She’d bring up some way to broaden the message—a good idea! Dukakis was the only man among the front-runners who could stand outside the Washington miasma ... he could make that distance an advantage—people mistrusted the old federal runaround. What they wanted, what he could show, was know-how! Basic American know-how, like they’d shown in Massachusetts! ... It was perfect—hands-on government that worked, but with a theme, a set of words, that dovetailed with voters’ preconceptions. She’d have the thing—a communications strategy—all set out in memo-prose by her Director of Communications, Leslie Dach.
“I’ll take a look,” Dukakis would say. “What else? Anything else?”
And that would be the last she’d hear. Dukakis hated Dach, and everything Dach touched. What was this—try’na make him bash Washington? “That’s not the kinda thinking we want in this campaign.”
This made Estrich very nervous—and more determined to show Dukakis he could repose some trust in her. She had worked in politics plenty long enough to handle this job. By age thirty-five, she had habited the top echelons of three Presidential campaigns—which was precisely two more than Dukakis had seen.
She had known for months: this campaign was never going to get anywhere if it didn’t find something to say. She could confirm now what she’d always suspected: that communication of some vision was the weakest of Sasso’s skills; he did anything else first. “This campaign’s got everything ...” she announced at one of her first meetings, “... except a fucking message!” She’d chide the surviving wise guys (they were all guys): “I don’t understand how you ran this thing for six months without a fucking thing to say!”
Of course, they knew she was right. But what she didn’t get—yet—was what it took to move Dukakis ... the way Sasso kept him swaddled in reports of progress, good news, feedback from the field ... the constant weaving of the web of confidence that would keep Dukakis out of his hunch, let him move at his trudge-of-the-wing-tips pace toward some new idea that would, in time, come to seem like his own.
That wasn’t Susan’s style. She wanted Michael to face his problem. She took it as a challenge—a personal commitment. The easiest, the cheapest, way would be to let Michael trudge on—to confine her mission to making sure there was someone to meet him at the airport, money in the bank, field staff in the districts—she could have done it well, and saved herself a lot of woe. But she owed him better than that.
So, she pushed harder—and she could push! She could also smoke up a black cloud, swear like a tugboat captain, talk loud and insistently, make her points with vicious humor—all in service of her fierce determination, and all ... alas, like nails on the blackboard to Dukakis, who didn’t like nerves, or pressure from his staff. No. “Calm, steady—that’s us.”
Well, in fact, that wasn’t us ... not at that point. That’s part of what was eating Dukakis. He just wanted to know what he had to do next week, and the week after that, next month, next quarter, first month of next year! Like Sasso used to do in his quarterly memo ... he just wanted to see the plan!
Well, Estrich got that. She set Corrigan to producing a plan—a full battle map, with a strategy for the delegate hunt, a timetable, a budget. ... But, of course, the start of the plan was to put on a move in Iowa. Get tough! Go after the thing! Knock the other bastards out of the box, in a hurry ... and then, start work on the general election.
Michael wouldn’t hear of that. This was a marathon. He’d told them that! No one, for twenty-five years, had got very far by pushing him—telling him he had to win this, or do that, or he’d be lost! No. Steady, strong ... we’re going to win because we’re raising more money ... we’re employing more staff ... we’re organizing, one vote at a time. He didn’t need these kids to tell him how to build a campaign, for God’s sake?!
At last—more in desperation than eagerness to share Michael’s spare attentions—Susan asked Dukakis: Who did he like to listen to? ... Who did he want to help with the message?
Dukakis mentioned Tom Kiley, a noted Boston guru, a pollster, partner to John Marttila. He came from a world that Dukakis knew. And Dukakis knew that Sasso—before he left—was trying to get Kiley into the campaign. (In fact, Kiley turned down the Campaign Manager’s job before Michael and Brountas settled on Estrich.)
So Susan went to work on Kiley. She did her job. She called him, invited him, inveigled him, cajoled him ... Kiley was reluctant. But she landed him—brought him on as the new message guru.
Great doings!
Kiley came to a couple of meetings, sat with Dukakis, rode along while Michael worked, then retired to his office, and wrote ... The Memo. Kiley was clear and calm—and smart: he knew Dukakis’s history, he had ideas about the field, the voters, the mood of the nation. ... All of this, he poured into The Memo.
It was a call for National Purpose, a renewal of Real Leadership ... a plan for Michael to establish—by his issues, his speeches, his ads, his every action—his own voice. A Presidential Voice! He had to stop running for National Governor ... and engage!
Kiley gave The Memo to Susan, who gave it to Michael. They scheduled a talk. They came to the State House—Kiley and Estrich—sat down with Michael. ... Had he read it? Well? What did he think?
“Okay,” said Michael, “try to be more Presidential. What else?”
88
Bambi
THING ABOUT IOWA—no one could call it. The old rules seemed not to apply. The Gephardt campaign poured everything it had into the J-J, the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner. For Democrats, that was always the focus of the fall. Jimmy Carter won the straw poll at the J-J in ’75, and that put him on the map: he showed he could organize the state, he had the troops—after that, there was no stopping the man.
And after that, of course, no Democrat would ever again ignore the J-J. Mid-November, every fourth year, they’d pack the hall, they’d hire on buses, they’d scheme and bribe for extra tickets, they’d dress their people like Let’s Make a Deal—whatever it took to “win” the J-J. ... And that year, the Gephardts went berserk. This was gonna show, the new team in Iowa could kick ass! This was gonna put the lie to their declining polls. This was gonna get them back in the network roundups, make the big-feet take notice.
They were running out of dollars all over the country, and they poured thousands into extra tickets—they bought the floor. Joyce Aboussie rounded up a herd of St. Louisans and flew with them to Des Moines aboard a chartered jet. (That was the mildest of Joyce’s endeavors—what she wanted was a team of Budweiser Clydesdales to circle the hall, parading Dick’s name.) Carrick brought back Barry Wyatt, the Advance whiz who’d yanked Dick’s announcement into line, to move Dick in and out of the hall and whip the floor demonstration to a proper frenzy. There was a SWAT team of kids to decorate—they sprinted into the hall when the doors opened, climbed into the rafters, stood on each other’s backs to get their signs well up on the walls. (Dick would note no dearth of signs here—there were Gephardt stickers in the bathrooms!) Of course, they had Shrummy on the speech—first team—and Doak actually came! That’s how big it was. Doak was strolling the floor, next to Carrick ... walking together, talking and laughing—proud owners at Grand Opening—smoking big cigars.
But by that time, alas, the cream was off the milk—skimmed by cruel circumstance, and a bit of heads-up politics.
The circumstance: Judge Ginsburg, Reagan’s post-Bork nominee for the Supreme Court, was discovered to have smoked a bit of dope while at Harvard. By the time Gephardt got to the hall, all the Kops wanted to know was: Had he ever smoked marijuana? (Gephardt answered as he always answered character-queries: he looked them in the eye, and said, “No.” At which point, someone yelled the best—unanswered—question of the night: “Well ... why not?”)
The politics: the Simon campaign convinced the state Party to cancel the straw poll ... there would be no vote, no clear winner in the papers the next day. So when the Gephardt faithful leapt up at their man’s introduction, when they made the whole
place ache with noise, when they conga-danced in the aisles and poked their pole signs heavenward, when they stood on their chairs and bayed their man’s name at the roof, when they stomped on the floor till it seemed the balcony must come down, when they exceeded their time limit for “crowd response” by a factor of three, when, in short, they took over the goddam J-J ... well, there was no one to notice.
Anyway, no one who could be trusted to notice. E.J. Dionne, in the next day’s Times, made no mention of Dick’s demonstration ... though Dick did get his own subhead in the story:
HIT A BRICK WALL
Mr. Gephardt, who has spent more time here than any other Democrat, and has built a substantial following, was seeking to reverse the perception that his campaign, as one prominent Iowa Democrat put it, “has hit a brick wall.”
And E.J. noted, higher in the story:
One candidate who likes the way things are going just fine is Mr. Simon, of Illinois. ... Mr. Simon seems especially strong among precisely the sorts of Democratic activists who attend the caucus.
Simon! ... Gephardt couldn’t understand it. Paul Simon was a nice man—a friend of Dick’s, matter of fact: they had served together in the House, sometimes took the same plane home to their districts (Simon’s home was southern Illinois, closer to St. Louis than Chicago).
Back in ’80, Dick even put Paul’s name up for Chairman of the House Budget Committee ... of course, Simon got slaughtered. Dick could have told him. But Paul said he had it. Jesus—just ’cause people told him they were for him! At least Dick could count votes! Paul might have a good idea, a lot of good ideas ... and was sincere, sure, good-hearted, independent ... but that was different from getting things done. Paul was off in left field (playing deep!) ... you’d see a vote: 364 to one ... that one was Simon.
President Simon?
But sure enough, after Dick had shrugged off all the bad press and installed his new kick-ass Iowa squad ... after he’d finally got the Biden monkey off his back ... and schemed and spent to take over the J-J ... after he was ready to make those polls jump up and say Hi! ... Who got the bump? Whose numbers shot up?
Paul Simon.
There he was—a Senator now, but same guy, exactly—saying the same airy nonsense, in the same honey-graham baritone: “Weee wanta guvvverment that caaares!” ... In fact, that’s what he wanted you to see: that he hadn’t changed a lick. He had the same pendulous ears, same folds in his face, same glasses, same stentorian Our-Friend-the-Government promises he had in 1956! ... And the same bow ties.
That was his trademark, see ... and it was beautiful, Dick had to admit: all his supporters with lapel pins in the shape of bow ties ... instant identification, like the pictures of cows and chickens they use for the different parties in India. In other words, you didn’t have to know nothin’ ... that’s why Dick admired it so.
“It’s a visual, see ...” That’s how Dick explained it, because that’s how his killers explained it to him. He’d ask:
Why is Simon going up?
Why is Dukakis going up?
(While Gephardt’s falling below ten percent—the second tier!)
Carrick and his button men would tell him those other guys were on TV with ads. It gave people a visual to hold on to ... and Dick’s ads were still a month away.
So Dick was trying to think visually—think ahead to his ads. (It’s always the next hope in campaigns—the next thing, surely, will fix all the ills.) He had a legal pad on his knee while his small plane bounced over Iowa. He was sitting between the new members of his road crew: Debra Johns, who did press on the plane, and Ethel Klein, who did ... well, no one knew what Ethel did, but she was smart and she talked to Dick.
Dick drew a box on his pad—big and neat, like Dick always drew—and on the left, he wrote “RAG” ... him. In the middle, he wrote “Duke,” and on the right, “Simon.” Then he wrote words for each. Under “RAG,” he wrote: “Midwestern, Honest, Young, Cleancut ...” Under “Duke”: “Leader, Massachusetts Miracle, Eyebrows ...” And under “Simon”: “Honesty, Caring, Bow Tie, Glasses ...” Then he sat and stared at the page, till he said:
“See, after what happened to Hart, and Biden, and now Dukakis, people are fed up. Simon’s the symbol, antipolitics—the bow tie, the glasses, you add that voice: ‘I-I-I-I ... C-A-A-A-R-E.’ ... It doesn’t matter what Paul Simon says—everywhere he goes, he carries that visual in front of him.
“See, people look at Dick Gephardt, they don’t have a connection. ... ‘Young,’ okay, ‘Honest’ ... but then, they think, ‘Protectionist.’ They’re confused. They don’t know. See, what the image has to be is Energetic, Leadership, Doer, Fighter—that’s the visual we need.”
Ethel finally broke in: “Yeah, but that visual is not passive, like the bow tie, or the eyebrows. If you want that image, you’ve got to be energetic, fighting all the time. You can do it—I’ve seen you enough to know you can do it—but you’ve got to BE it.”
(That’s why Ethel was on the plane. As Brad Harris, the body man, catered to Dick’s body, so Ms. Klein ministered to the head.)
Dick said: “Right. I understand ... be it.”
But he was still trying to think of something like a bow tie. Had to have it! ... That, and he had to hit Simon—hard—at the next debate, the big one December 1, a network show, prime time, NBC! Brokaw! ... Democrats and Republicans. Everybody would watch. Dick had to go in and kill. ... That’s the other thing Carrick and the fellas had told him.
Here is the official button-man analysis, from Joe Trippi (ex-Mondale, ex-Hart), Gephardt’s message-doctor, heading into the NBC debate:
“It’s simple. ... Dick would never hit Simon. Why go after Paul? Paul is just out there, caring. You hit Paul, you look like a monster. Paul is Bambi, skipping through the woods, eating leaves. No one wants to kill Bambi.
“But then we get out from under the Biden tape—it’s Duke, after all, and he looks like shit ... so Dick figures: ‘Jeez, all right! Finally, we’re gonna do something!’
“And next time he turns around, here’s Bambi, running by in the woods, eating leaves, and Bambi is getting big!
“Still, you don’t kill Bambi, right? Dick says to Carrick: ‘That’s not gonna last, is it?’
“And Carrick says, ‘No. Can’t last. Don’t worry.’
“And there goes Bambi, munching leaves.
“So we’re into November, and Dick is slipping. The Biden thing left a sour taste. People in Iowa are looking for someone, anyone, without the smell of blood:
“Gephardt, somehow, he was involved, right?
“Duke, he had to fire his guys.
“Jackson, he’s black—can’t win.
“Babbitt is a wonk.
“Gore won’t even come to the state.
“Who’s left?
“Ah, Bambi!
“Bambi is getting bigger. Dick says: ‘When’s this gonna stop?’
“Carrick tells him: It’s gotta stop. Don’t worry.’
“Dick says: ‘The guy’s got thirty percent! I got ten, going south.’
“Now, everybody admits: Simon is rolling. He’s gonna win Iowa big.
“So who’s gonna kill him?
“Babbitt? He’s the Son of Bambi. Babbitt is gonna kill no one.
“Jackson is all peace and love. Gotta be. He’s a scary black man.
“Duke doesn’t wanna kill Bambi. Duke thinks: ‘If Bambi wins Iowa and I win New Hampshire, then it’s just me and Bambi. ... I’m it!’
“Gore? He’s not gonna touch him. If Bambi wins Iowa, Duke wins New Hampshire, then these two martians have to come south, to Gore. One talks about making better ‘cahs,’ and the other one says: ‘I want to spend a lot of money on poor people.’ Let ’em come!
“Meanwhile, Gephardt, the one guy who might get to white, middle-class people in the South, will be dead meat.
“So, in the NBC debate, Gephardt takes out a .357 Magnum, and blows Bambi’s head off.”
That simple. That’s why
the killers were leaning on Dick so hard to go in and kill. ... They were sinking so fast, they were panicky. There must have been twenty debates that year, but they were nothing compared to this NBC thing ... that’s what they wanted Dick to know. This was it!
That’s why they tried so many lines, wrote them on cards for him to memorize:
“You know, Paul, I’ve heard you promise more aid to education, more grants for higher ed, a guaranteed jobs program, long-term health care for seniors ... so, there’s plenty of beef. What I want to know is—where’s the dough?”
(That’s how they were going to hit Simon, see: Paul had no idea how to pay for Our-Friend-the-Government.)
Then, the staff speechwriter, Paul Begala, wrote out on a briefing sheet: “Simonomics is just the flip side of Reaganomics.”
Then, in a mock debate, Trippi blurted out: “Reaganomics with a bow tie!” ... They all had a giggle about that.
But they should have known: you couldn’t toss four different lines at Gephardt—he was listening. The Washington staff used to call him Memorex. (Lately, it was RoboCandidate.)
This time, the practice was harder, because Carrick and the boys brought in hotshot lawyers to play the other candidates. Their instructions: beat the shit out of Dick—make him hit back, make him kill. ... Of course, that, too, sent the message to Dick that this was the big one: suddenly, he was looking at $2,000-an-hour worth of Washington smart guys.
But the thing was, he knew this was it. For God’s sake, it was December ... the caucus was nine weeks away ... it was network! All those millions of people! And he wanted to do something ... so badly—he was pushing himself harder than they were!
So they were running mock debates, beating up Dick, and their smart-guy-Gore said something about Dick’s vote for Reagan’s tax cut. Dick just wheeled on the guy, started yelling:
“Where were you? I led the FIGHT for the Democratic alternative! Where were YOU, Al? You were on the BACK BENCHES!”
The button men were silent, staring. Dick had hit back! But it sounded screechy—like the interviews with pro wrestlers. It wasn’t ... Presidential.
What It Takes Page 110
