the mailing.

  Dole denied that.

  Thing was, people knew Keith would take a drink—so it hurt him. No one could say how many votes it meant. All they could say was, in the end, some nine hundred votes separated Dole from Sebelius ... and that sent Bob to Washington.

  Anyway, Dole felt right away he had to make a splash! (Within two years his district would be combined with another—he’d have a Democrat incumbent as an opponent
and fifty-eight counties to cover.) ... So, before Bob and Phyllis settled into their rented house, off Lee Highway in suburban Virginia ... before Phyllis had time to unpack all the linens and dishes she’d brought from Russell in the U-Haul (Bob flew ahead—didn’t have time to drive) ... and after Bob saw his first inauguration (it snowed the night before—Bob slept in the office and went in a shirt he bought at Drugfair) ... after Bob set his office in the Cannon Building to cranking out mail, with the help of Wint Smith’s old AA and a couple of gals from Russell ... and as soon as he found his seat in the Ag Committee room and learned how to sprint from there to the floor ... right away, he was on a plane again—back to Kansas.

  In those days, the government paid for one or two trips home each year. Dole was back and forth every couple of weeks ... and he sent out his newsletter every month (edited that himself), and handled his own press ... and he was on the phone to Kansas every day, working his mail every night. He signed every letter himself. Most he dictated himself. And then, in careful lefty print, he’d write on the bottom—just a few words—or he’d send along a picture and he’d write on that. He sent Aunt Mildred a picture of himself, smiling on the Capitol steps, and wrote: “Finally made it. Lots of Democrats here.”

  Too many Democrats: they controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House.

  There were a couple of ways a GOP freshman could handle this. Bob Ellsworth worked on flood-control projects. Those bills would sail through, with the backing of the aged Democratic lions—Jamie Whitten from Mississippi, George Mahon from Texas. Ellsworth could just hang on for the ride, make sure his district got its share. Dole’s district didn’t care about flood control; ag was all, and Bob was fixated on the farm bill. But even on the Ag Committee, Dole wasn’t interested in playing ball. He was interested in showing that JFK, LBJ, and (the Ag Secretary) Orville Freeman—all those Democrats and their bureaucrats—were going to be the death of American farming, of American farmers, their families, and all that was good and holy wherever God caused wheat to sprout.