What It Takes

by Richard Ben Cramer

  Then, the unthinkable happened: with a vicious, attacking campaign, a south Texas Democrat, a businessman (and former Rep) named Lloyd Bentsen ... came out of nowhere (actually, he came out of Connally’s hip pocket) ... and took the senior Senator down. Yarborough lost his primary. George Bush lost his target.

  Now it was Bush against Bentsen—and all of Bush’s plans were air. George tried to tell folks it was fine—this would be easier—but even his friends couldn’t see it. Bentsen was conservative—just like Bush, when you got down to it—and tough (he proved that against old Ralph). Bentsen could play the veteran card (he was a pilot in the war, too) and the business card (he’d made more of a pile than Bush). He had the same Congressional experience as Bush. He was just as nasty on Crime ’n’ Commies, a practiced south Texas hand with the Mexicans, a Democrat Texans could live with. ... So, here came Lyndon’s pals from the Perdenales ... and here came that greazy John Connally on the tube, making ads for Bentsen ... here came all the courthouse Dems, the yellow-dog Dems, and the better-dead-than-red Dems. Bentsen brought them all back from the grave. Worse still, here came a ballot issue to allow sale of liquor by the drink. So thousands of rural Baptists would turn out against demon rum ... and on the way, they’d likely vote the standard Democrat ticket.

  And Bush? Well, he had the Republicans—but there still weren’t many of those. (The electorate was at least four-to-one Democratic). ... He had his friends in business, his constituents in Houston. ... His manager, Marvin Collins, tried to cook a deal with the liberal Democrats (who hated Bentsen for what he’d done to Yarborough), and he nurtured a noisy group of Democrats for Bush. ... Bush still had high hopes for the Negro vote. He’d gone to the wall for those people!

  That was half the problem. Everybody knew about his open-housing vote—Bentsen made sure of that. And about that time Bush had voted for the Yeww Ennn! Bentsen brought that up, too. ... In fact, Bentsen ran close enough to the right-field wall, there was no way Bush could get outside of him. ... Bush was the, uh, lib-rull!

  Still, Bush was sure he could pull it out. People liked him! He had so many friends! He was working so hard! ... Bush still thought he could cast the race as the Democratic past against the future. “We’re on the threshold,” he’d scream in every speech, “of a new de-cade!” (No one had the heart to tell him that Texans didn’t accent that second syllable. He was working so hard—they didn’t want to hurt him.) ... If he could just show he was that future, that vigor, that youth. (With those kids rounded up by his Youth Coordinator, Rob Mosbacher, and Junior Bush, who’d cut away, when he could, from his National Guard flight training, the Bush campaign had the look of a Scout trip.) ... If Bush could show, somehow, that Bentsen was just another page from the past ...

  But that was the other half of the problem: Bentsen didn’t seem to have any past—not like Yarborough, not a past they could use. They dug up Bentsen’s votes from Congress, but that was stuff from the forties, no one would give a damn. Oh, there was one guy came in with a tip—said it would finish Bentsen. Bush sent Aleene to the Ag Department in Washington. She sat there all day, writing down the information (with a couple of department lawyers at her elbow, clucking about how she might embarrass a former Secretary—most unfortunate!). ... But when she brought the poop to Bush, he read the file and just shook his head: he wasn’t going to be that way about politics. No, he could only be what he was.

  That’s how the problems started with Nixon. The President got it into his mind that George Bush would not go for the kill. ... Nixon sent money—more than a hundred thousand dollars from one of his illegal slush funds ... but Bush wouldn’t use it to take Bentsen down. The White House offered to send Tricia Nixon, David Eisenhower ... or surrogates who’d throw red meat to the press—bring in the tough guys. How about that Bob Dole? ... Or Spiggy Agnew? ...

  Bush didn’t want them ... but when it got to Agnew, he could not say no: the Vice President of the United States! So Agnew came, and then Nixon himself. How could Bush say no to the President? ... And in the last days of the campaign, both made blistering partisan speeches—wiped out any hope Bush had with Democrats.

  On election night, family and friends gathered at the old Shamrock Hotel. Bush knew it would be tight—his last polls showed the race even. But he knew he could win—good things happen to good people. He had to believe. The family was in a suite—upstairs from the big ballroom, with the band, balloons, and streamers. George and Bar were on a couch: his arms around Doro and Marvin, Bar holding Neil and Jebbie. They turned on the TV, and ... it was over. Twelve minutes into the broadcast—after two years of work (seven years, since he started for that seat)—Walter Cronkite said his computers called the race for Bentsen. Doro started crying. Marvin Bush started crying. George Bush hugged them, told them it would be all right. Neil and Jebbie cried in Bar’s arms. The friends started crying. Aleene was sobbing. Sarah Gee started cursing the nuts. Nancy Crouch said she was through with politics. Marvin Collins felt like he’d been hit by a car. He went off to Junior Bush’s apartment, and those two stayed teary till they were too blotto to care.

  The one who didn’t cry was George Bush. He went around the suite, telling everyone what a great job they’d done. Then he was on the phone. “Well,” he’d say, “back to the drawing board.” Downstairs, in the ballroom, he conceded, then stayed for an hour, answering anything the press had to ask. Then he was back on the phone ... all night. At 5:00 A.M., he pulled out a list—hundreds of people he wanted to thank, and he started from the top. He’d be on the phone for sixteen hours straight. Bar couldn’t sit there and watch—couldn’t bear that, couldn’t chip in, brightly, like she had in ’64: “Well, there’ll be another time.” ... No, 1970 was different. George Bush had run for the Senate twice, and lost—could there be another time? She went off with her girlfriends to the club: a tennis game, her doubles ... but she was standing at the net and kept thinking of George, on his phone, trying to cheer people, telling them they’d done so well ... and her eyes blurred with tears and she couldn’t even see the ball ... she felt the hand of a friend on her shoulder, and a voice:

  “Oh, the hell with this. Bar. Let’s go in and have a martini.”

  So they did. They may have had several.

  56

  1972

  IT WAS DIFFERENT FOR Dole in the Senate. Harder, in some ways. Not that he’d complain. He’d made it past ... well, he never would have thought of himself in company with Calhoun, Clay ... Daniel Webster! Dole felt he’d climbed higher than he ever had any right to dream.

  No wonder he didn’t have—couldn’t have—the same ease that made him popular in the House ... holding court at the snack bar in the House cloakroom (must have eaten five thousand of those Nutty Buddy ice-cream cones), wise-cracking with Helen behind the counter, making jokes about the members who were sprawled (some asnore) on the couches ... you wouldn’t see that in the Senate. It was so formal, the gentleman’s club.

  Dole didn’t say a word on the floor for months. He didn’t open his mouth ... until April 14 of his first year: that was the anniversary of the day he was shot, a quarter-century past—on that day. Dole made his maiden speech, a plea for housing for the handicapped.

  But once he started, he was hard to shut up.

  The issue with Dole was the Vietnam War. That was an issue for everyone, of course, but Dole took it personally. Like the Democrats were trying to stick him with that failure, that suffering, those body bags. His Party hadn’t started that war!

  Dole had always backed the White House on Vietnam, but in a quiet way (House Republicans didn’t have any choice—they were quiet). But this was different: a different forum for Dole—everything he said made news; a different climate on the war—moratorium marches filling the Mall, and the jails. Most of all, a different White House.

  Dole had such respect for Richard Nixon, it was near reverence. Nixon had come to Kansas to campaign for Dole in ’66. Dole would never forget their talk—how Nixon said the G
OP would make stunning gains in the House that fall. The Party was flat on its back after Goldwater ... but Nixon called it—within two or three seats! Dole had never seen anyone who knew politics like Nixon: he had the whole country at instant command in his head.

  But it was more than that. In Nixon, Dole saw a man who’d been knocked down by life. But he was too tough to stay down. He started in a dusty California farm town ... times were bad: story was, the family made it through the week eating ketchup. That meant something to Dole ... and to Nixon, who never forgot where he’d come from ... who could not forget that he never grew up with the world on his side—like, for instance, a Kennedy. ... Dole understood, very well.

  He saw strength in Nixon, and nobility: Dole mentioned once that Nixon was the only one in Washington who stuck out his left hand to shake with Dole. The only one.

  So, in the Senate, Bob Dole was The One for Nixon. Dole let nothing pass, no remark against the President, or his administration. They weren’t going to get away with that while Bob Dole was on the Senate floor.

  And he was on the floor, more and more. Dole thought he saw the lay of the land: no first-termer could make hay in committee, not in the Ag Committee, not the most junior member of the Senate’s minority Party ... but on the floor, it was wide open! Hell, half the time you could shoot off a cannon and not endanger one Republican life. ... So Dole made the Senate floor his preserve, his patrol.

  Democrats were his targets. Dole never ceased to remind them: it was their Party got us into Vietnam—another Democrat war! ... Richard Nixon (with his “Vietnamization”) was only trying to clean up their mess! ... With his prairie voice rasping resentment and scorn, Dole called the antiwar Senators “a Who’s Who of has-beens, would-bes, professional second-guessers, and apologists for the policies which led us into this tragic conflict in the first place.”

  Dole accused Ted Kennedy (his favorite target) of “the meanest and most offensive sort of political distortion.” ... Meanwhile, Dole accused Democrats of “parroting the propaganda of a communist enemy.”

  Well ... the Kansas GOP hadn’t sent him to compete for Miss Congeniality.

  In some ways, he was tougher on his GOP colleagues. He wouldn’t just answer them on the floor—he’d argue in the cloakroom! Demand to know what got into them. He couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t stand up for the President—the Commander in Chief. Some of them were ducking and dodging on the war ... some who called themselves leaders were just as bad as the Democrats!

  Hugh Scott, who ran for Minority Leader (when Dirksen died, in ’69)—there was a perfect example. Scott was an old windbag from Philadelphia (he came to Congress before Dole even got his first bus ride from the Army) ... he was one of those eastern Rockefeller gents who never failed to get under Dole’s skin. Scott was kissing up to the other side, spreading balm, playing the game.

  This was no game, to Dole.

  When a Young Turk named Howard Baker—a Tennessean, just two years Bob’s senior in the Senate—challenged Scott for the Leader’s job (Baker promised a more active, partisan attack), Dole backed him. Bob was out front for Baker!

  That made an enemy of Scott, who won.

  When Scott (and some other statesmen of the GOP—Dole could name them all) would not stand up for the President and his High Court nominee, Clement Haynesworth, Dole saw his duty: he took the floor. He accused Haynesworth’s opponents of toadying to the liberal lobby. When they mentioned their duty to advise and consent, when they cited the Constitution, Dole stood up to retort: “It talks about rights in the Constitution—not about special-interest groups.”

  Well, he got noticed. ... He was making hay, wasn’t he? ... First year in the Senate, he got ink by the barrel. (“Agh, pretty good! Front payyge!”)

  But in the Senate, there was a thin line between notice and notoriety. When someone asked Bill Saxbe, Republican of Ohio, to react to the latest broadside from Dole, Saxbe shrugged it off:

  “Aw, Dole’s just a hatchet man. ... He’s so unpopular, he couldn’t peddle beer on a troopship.”

  Dole was stung—stunned, more like it. Of course, he knew it all came from Scott. When Scott farted, Saxbe stunk, but ... hatchet man? Is that what they thought?

  He said to his old House colleague, Bob Ellsworth, “And these are my friends?”

  Ellsworth had Dole’s thorough respect. They’d come to Congress together, in 1961. After ’66, when Ellsworth lost his bid for the Senate, he ended up working for Nixon as National Political Director—to Dole, an awesome credential. He used to say: “Ellsworth’s smarter than the rest of us put together.”

  Now Ellsworth said to Dole: “Don’t worry about them, Bob ...”

  Ellsworth thought Dole’s problems came from being too hard-edged, too frantic. He only had to calm down.

  “The shrubs are always attacking the roots of the oak,” Ellsworth said. “They can’t stand its being so tall and strong.”

  Well, Dole would stand his ground—tall and strong. He wasn’t going to slink away to some corner, his tail between his legs, no. Sometimes you had to be tough!

  The President understood! From time to time, in his second year, Dole would arrive at his office to find an envelope—from the White House! With a red tag—“Urgent!” Inside, there’d be a statement for Dole to read on the floor, a speech for the President. Dole would head for the chamber.

  Then, too—more rarely—he was summoned to The Presence. The staff would buzz with the news all day. “Senator’s going to the White House! ... Dole’s been invited by the President! ...” This was heady business—though Dole tried not to show that.

  One day, he did announce to his staff that next time, he would challenge Hugh Scott for the Leader’s job.

  “Senator, you can’t do that.”

  “Why not? Jerry Ford did it in the House.”

  “But Senate’s different—you gotta take some time, earn your way in.”

  “How do you do that?”

  “Well, you know, Scott was already Party Chairman.”

  “Yeah ... how do you go for Party Chairman?”

  Turned out, you went by way of the White House—just the route Dole’s duty had paved. There was talk that Rogers Morton would soon step out of the top Party job. Nixon’s men wanted a kick-ass team for ’72 ... they needed someone who would stand up for the President.

  John Mitchell told Dole in the first days of 1971: the job would be his—Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

  Dole was moving fast, going national! (Who could tell what might happen now? Nixon might even get tired of dragging Agnew behind him!) ... Dole told the good news to friends in Kansas, in Congress. ... That’s when Hugh Scott found out.

  Scott protested to the White House, and within hours, other Senators weighed in, talking Dole down. (Publicly, Scott contended the job was too big for a sitting Senator—in private, he called Dole’s selection a personal affront.)

  H.R. Haldeman, the Chief of Staff, called Dole the next day, from San Clemente:

  So sorry, Haldeman said. The President had changed his mind.

  Dole was ashamed, enraged. How could they treat him like that? After his loyalty! ... Did they expect him to go down without a fight? He found out that Nixon’s palace guard was planning to install Tom Evans, from Delaware—an eastern money man! That night, Dole told his Big Guy friend Bryce Harlow: if that’s how Nixon’s men meant to treat him ... well, he didn’t think he’d even stay in the Senate. Harlow told him to forget that whine ... then he brokered a deal: Dole would get the chairman’s job, but the White House would name Evans cochairman at the same time.

  Dole refused.

  If they had to have Evans, Dole would make the appointment. ... There could be only one chairman!

  Till 3:00 A.M., Dole hung tough. (“They’re not gonna do this to me!”) ... In the end, he had to appoint two cochairs—Evans and Anne Armstrong, from Texas ... but he won! Well—didn’t he?

  Bob Dole got the chairman’s job.r />
  He’d have a big press conference (biggest of his life!) to announce the glad news. ... He was on the move!

  What a shame, it left such a sour taste.

  57

  Phyllis

  DOLE GOT THE BIG OFFICE on the top floor on First Street—the one with the grand desk, that huge map behind ... (“Heyy! Nice digs!”) but his job was not to sit in the office.

  He started crisscrossing the country, rallying for ’72, raising money, trying to broaden the Party at its base. From the chairman’s pulpit, Dole meant to open the Party to groups long-ignored: farmers, blue-collar ethnics ... blacks, Mexicans, Asians ... he never lost a chance to remind a crowd that his, theirs, was the Party of Lincoln, liberty, emancipation.

  He never lost a chance at a crowd. Dole was determined to show his critics—show everyone—that he could carry his Senate load (he still never missed a roll call) and show up in every corner of the country to build the Party and its hopes for ’72. Now, for the first time, a car came to fetch him, idling at the base of the Capitol steps as the Senate finished business for the afternoon ... a jet was waiting at the airport ... Advance men were waiting at another airport one or two thousand miles to the west. If Dole could pick up a time zone or two on his way to the dinner, the funder, the rally ... he might have time for a press conference, too—or a stop, somewhere, refueling. ... “Agh, better make it Kansas.”

  Kansans are always schizoid when one of their own grabs a glimmer of limelight: they’re so pleased (can’t believe, you know, a guy from Kansas) ... that they’re instantly on guard for some slight (that guy doesn’t care about Kansas anymore!). ... There’s a window of about ten days before they decide: That fellow’s got too big for his britches! ... So Dole would stop in Kansas, two or three times a week—every time his plane poked west of Ohio, he’d order his pilot to gas up in K.C. or Wichita, Salina or Great Bend ... while he scooted for a half-hour, hit a Kiwanis, or cut a ribbon for a new mall.