What It Takes

by Richard Ben Cramer

  By that time, the herd in the press pen was dispatching the news from portable computers ... ROBERTSON SHOCKS GOP RIVALS. ... Their stories were rolling into papers across the nation.

  E.J. Dionne, in The New York Times, would note that some Christians expressed admiration for Robertson ... and Dole.

  But it was the Post’s story the Dole campaign would value (and Xerox) ... if only for the subhead:

  3RD-PLACE FINISH

  EMBARRASSES BUSH

  By that time, Bush was in the air, aboard Air Force Two—and a gloomy Power Cabin it was, that Saturday night, flying home from Ames. Bush didn’t care about Robertson. Of course, he hated to lose—to a kook!—but Robertson probably bused in everybody in the state who liked him. Robertson was no threat.

  Dole was another matter. That’s what burned Bush: he finished behind Dole! ... “He’s one of us!” ... Bullshit!

  In the Bush-mind, Dole was a Beltway Bandito, an inside player, the kind you watch out for: Dole was kick-boxing ... he’d do anything! Bush had known Bob Dole for twenty years—and never known him. Never could get comfortable—a personal thing. ... Bush was pretty sure it wasn’t anything on his side—not at the start. Seemed like something was making Dole tight inside, whenever he got around Bush. It came out in little things Dole’d say—always about other people. At the Bush dinner table, the subject of Dole would evoke the simplest and most damning judgment of the true White Man: not an attractive guy.

  How could he lose to Dole?

  How could he lose ... like that? Third place! They were blown away! It sank in on Bush that all the planning, all the white men, all the staff, all the effort ... was not getting through to people. He knew he had the team, the best in the business! What were they doing for the last two years? The PAC must have spent ten million dollars—all those people! Thirty staff in Iowa alone ... and the Bush Brigade, his loyal cadre ... from the first state he ever won! What went wrong? What the hell are they doing out there?

  No ... that wasn’t fair. They were friends. Tried their hardest, Bush was sure. In fact, the first thing he’d ask, Monday morning—first call to the campaign office: “How’s Wittgraf?”

  “What do you mean, sir?”

  “How’s he feeling? What’re people saying? People aren’t making him the scapegoat, are they?”

  Captain Bush wouldn’t let his guys get down on themselves. They were a good team!

  Even that night, in the Power Cabin, Bush spent his time trying to calm Atwater. Lee kept trying to take the blame, vowing they’d turn it around. “Ah wancha know, Mr. Vahz Pes’ent, Ah’ma take full sponsibility for this ...”

  The Veep told him there was nothing to worry about.

  He would have told Bond, too, when Rich wandered up to the Power Cabin ... but Bond was talking to Bar.

  Actually, Barbara Bush was talking.

  “So, Rich,” she said with a smile into Bond’s face. “When are you going back to Iowa to manage the Vice President’s campaign?”

  Bond jerked in place, for an instant, like a specimen pinned to a lab table. “Um ... right away, Mrs. Bush!”

  “Good!” said Bar. Her mouth was smiling, but her eyes had Bond’s, as her head tilted back an inch or two.

  “... Because that’s what George and I want.”

  60

  The Big Guy

  ELIZABETH DOLE HARBORED THE fond and secret notion that when she quit her job to join her husband’s campaign, she would, somehow, help Bob get organized. To Mrs. Dole, that did not mean lists of bigwigs pledging fealty. She had basic matters in mind: Whose job is it to run this project for us? Does this person know it is his job? Does he know when or how the job should be done?

  Her every instinct was to administration ... which, for Mrs. Dole, began with administration of self. If she were at Bob’s side ... well, things would surely be different. It was a matter of concern to her that Bob had not the faintest idea what he was going to say that afternoon. She was dismayed that Bob didn’t even have a set of notecards for his basic speech. (No member of the Reagan Cabinet would be without!) She went so far as to bring this up with Bob’s staff—as if this were something they had neglected.

  Of course, not a word of this could be breathed aloud, because Elizabeth would not feed the canard that Bob Dole could not be organized. The Karacter Kops all repeated the fiction that Elizabeth had, somehow, taught her husband (suddenly, in his sixth decade) to “Be Nice.” No one caught her working on her real agenda: “Be Neat.”

  Anyway, everybody was busy writing serious-minded feminist nosebleed on Mrs. Dole’s “controversial” resignation. The idea was that we should all (harrrumph!) ... examine the assumptions of a society where a (umph! umph!) woman ... would give up her job in the Cabinet of the United States ... to help her (hocchhh!) HUSBAND!

  What about HER CAREER?

  What all the earnest anguish ignored was that Bob was much more a part of her career than the next report on the next airliner to blow up in the sky over Pascagoula ... that Elizabeth Dole would no more drop her career than would Bob Dole (or Barbara Bush) ... that she was making a career decision ... and anyone who did not know that being wife to the President of the United States is a better and more powerful job than being Secretary of Transportation was too dumb to work for government—though, alas, not too dumb to write for magazines.

  The fact was, being Elizabeth Hanford Dole, she had no choice.

  It wasn’t just Bob’s supporters begging her (the Secret Weapon!) to join them at the ramparts. Nor even his staff, who had taken to calling Bob and Elizabeth “The Dynamic Duo.” No! It was The Washington Post, and Washington Monthly, and (the real Dynamic Duo) Evans and Novak ... who were already beating tribal war drums, criticizing her for helping her husband at all ... while (hoccchhh!) airliners were blowing up in the sky! For Elizabeth Dole, whose career was personal perfection, this was intolerable.

  So ... the real anguish was, she quit ... and then she was hammered as a cop-out, a traitor to her gender, a feminist war criminal—no better than, than ... than ... a WIFE!

  And the true upshot was, she joined her husband’s campaign full-time and spent half her time in a new campaign to convince every audience that she was right to be campaigning. “What WE WOMEN have fought for,” she said (and said), “is the RIGHT to make our own CHOICES!” Then, she’d take ten or fifteen minutes to explain that she didn’t really leave her job because airplanes were blowing up in the sky—no! She’d met the challenges at Transportation. ... “And as Ah left the Department [smile] ... Ah felt Ah was putting aside ONE CAUSE, which Ah believed in very strongly, to take up ANOTHER. Ah wanted to be by mah husband’s side—if not literally [chuckle], then at least figuratively!”

  That was true, too: she seldom was with Bob. She was all over the country with her own plane and her own staff, working like a beast to be charming five times a day, in between which events, she’d try to memorize the résumés of another half-dozen City Councilmen while she shoveled M&M’s, or Burger King fries, into her mouth and stood at attention in her hotel room, so her body man, Mark Romig, could zap her with his steam-gun, so her suit would be perfect, wrinkle-free, for her next event, her next interview, her next TV talk show, her next women’s luncheon, where she’d explain again the CHALLENGE of participating in the PROCESS that selects the LEADER of the FREE WORLD ... and ...

  She didn’t feel too organized herself.

  Which was okay with Bob, who had this organized just like he wanted—double the ink!

  Besides, he was going to get a Big Guy ...

  This was serious now. He had a fish on the line—Bill Brock!

  Even Dole’s working staff—true, humble Dole-folk—were happy about this. (Well, there was a brief movement for Paul Laxalt as Big Guy. Laxalt wouldn’t do anything. But if Laxalt was out of town, Bill Brock was the laziest man in Washington, so on the whole, everybody was pleased.)

  As for Dole, he thought maybe Brock could help organize. (Elizabeth thought B
rock was so organized! Elizabeth approved of Bill Brock entirely.) You know, Brock had been around! Brock was a grassroots specialist! Brock used to run that Youth for Nixon thing! Brock had run a vicious race to knock off Al Gore, Sr., and get to the Senate.

  Didn’t matter, really: whatever Brock did was gravy ... because what Dole wanted was to show everybody that he had a Big Guy—and Brock was, number one and foremost, a Big Guy.

  In fact, he’d been a Big Guy for so long that now there were smart guys ... who were Brock guys! (As was his custom, Dole had hired some: his first campaign for President was managed, briefly, by Tom Bell—“Agh! Guy worked for Brock! Pretty goood!” Of course, Bell didn’t last in that job, and Dole finished as an asterisk ... but that did nothing to shrink Brock’s Big-Guyhood.)

  For twenty-five years, official Washington had linked Brock’s name to titles of knowing power: Congressman, Senator, Chairman, Secretary. Brock had the bankable asset—he was well known, not least to Dole, with whom he’d served in House and Senate ... where they’d voted together to back Nixon, and then Ford ... after which, Brock moved on to Chairman of the RNC, in which post he worked to heal the Party, after Watergate ... which healing was complete with the election of Reagan, whose ideology Brock did not favor, but from whom, nonetheless, Brock took jobs—first as U.S. Trade Rep, and then, Secretary of Labor. ... This was another of Brock’s apparent assets: he had held so many jobs and stood for so little, no one would be moved to quit if Bill Brock hired on—not even Devine or Keene, who measured themselves by their enemies, nor certainly Ellsworth, who got along with Brock, gentleman to gentleman.

  In sum, Brock was perfect (i.e., no one would get mad at Dole). And Brock sent all the right signals.

  “Kansan,” said a headline in The Washington Post, “Has Expert Advice.” The Post said Dole had cleared a giant hurdle to make himself Bush’s most-feared opponent: “The selection of someone with Brock’s stature is a clear signal that authority will be delegated in the 1988 Dole campaign.”

  Dole could not have thumped the tribal drums any better. Brock was worth all the waiting, all the talk ... Brock was Big, Big, Big ... Brock was, in Dole’s backcourt eyes, better than Laxalt! Maybe better than Sears!

  Brock was classy—heir to a candy fortune.

  (Lotta moneyyy!)

  Brock was southern—from Tennessee.

  (Aghh! Super Tues-day!)

  Brock was not only Cabinet rank—he was in the Cabinet now ... which solved another ticklish problem.

  Whenever she was questioned about her resignation, Elizabeth Dole would now rejoin: “Whah, Bill BROCK left the Cabinet just a few weeks after Ah did! For exactly the same reason—to be full-time in Bob’s campaign. Ah’m sure he doesn’t feel he’s set aside his career! ...”

  So, Bill Brock came aboard, as Big Guys like to say ... except Brock didn’t hit the deck, just at that moment. He had important personal business, and some trips to make—he was awfully busy. So what he did, he sent a boarding party, a posse of guys in suits, to poke around L Street, asking questions of the Dole-folk, like: “How would you describe your work for Senator Dole’s campaign?” ... and similarly subtle queries, designed (as Big Guys say) to evaluate the personnel.

  Of course, coming as they did, from the world of Big Guys, these posse men didn’t have to ask much: it was obvious, the Dole campaign was ... a walking disaster.

  The personnel! ... They were so humble—there wasn’t one of them you’d want sitting behind you at a Cabinet meeting. And the organization ... pathetic! These poor schlubs were all on one floor, together, everybody ... you know, just ... working for Dole!

  Well, that was going to have to change.

  For one thing, the campaign would have to bring in first-class talent (i.e., Brock guys) ... and pay the freight: real talent never came cheap. And they’d have to rent another floor of the building, a couple of floors up, so no one could just burst in from the stairwells ... there would be a decent reception desk, and a comely young woman, with pearls, to pick up the chiming phone and say:

  “Senator Brock’s office, please hold.”

  But, alas, that would take time. For the moment, it was all the posse could do to penetrate the mysteries.

  My God! ... They called a meeting with the bean counter, Kirk Clinkenbeard. Clink was a Dole-folk who’d left his father’s CPA firm in Topeka (his dad was Dave Owen’s first Campaign Treasurer) because of a problem with his vision. So ... came the Brockies, asked their first question. Clink took off his glasses, held a piece of paper one inch from his nose, and announced there’d been $9.7 million raised. ... Of course, the posse men started looking at each other like they’d landed in Mork and Mindy. C’mon, get serious! The campaign’s finance director can’t even see! This guy’s got to go—first to go. ... But what they didn’t know:

  Clink was the guy Dole called three times a day, to ask how much was in the till. Dole especially liked him because he had a disability.

  Bill Lacy, who had run the whole campaign that brought Dole from amid the pack to his current stance, toe-to-toe with Bush in the first five states ... he’d have to go. Guy didn’t even have a strategic plan!

  Mari Maseng, who juggled the press, ads, and speeches, who flew everywhere with Dole, telling him, “Senator, I think there’s a positive way to say this ...” and still managed not to piss him off entirely ... well, she’d have to go, too. She could not supply a simple flowchart to show who approved the Senator’s speeches!

  Kim Wells, the Kansas City lawyer who’d left his firm to work for subsistence, to sleep in friends’ houses for ten months, the man Dole relied on to fix anything that looked broken ... well, an obvious loser! (Couldn’t even find him on a flowchart!) The posse confronted him with a simple question: What do you do in the campaign? Wells seemed to think that was funny! He said: “Anything Dole wants.”

  It was Kim ... (and Lacy and Maseng and Owen, and Judy Harbaugh, Scott Morgan, Clinkenbeard—it was all the Dole-folk, after a while) ... who started with the Vulcan salute—that sign Spock used to give on Star Trek: one palm raised, Injun-style, with the middle and ring fingers split to form a V. “Live long and prosper,” they’d tell each other. That identified them as Vulcans—true Dole-folk. The Brockies were the Klingons. The Dole-folk would pass each other at L Street, and flash the V: “Live long and prosper! ... Prepare for Klingons!”

  Of course, by the time it became us against them, the posse had identified the problems ... who were the people Dole called when he wanted something done—they’d have to go. ... Down the chart! Out of the loop! ... Except Dole still called them. Mostly, he’d call now to make sure they weren’t mad at him. (If they were, Dole wouldn’t call. Elizabeth would call: “Whah, Bob was just saying, just the other day, how sorry he was, the way that worked out ...”)

  Dole was trying to be good—to hand the campaign over, to be organized, like he promised—but he had doubts about the Klingons, too. He knew some of them—“Gagghhh! Guy couldn’t organize a two-car fune-ral! We gonna hire him? ...”

  But he’d only say it in the plane, or his car. (Be Nice! ... Hands off!) He had to let them hire or fire whomever they wanted. Then, he found out they wanted to can his Iowa chief—Tom Synhorst (just a farm kid—not Big enough for the Klingons).

  That was the one time Dole put his foot down. (Aughh! Only place in the country he was organized!) ... “Do what you want,” he told Brock, on the phone. “Don’t touch Iowa.”

  61

  What Sasso Loved

  IF MICHAEL DUKAKIS COULD win Iowa, it was over. That’s how Sasso had it figured. Michael sneaks into a state where he’s unknown ... urban ... an easterner ... a Greek! ... and wins?

  Then, surely, he wins New Hampshire, eight days later.

  Then he sweeps into Super Tuesday as the only national Democrat, the clear favorite in the rest of the nation. ... Sasso had Super Tuesday all mapped out. Michael wouldn’t have to contest all twenty states—spread himself willy-nilly—no. Massac
husetts would vote that day. That’s about eighty delegates for Michael. Maryland, Washington State ... Michael had solid chances at wins. If he won one other big state—say Florida, where Kitty could help ... if he could, God grant, win Florida ... and Texas ... there’s no way he’d lose the nomination, if he didn’t get hit by a bus.

  But the first link was the weakest: Iowa.

  Michael’s polls there were holding steady—near the top. Michael’s organization was the best. It would identify his voters and deliver them to their caucuses. Sasso had seen to that.

  But the race in Iowa was formless: Dukakis, Gephardt, Biden, maybe Simon, Babbitt, or Jackson—someone was going to get hot and sweep the thing.

  Problem was, Michael wasn’t going to get hot. Sasso had been leading him gently to a higher pitch of speech. He had shown Michael, in a hundred small ways, how “good jobs at good wages” was, at root, a populist message. What could that mean ... save that government had to take the side of working people, guarantee them a shot at the basics: a job, decent home, safe neighborhoods, good schools, a clean environment for their kids. ... Michael was for all those things—but he came at them through the head, not the heart.

  That’s why Biden was a problem: he and Dukakis both appealed to middle-class voters. But Biden had the knack, an ear for their language ... Biden talked straight to their hearts. And now, with weeks on the tube, every night, as chairman of the Bork hearings, he could build a record of “doing”—doing something that voters could see, right now.

  Biden’s numbers were rising. After Michael, Biden was the only Democrat with money. He could split Michael’s middle-class base, all over the country. Biden could get hot.

  Biden ... could be the problem.

  What Sasso couldn’t understand was how Biden got away with all the bullshit. When John saw a tape of the Iowa State Fair debate, he couldn’t believe it. Sasso knew the Kinnock ad—where the hell did Biden get off, using it word for word? It was like he was borrowing Kinnock’s life! Did he think no one else in this country had seen it? That was bush-league. That was bullshit. ... Why didn’t anybody write that?