What It Takes

by Richard Ben Cramer

  But Joe didn’t know that. He was in Chicago, trying to do debate-prep. He had the issues staff flown out, and Ted Kaufman was there, and Gitenstein, and Donilon. Caddell flew in from California. He had to make sure the message stayed on track ... but Joe didn’t want Pat’s message. Joe didn’t want Kennedy quotes, or Martin Luther King lines ... it wasn’t working. “That’s not how you lead a generation, by talking about it—you just do it.”

  So Pat and Joe got into it at the hotel. And Joe started laying down the law about how he said things, in his words, how he had—what, Ted, how many?—two thousand tapes in his attic, every speech he’d ever made, and people were going to be listening to his tapes ... using his stuff, goddammit. ... All the fear and frustration of the last few days poured out on Caddell.

  There wasn’t much Pat could do, except take it, and make a little face, like Joe had it all wrong ...

  But that was a bad move—the worst. Because that was the same face Joe always saw Pat make, in the back of the room, when Joe was doing a speech. ... There were never press copies ready—not the way Joe worked on his speeches, until the last minute, until they were introducing him—but Pat would have a copy. And he’d stand at the back of the room and follow along until Joe changed something—said something his own way—and then Pat would start shaking his head, making that little prune-face, where all the reporters could see him ... hell, Joe could see him ... like Pat had fed this speech with a spoon to Biden, and now Joe was fucking it up!

  “Pat, that’s it ...” Joe said in Chicago. “You know what? I don’t want this crap. This is your story, not my story!

  “I don’t want you to come with me to Houston. I don’t even want you there. I got one day to get ready ... I’ll fuckin’ do it myself.”

  But Joe didn’t have a day. That’s when he got the call from Howard Baker. The meeting was on, ASAP—Meese and Baker would come to the Capitol, do a meeting with Dole, and Thurmond from the committee; then they’d meet with Byrd and Biden. When could Joe come? He’d have to charter a plane, hustle from the airport to the Capitol, maybe he could get home to sleep in Delaware. ... Anyway, that was the end of debate-prep.

  What he got instead was a Washington charade, a private meeting that half the nation’s press seemed to know about. Meese and Baker showed up with a list of candidates—a nice list, with women, even a Democrat—very reasonable. And Joe went down the list with them, marking off the ones he thought would be trouble. Bork would be trouble. That’s what he’d come to say. But this was like choosing sides after everybody knew what team they were on. The deal was down. There wasn’t going to be any fight in the White House. Only Joe didn’t know that. So he walked out and told the press that they’d had a fine meeting ... he hoped the President would name a candidate with an open mind ... someone who would not disrupt the balance on the court ... he thought there was a chance.

  It was only when he was back in the air, on his way to Houston for the big debate ... the bells went off again in Washington. Reagan had moved expeditiously. Not only had he named Robert Bork, but he’d named the confirmation of Robert Bork as his number-one domestic priority. It seemed Reagan was convinced: the Bork fight would show he was back in the saddle, it would give the revolution focus again, haul it out of the swamp of Iran-contra.

  Joe got the news in the airport again. That and the news the press was waiting. Every big-foot in the country had descended upon Houston and they wanted him ... now. What was he going to say?

  The answer was, not a goddam thing—not now. He had to have some time ... Christ! What the hell was wrong with this campaign? All those gurus, those smart guys, the head of the goddam White House Advance—and it’s Biden who has to tell them he’d like to have a room ... a few minutes to think!

  So he blew up at the Advance, and Vallely, and Rasky. Cancel the goddam press! He went to his hotel. He had a debate tonight. The first debate, nationwide TV! Game day! He had to think!

  But he never got a chance to think. There were conference calls all afternoon ... and he had to write some kind of statement. And he had to get to the hall early—press conference in the lobby with two hundred banshee reporters.

  Joe’d never had a press conference half that size. He’d never even seen a pack like that. He walked into the Houston convention center and thirty cameras swung around. The halogens pinned him. He stopped dead. He muttered through a frozen smile: “Holy shit ...”

  He only meant to say he had doubts about Bork ... but he’d keep an open mind, give the guy a fair shake, a fair hearing. Actually, what he meant to say that night was nothing at all—or as little as he could.

  But he couldn’t really blow off the press conference, or delay it for a day ... no more than he could hold off Bork ... no more than he could hold back the debate ... which went off that night, as scheduled. Biden seemed barely there. He never made a dent, couldn’t seem to connect. Dukakis, Gephardt—they both made points. But Joe looked like he’d dropped in from outer space. The fact was, he’d chucked Pat’s message one day before—and he didn’t have a new one. He didn’t have time to think up one line! On stage, his answers wandered, they went nowhere. His smile would jump up in the middle of a sentence, as if he’d thought of something funny but didn’t mean to share it. Tom Shales, the TV critic, wrote the next day, for The Washington Post:

  “Biden ... appears to be overadvised and suffering from excessive consultitis. Worse, he comes across on TV as someone whose fuse is always lit.

  “Unless we ditch television for the remainder of the campaign, Biden will never be President.”

  40

  Leadership!

  THE ONLY ONE WHO could have stopped it was the Bobster. When Baker and Meese came to the Capitol, the only “consultation” that could have derailed Bork was word from Bob Dole that he couldn’t find the votes.

  He could have warned them about a fight ... but they wanted a fight, to show they could still do something after Iran-contra. That was half of Dole’s dilemma—he didn’t want Iran-contra buried. Dole could hardly believe that the truth about Bush-in-that-soup hadn’t come out yet—somehow, between the Tower Commission and the Select Committee ... well, maybe it would now. The Senate committee had Ollie North on the stand next week.

  So Dole didn’t need another hurricane to blow Ollie’s testimony off the front page. ... He didn’t want a crisis that would rally the antiabortion nuts, the prayer-in-school nuts, the Uzi-under-the-bed nuts to the White House, to Reagan (and, by extension, Reagan-Bush).

  But that was the other half of Dole’s dilemma: with Bork as the darling of the Reagan right, Dole could not seem cool toward Judge Bork—nor even lukewarm. No! ... Bob Dole would have to lead the fight for the White House.

  That was the nub of Dole’s appeal, his claim to the Gipper’s mantle—and the Gipper’s voters. “When Ronald Reagan wants something done,” Dole would tell his crowds, “he doesn’t call George ... he calls Bob!

  “That’s leadership,” Dole would say. “Leadership’s when they give you the ball!”

  Bob Dole would have to carry the ball for Bork.

  When Ted Kennedy stood, within minutes of Bork’s nomination, to savage the man (“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors ...”), it was Dole who took the floor to defend him. Then he marched to his office to call Bork at the White House. “Well, you prob’ly heard, Ted Kennedy just attacked you—that’s a good sign. Course, I stood up and said you were a Great American, so—here we go. ... Well, keep your chin up!”

  For reporters, Dole had nothing but smiles and confidence: people who attacked Judge Bork were playing footsie with liberal interest groups. “Judge Bork will be confirmed—I think, overwhelmingly, once people get a chance to look at his record.” (In Dole’s view, Bork would be a shoo-in—if Dole could set up the fight as the learned judge ... against the gay-lesbian-affirmative-abor
tion-welfare-rights caucus.)

  It was only in Dole’s inner office, in his own car, or his own plane, that little comments started to leak, belying his cheerful Bork-boosting:

  “Agh, first thing that guy oughta do is shayyve ...”

  And only true students of Dole-code understood the new line that crept into his stump speech:

  “That’s leadership,” Dole would say. “Leadership’s when they give you the ball!

  “Sometimes, you don’t even want the ball ...”

  Thing was, Biden knew Dole could make it stick—poor Bob Bork, victim of the liberals!—unless Joe acted fast.

  That Ted Kennedy speech, slamming Bork—that was hot rhetoric, good TV, great politics ... for Kennedy. But Joe could think of three or four southern Democrats who’d have to be for Bork, if the contest came down to Bork v. Kennedy.

  Biden knew he could lose even more votes if the interest groups didn’t stop issuing threats. Hazel Dukes, New York State director of the NAACP, told reporters that Pat Moynihan had to vote against Bork—or she and her group would knock Moynihan out of office.

  Hell, they were threatening Biden: even before Bork was named, Estelle Rogers, director of the Federation of Women Lawyers, warned that Biden had better “take time from his busy schedule to exercise the kind of leadership we expect from the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

  “If he can’t,” said Ms. Rogers, “he’d be wise to think carefully about resigning the chairmanship.”

  That was the fastest way to make enemies in the Senate. Biden always thought the liberal groups were a pain in the ass. Now they were going to lose the battle before it started.

  One other thing Biden knew: Bob Dole would fight this out—right onto the floor. ... Alas, Biden knew from experience.

  In ’86, he was running his first floor fight on a nomination, on a forty-four-year-old Indiana right-winger, Daniel Manion, whom Reagan had nominated for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Manion (a pal and protégé of Senator Dan Quayle) was a John Birch sympathizer—his legal briefs were barely in English. Law school professors and deans lined up against him. The American Bar Association wouldn’t give him a clean endorsement. Then the Judiciary Committee voted the nomination out unfavorably.

  Biden had all the ammo he needed. He walked onto the floor, jingling change in his pocket, like a gunfighter looking for an insult. Game day! ... He had the votes. They told him he had the votes. In colloquy with Dole, across the aisle, Biden said, in effect: Let’s go! Let’s roll the dice!

  Senators were absent. Biden offered to let them pair up—one pro-Manion, to one anti-Manion—they’d cancel each other out.

  “Agghh! Now we’re talkin’ real turkey,” Dole said.

  Problem was, Biden wasn’t really sure who was pro-Manion. And he thought Slade Gorton was anti-Manion—when, in fact, Gorton had sold his vote for control of a judgeship in his own state.

  Anyway, Joe made them roll the dice ... and he lost. He lost by two votes. Dole knew where his votes were, and Biden didn’t. He fell on his face.

  His liberal friends were livid, crying foul about the pairings ... Dole was playing fast and loose!

  They weren’t any more livid than Biden. It was the civil rights groups that told him he had the votes in the first place. He never should have listened to them—should have taken care of business himself!

  Biden knew, that day in 1986, he would never let the groups lead a fight for him again. ... Just as he knew, the minute the Bork nomination hit, he had to get them off his back.

  So he and the staff made a plan, a careful choreography of Biden’s first day back in the Senate: Joe had to get control—establish the fairness of the process, and cool the rhetoric until the time was right.

  Ten A.M., he’d meet with Bork, and assure him there’d be punctiliously fair committee hearings. Biden would maintain his two-step strategic position: he had “doubts” about Bork ... but he would keep an open mind.

  Next, he’d convene his panel of experts—Phil Kurland from Chicago, Walter Dellinger from Duke, Ken Bass (a former clerk to Justice Hugo Black), and Clark Clifford, the big-foot of Washington lawyers. Biden wanted their help to make his case for opposition, in one grand speech before the hearings in September.

  Then, twelve-thirty, he’d meet with leaders of the civil rights groups. His agenda was short and direct: he wanted them to back off and let him make the move on Bork. If they wanted to help, they could sing from his prayer book. If not, they could just shut up.

  But by the time he rolled into the leaders’ meeting—almost an hour late—he was whistling with pent-up steam. There were nabobs from a half-dozen major liberal and minority lobbies: the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Women’s Legal Defense Fund, and People for the American Way. Biden started talking fast.

  He meant to speak bluntly and confidentially, he said. He wanted them to know, they should stop whining about his devoting time to Bork. He would spend whatever time was required—even if it meant the end of his campaign.

  Then he told them he would decide the strategy—it wasn’t going to be a single-issue campaign. That was a shot across the women’s bow, to let them know they could lose this fight (and lose him) if they made this a vote on abortion.

  Well, that part worked fine. The feminist rep, Judy Lichtman, assured him she knew they couldn’t fight Bork solely on abortion. Ralph Neas, from the Leadership Conference, said no one doubted Biden’s commitment ... they just wanted to discuss the timing of the hearings.

  So Biden discussed timing. And he could have left it there. In fact, he meant to ... but he wanted them to know him. He wanted them to feel the connect, before he left that room.

  “Look, I’m gonna lead this fight—but you guys ...”

  And that was the critical mistake.

  Within minutes, Biden was gone, he’d run off to a meeting with his Democratic committee colleagues.

  But within hours, The New York Times was calling. Ken Noble, the reporter, wanted to know why Biden had said he’d keep an open mind—and then promised the civil rights groups that he’d “lead the fight against Bork.”

  Pete Smith, the committee’s Press Secretary, got Biden on the phone—had to track him down in the gym. This was serious. “Uh, Senator, I think we have a problem ...”

  Biden didn’t see why he should tell the Times anything.

  Smith said they ought to draft a statement “to, uhnnn, bridge the two realities of those statements.”

  “Okay,” Biden said.

  So Smith issued a statement that Biden was planning to lead the fight—but hadn’t meant to make that known until after he’d crafted a major set of speeches to set forth the case against Bork.

  Well, that bridged the realities ... but also left the impression that Biden had blithely lied to the world—and told the truth only when pressured by the liberal interest groups.

  It also ended his two-step strategy.

  He was committed.

  BANGO!

  Joe had bought himself a fight.

  41

  The River of Power

  THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE another meeting on the porch of the big house in Wilmington, another session to figure out how to beat Bork. But Joe could not see the way, couldn’t see a thing—he was too depressed.

  “We fucked it up ...” He must have said that five times. What he meant was, he’d fucked it up.

  It wasn’t that he’d messed up by coming down against Bork. He’d learned plenty about Bork in two weeks—and he didn’t like what he’d heard. Anyway, politically, Joe had no choice: women, blacks, liberals of all stripes—they were going to the mattresses. One trip to Iowa, you’d have to be insensate to think any Democrat was going to be for Bork.

  And it wasn’t that he’d messed up by deciding he’d have to lead the fight. Hell, it was his committee! If he left it to Kennedy, with his rhetoric—the women in the alleys with th
eir coat hangers—the fight was lost. That Teddy-firebrand stuff would lose every southerner, every Republican vote in the Senate. They wouldn’t even have the votes to hold off cloture. They couldn’t even talk Bork to death.

  No, Joe had to do it, and do it without the interest groups. That’s how he’d screwed up. He’d talked to the groups ... and it leaked out that he’d make the fight. Like he promised them! Like he was their tool! Jesus!

  “I made one big mistake,” Biden said on the porch.

  “Yeah, but Joe ...” The guys were there to reassure him. But Biden was still talking:

  “And it’s probably fatal ... the biggest mistake of my political career. You know, I didn’t just screw up the campaign. It’s my whole Senate career. It’s over.”

  “Jesus, Joe!”

  They’d never seen him like this, with the wind out so completely. He was curled into the white wicker, shrinking in his seat. He had his eyes turned away, toward the lawn, the fountain ... it never worked. He would have fixed the goddam fountain, but he was going to move. He had that house. Beautiful deal! He shoulda bought the damn house ... but no ... he had to run. He wiggled out of the closing on the new house two weeks ago, just before Bork.