What It Takes

by Richard Ben Cramer

  See, when people found out about Bork, they turned against him—fifty-one percent by the end of the polling ... but why? That’s where Caddell was a genius: he could find that single brick in the wall—pull it, the whole thing comes down in a heap.

  “Lookit this: white southerners—that’s the key, what every southern Senator has gotta watch. Look: seventy-one percent of white southerners are less inclined to support Bork when they find out he does not believe the Constitution guarantees a right to privacy.

  “Who do moderate Republicans watch? Women under forty. ... Privacy is the second most powerful argument against Bork for women under forty. For southern whites, it’s Number One ...”

  That was the first day anybody heard Joe say, aloud, he might win this Bork thing. He just mentioned to Tribe, in passing, that if they could show this stuff, well ... people wouldn’t be for this guy.

  For Caddell, Bork was history:

  “Oh, we’re gonna win this. I’m past that. That’s done! I’m talking about taking back the country. This nomination is the end of the Reagan revolution. Don’t you understand? This is the end of conservative intimidation! Over—gone! This is the end for them!”

  The way Pat saw it—Chrissake, he’d been saying this since ’84—if you push the right-wing social agenda hard enough, the whole Reagan coalition falls apart. There’s no way all those Reagan Democrats want the Moral Majority fucking around with their lives. And Bork was just the maul to split the tree trunk—if Joe hit it hard.

  That’s why Biden was climbing in Iowa. They had the link now ... lookit this:

  Mike Donilon, Tom’s brother, worked for Caddell, and he had a new poll from Iowa: Biden in double digits! Before the hearings!

  Marttila said: “You’re going to be the front-runner by October. ... If you win Bork, you’ve got the nomination.”

  Joe wasn’t so sure. He didn’t know what moved the numbers in Iowa ... didn’t know what message they had that was working. Chrissake, he didn’t know what he was going to say tomorrow.

  That debate! Shit! He’d have to write on the plane.

  But he got off the plane without a closing statement. David Wilhelm, his Iowa man, met him at the airport. “How you doin’, boss?”

  “Doin’ great,” Joe said, “but I don’t have a close.”

  “Why’n’cha use the platform stuff? It’s working great.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

  Joe asked Ruthie for paper the minute he got into the van. He knew that stuff from the Kinnock tape like a song in his head ... he started writing it down, without hitch or pause:

  Why is it that I am the first in my family ever to go to a university?

  He’d done it four or five times: “You know, I saw a speech by the British Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock, and he said something that I think is important ...”

  It worked great for Biden—without fail—because he felt it.

  Why is my wife, Jill, the first of her family ever to go to college? Is it because our fathers and our mothers were not BRIGHT? ...

  He’d almost written it through by the time they got to the Savery Hotel—fifteen minutes for makeup. This debate would be on TV—PBS, all over the country ... the big-foot press in Des Moines for the day. This could be big—this could be the moment. Joe kept running through the lines in his head, reading through the close, fiddling a word out, here and there, to make the words dance on the ear. He was acutely aware, he only had two minutes.

  Is it because I was smarter than the rest? ...

  Those people who read and wrote poetry, who taught me how to sing verse? ...

  “Ruthie, gimme couple Tylenols, will you?”

  Joe thought, surely, this was the message that could move Iowa. He could make them feel this ... because this was him. He was thinking in the van, on the way to the fairgrounds: this is what he was—not some sixties campus radical with a broken heart from Vietnam ... no. That was Pat, maybe ... but Joe Biden was a middle-class kid who’d got a little help along the way—a chance, a platform to stand on ... and that’s what this country had to hold on to.

  “You okay?” Jill asked him in the van.

  “Yeah, good. I think I got it.”

  And when he did it that day, in the old debate hall, he had it—he took that crowd up, up ... it was splendid!

  “I started thinking, as I was coming over here ... why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? ...”

  Joe locked his eyes on the crowd, and he could feel it—like they bent an inch forward in their seats. He had them.

  “Is it because they didn’t work hard? ...

  “My ancestors, who worked in the coal mines of northeast Pennsylvania, and would come up, after twelve hours ... and play football for four hours? ...”

  Joe’s fist clenched as he leaned in toward the crowd, the cameras:

  “No ... it’s not because they weren’t as smart ... it’s not because they didn’t work as hard ... it’s because they didn’t have a platform upon which to stand. ...”

  The place was absolutely quiet—not a sound. Not one person even moved in a seat! ... In fact, no one in the state of Iowa seemed to notice that Joe never mentioned ... this was what Kinnock said.

  It was only in Washington, in front of the TV, the gurus looked at each other. Someone had to tell Biden ... he’d better credit this stuff, or he’d get his ass in trouble.

  But, of course, no one could tell Joe at that moment. He was still locked on the crowd, had to feel them ... feel it hit. ... What Joe saw was that lady in front, watching him, with her face twisted up, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  48

  Six-Seven-One

  IN THE BACK OF the hall, Liz Kincaid felt so blue. She knew Dick had to do well that day ... and Gephardt had a lousy debate. His closing speech was rambly, didn’t seem to make any difference. ... And Biden was spellbinding! She couldn’t take her eyes off the man. She’d tell her husband, Kasey, that night: Biden had the closing of his life—all about his ancestors, in the coal mines. ... She was almost in tears!

  But that’s the way she felt about the whole campaign that day. Liz had poured her heart into Gephardt’s campaign. Liz and Kasey had been volunteers since last year. They used to joke with their friends: they were GBMQ—Gephardt Before Mario Quit. They were committed, yes, but more than that: they liked Gephardt, they cared for him.

  They’d been with Hart in ’84, but this time, they wanted a personal connection ... and somehow, they sensed, Hart wasn’t willing. That wasn’t what it was about, for him. Anyway, this time, when he was so far ahead, his campaign didn’t have that bravery, romance. ... So they talked to Joe Biden, or rather, Biden talked to them. Liz thought he was Hart-in-reverse. He never talked about ideas. But he came at them so hard, so close, so quick ... well, it made her back off. He was so come-on! (One time, she saw him kneel and kiss a woman’s hand! I mean, come on!)

  Dick didn’t presume. Liz always said she had a peaceful feeling about him—she knew things would change for the better if he won—ever since she met him for the second time, and he walked up to her: “Liz! Great to see you!” (She told him later how impressed she was—he remembered her name—and Dick just laughed. “I knew who you were for a long time.”) But that was only the start: it was after that, the Kincaids used their vacations to work for Dick, and came to know how he was, how he listened ... they knew, the Gephardts were people like them, who worried about their worries—paying the bills, schools for the kids ... they knew Dick came from hardworking folks, that he meant to give people a chance, give kids in this country the same chance he’d had ... and they saw how hard Dick tried, how he believed there was nothing people couldn’t do, if they’d set their minds to it. In short, they came to love him ... and that’s what made it so awful.

  Because it wasn’t just his closing ... it was signs—there were no Gephardt signs in the hall. And every other candidate had people at the fair, to hand out literature, or
balloons ... but where were Dick’s people? It was like the lists she’d been waiting for, for months—lists of Democrats, people to call, work to hand out to volunteers. How could you know what to do without the lists? ... She spotted people from the office, and asked, point-blank: What about signs, balloons? What about supporters to cheer for Dick? Where are our lists? ... Everybody blamed somebody else.

  That’s why she talked to Jane—or talked to Jane the way she did. Jane was about to leave, probably asked just to be nice: “How’s it going?”

  Liz knew she wasn’t supposed to bother the candidate ... but she said: “You really want to know?”

  “Yes!”

  “We can’t even get the lists!” And she was almost in tears again, as she loosed upon Jane her tale of woe.

  Jane said: “I’ll talk to Dick.”

  Just now, no one could talk to Dick—except Ed Campbell. When Ed talked, no one else talked. Ed, the former Party Chair, was not too tall, and bald ... but not bald with a wimpy Mr. Whipple rim of hair around the bottom, no—hairless. And his head shone, bulging like a Schwarzenegger bicep ... like his eyes bulged when he was pissed off—which he was.

  He rode out with Dick after the debate, to tell Gephardt to get the lead out ... or he was finished. Ed knew Iowa ... and he told Dick: people were making their minds up—NOW. Babbitt was on the air with ads. Dukakis was pulling even with Dick (after that stupid goddam debate!), Biden was moving—why didn’t Dick do something?

  “I understand,” Dick said.

  But Ed was still talking. He wanted commercials on the air, NOW. “By Thanksgiving, it’s over! Understand?”

  Dick said he did understand, but his campaign professionals had decided to hold off on TV—save the money—till the end. ...

  Ed opined that Dick’s professionals had their heads up their asses. Where the hell were his professionals at this debate? There were no Gephardt supporters. There were no Gephardt workers. There weren’t even any damned signs!

  Ed didn’t have to tell Dick about signs. In St. Louis, Gephardt could call a race, within three percent, just by counting lawn signs.

  “I know,” he said. “I understand. You help me, I’m gonna fix it, just give me time.”

  “There IS NO TIME! ... What’s your hard count?”

  Dick stared ahead, at the windshield: “Uh ... I don’t know.”

  Half of Dick’s killers figured their Iowa chief, Fleming, must be a wily old fox: never tell the candidate where he stands—just cry the blues and beg for money. Oh, they knew the game! ... The other half gave up asking for the hard count: it was easy enough to figure.

  The rule of thumb was a hundred thousand voters would go to the Democratic caucus February 8. Thirty percent, thirty thousand souls, would make Dick a winner ... right now, the polls had him at about fifteen percent ... so maybe he had fifteen thousand—call it twelve, just to be safe. Of course, the true scientists-of-Iowa maintained that your hard count was always higher than your actual vote, because people lose interest, or their kid starts throwing up so they never get to their caucus, or they get a ride with their neighbor, who convinces them that Simon’s the guy ... or they tell your phone bank they’re for Dick, just so their dinner won’t get cold.

  There was more-or-less continuous discussion of the factors ... which was why it was so important to get the list ... the people’s names and numbers, so they could be tied down—lock and load! ... That’s why David Doak bestirred himself, at last, from his Georgetown office, to field work—he’d fly to Iowa and get the damn count. Doak had run field for Jimmy Carter in Iowa. No wool would shield the truth from his eyes ... no.

  But he couldn’t get the count. What he got, by the time he returned to D.C., was a furrow in his forehead and a quaver to his voice, as he mused: “Maybe things have changed ... I haven’t done this for a long time ... but I didn’t see any, uh ... people.”

  He meant people for Dick.

  Then Dick’s fellow members of the House started coming back from Iowa. They’d popped out there to help, during the August recess. And one by one, they reported to him. “Well, I read about your army out there, Dick, but ... Cedar Rapids, I hadda take a cab. There was no one at the office!”

  That’s when Liz Kincaid got the call: “Liz? Hi! This is Dick Gephardt.”

  “Sure, it is.”

  “No, it is!”

  “Dick?”

  “Yeah, I just thought I’d call, uh, see how it’s going ...”

  That was about the same time Dick got the hard count.

  Six-seven-one.

  “Shit. Six thousand ...”

  “Six hundred ... and seventy-one.”

  SIX HUNDRED! He couldn’t believe it. He’d baby-sat for more Iowans than that. What was going ON? If he didn’t score in Iowa ... it was over! What was he doing wrong? How could he be so wrong? ... And that office—that staff—all those salaries! ... He was stewing when he got home that night, home to the woods of Virginia—God! His summer in Iowa was gone—squandered!

  Dick said: “What are they doing with the time?”

  Jane said: “They’re eating pizza.”

  49

  The Secret Weapon

  IT WAS ELIZABETH WHO started to tell the story that summer. She was doing fund-raisers, two or three a week, and at first her ambitions were modest. But then she raised fifty thousand in one night in Dallas. ... After that, she was tougher to please.

  She set a goal—in an organized way, like she did everything—and made a schedule with Dave Owen, Dole’s top money man. Weekends, evenings, after work at the Transportation Department, she would fly anywhere in the country. She was going to raise one million dollars for Bob.

  Of course, you wouldn’t hear much about that from Dole. The feedback from Bob was secondhand—a comment to Owen from Jo-Anne Coe, the drill sergeant in the Leader’s office:

  “Yeah, Senator was wondering what all that money for planes was about.”

  Like Dole thought they were wasting time—and his money. That’s why word came from Jo-Anne. Bob wouldn’t say that sort of thing to your face. So Elizabeth just worked harder, tried to get more money.

  This came naturally to her. She was always telling people how Bob amazed her—all he’d done, how much he knew, the way he held himself to such a standard. She was sure people didn’t understand him—thought he was mean, for example, when she knew how he could hurt like a boy.

  They couldn’t see him—or her, for that matter. They wrote how she was angling for Vice President, or President, herself ... the politics of Liddy Dole ... there were none. She was the highest-ranking woman in the Reagan administration, her name popped up in every piece of punditry about female candidates for the GOP ... but she had no instinct for electoral politics.

  Owen knew—he went back with the Doles. Dave Owen was a former Kansas Lieutenant Governor, an Olathe boy who’d done well for himself in Kansas City. He’d been helping Bob Dole since Dole first ran statewide in ’68. ... Elizabeth he’d known since she married Bob, in 1975. He knew how she did things ... by the numbers: every detail worked over till it shone, till it—till Mrs. Dole, herself, sparkled with intelligence and charm.

  That was Elizabeth’s one-two punch. She was not just Phi Beta Kappa at Duke. She was also May Queen. And it was the same skill that won her both honors, the same absolute insistence on preparedness—be it in Latin or lipstick. It was the same devotion that took her through Harvard Law, through a succession of government posts, to her current Cabinet rank—high pressure and power at the old boys’ table. She’d won it her own way—no politics about it. With Mrs. Dole, it was always ... personal perfection.

  Everything she did was programmed for control. She was a flawless administrator, never caught unprepared on her budget, or any report to Congress. She always had a grasp of where her projects stood because she scheduled follow-ups—every week—with the persons in charge. If she had a luncheon speech for a Congressman in Michigan, she scheduled time to study his résum�
�, so she could mention his sixty-four-percent reelection victory and praise his crucial work on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee. If she had a local TV interview, she was certain to learn in advance the anchorwoman’s name ... just as she was certain that her nail polish complemented her suit jacket ... just as she was certain to raise her chin as she looked to the camera, to erase any unprepossessing thickness under the jaw.

  So, that’s how they did these funders—by the numbers. Owen would set up the events, then go with Elizabeth to every one. He’d speak first, give an overview of the campaign, the money raised, the hopeful polls ... then wind up with how great it was to have their secret weapon—Elizabeth Hanford Dole—who was capable of being President herself!

  She loved that. She’d step to the microphone, glowing, with a chuckle of dismay (Oh, that Dave! How he does go on!), and deliver her remarks about Bob.

  “Bob is a man who’s been TESTED ... and Ah believe that Bob’s colleagues, electing him to be their MAJORITY LEADER in the U.S. Senate, RECOGNIZED what Ah’d watched with AWE ...” (That word always sounded like OWW!)

  “... And that is his ability to master the complexities of very TOUGH ISSUES, to use a keen, creative mind to WORK EFFECTIVELY with his colleagues in the Senate, to hammer out a solution to a TOUGH PROBLEM, even if it takes months to do it, or scores of meetings, and then to form that all-important COALITION ...”

  The lines were always the same. Solutions were “hammered out,” and coalitions were “all-important.” Once she got a line right, she could chuckle in the same place, smile to the front row with the same sudden pleasure, stress a key word with the same rise of voice ... you could just about see the key words on an outline somewhere.

  In fact, that’s how it started—an outline that Owen wrote out on one yellow legal-pad sheet. ... “You ask me,” Owen said, “the bottom line is the war record. The punch line is that Bob Dole crawled out of a foxhole, grabbed his buddy under fire, and that’s how he got shot. You know, that needs to be in your story.”