What It Takes

by Richard Ben Cramer

  “I have a tendency—I confess to it—to avoid going on and on with great eloquent statements of belief. Some are better at that than I am.”

  He was speaking softly to the small crowd.

  “I don’t always articulate ... but I do feel. And I care too much to leave now. Our work isn’t done. So I’m working my heart out up here ... and I’m asking for your help.”

  On the press bus, in gathering darkness, they were playing tapes, over and over, trying to catch the soft words, and buzzing about the “new Bush.”

  That evening, for the first time, tracking polls showed Dole even with Bush in New Hampshire ... and Bush still bleeding everywhere.

  That was the evening Bush saw the Straddle Ad. He winced. “God. That’s awful.”

  It wasn’t pretty: every time Dole showed up on the screen, there were two Dole-faces—two-faced—pointed toward one another with the word “Straddled” across the screen.

  The INF ... the oil import fee ... then taxes.

  On taxes, the screen said “Straddle”—present tense—which faded out, to: “Taxes—He can’t say no.”

  The voice-over said: “Bob Dole straddles, and he just won’t promise not to raise taxes. And you know what that means.”

  Mosbacher stood behind Bush in the Clarion. “Well, it’s true,” he said.

  “Is it?” Bush said. “Are you sure?”

  Sununu had the backup research from Pinkerton: full memo—Dole’s votes, back to the Kennedy tax cut of ’63. ... They were covered.

  Fuller said it seemed awfully negative.

  Teeter said, no-no-negative-no.

  Ailes did not defend the ad. He’d made the goddam thing on his own hook—that was statement enough.

  Atwater didn’t weigh in, either ... but that night, George W. Bush called his father. ... Junior had been briefed by Atwater.

  “Dad, have you looked at the ad?”

  “Yeah. They seem to think it’s too negative. I do, too.”

  “Are you sure all the others agree?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well,” Junior said carefully, “I’m not sure all the others agree. ... I just wanted to make sure you had, uh, full input.”

  That kept the question alive. Friday brought it roaring back onto the table. Friday was the worst. For one thing, it snowed like hell. No one could get around on the roads. Bush had a breakfast speech at the Clarion—a hot speech, a zinger on Dole ... and no one came. No press, anyway.

  When the white men got back to the Hall of Power, they found out Haig was pulling out ... and endorsing Bob Dole, at another hotel, in front of musta been three hundred reporters.

  The problem wasn’t Haig backs Dole—Al Haig was two percent in the polls, and that was probably rounded off from something less. The problem was, with the snow, Haig-and-Dole was the only fresh video of the day—CNN ran that SOB a hundred times! ... The clip had Haig calling it quits ... Haig saying Dole was a man “who’d been there—and made a difference” ... Bush was a man “who’d just been there—period.” ... Then, there was Dole, striding up to the podium to grasp Haig’s hand, the two of them grinning and muttering jokes that only the other one could hear.

  Bush himself, cooped up in the Clarion, must have seen the thing six times ... before Atwater switched off the TV—or switched it over to the VCR. Lee had something to show the Veep—a tape of Dole’s current ad, the one with a picture of Bush that fuzzed and faded in symbolic futility until it disappeared.

  “It’s just like ours,” Lee said, “or, uh ... worse.”

  Atwater was always, sometimes edgily, aware that he did not come from George Bush’s world. But Lee thought he knew Bush: he’d watched the man for fifteen years—since 1973, when Atwater was a rising star in the Young Republicans and Bush was RNC chairman. (In fact, it was ’73 when Atwater said to Bush, there was this sweet little intern in Strom Thurmond’s office. Lee was going to bring her by that night, to a fund-raiser. If Bush could mention, somehow, he just could not get along without Lee ... maybe she’d be impressed. Bush played his part, but he could see the young woman couldn’t care less about the Chairman of the GOP. So he called Atwater over: “Listen. Why don’t you take her out on my boat? Maybe get another couple of friends ... call Don Rhodes, tell him I said to use the boat.” That was Lee’s first date with his wife, Sally.)

  What Lee always talked about was the Bush-code of conduct ... it drove him nuts. Bush had to be talked into doing what was good for him. Sometimes, he still wouldn’t do it. There were small things—like yesterday, someone asked about Noriega. Perfect chance for Bush to tee off on a drug-dirty dictator. ... But the Reagan White House was trying to cut a deal with Noriega. Bush wouldn’t say a word. ... Then there were big things—like this ad. Lee was sure Bush had to run the Straddle Ad ... or something, to take Dole down. But Lee knew he had to deal with the code. “George Bush,” Atwater would sometimes say, “is everything I’m not.”

  “Sir ... he’s hittin’ you!” Lee said.

  Sununu volunteered that the people of New Hampshire would not be confused if Bush hit back. They understood “comparative” ads. Sununu was always singing up the voters of New Hampshire—sagacious souls who’d elected him three times.

  “Mr. Vahz Pres’ent,” Lee said gravely. “You may, uh ... this may, uhm, lose me mah job—but Ah think we’re behind ...”

  Bush turned toward Teeter. •

  They were behind—for the first time—but it was tight. And Teeter did not want the ad. Teeter’s every instinct was to moderate Bush—rub every rough corner off until he rolled like a marble to the deep center of the bell curve. “Overnight, it’s within the margin of error,” Teeter said. “On the other hand, if you look at ...”

  This wasn’t the time for on-the-one-hand-on-the-other.

  “Mr. Vahz Pres’ent, Ah think we gotta, uh, hit ’em.”

  Bush knew it was up to him—nothing collegial about it, in the end. But he could not sit there anymore, talking about it—he had to get moving ... do something. He’d go outside ... see how daughter Doro and her husband were doing, down the hall—maybe take a walk ... find some voters! He was out of his chair, hunting a coat ... he was out the door.

  But not before he heard, or overheard, more talk about the ad, from the white men—and Barbara Bush, who said:

  “I don’t think ours is that bad.”

  109

  Believe Me, Bob

  DOLE DIDN’T THINK BUSH could take the pressure. He’d known the guy for twenty years. Never worked with him (that’s how Dole got to know most guys)—but he’d seen Bush, for hours at a time, when the Veep presided in the Senate ... seen him in a hundred meetings—politics. White House briefings. Bush never said anything in the meetings. He’d stare at his own tie, the arm of his chair, or whoever was talking—if it was the President, Bush always agreed. ... Hey! Hiiiii! Hey! He’d be kissing up to people afterward, talking tennis. Y’play Jimmy yesterday? ...

  Nice guy—far as that went.

  Tennis, terrific. Prob’ly great on a golf course.

  Politics, that was another sort of sport.

  Dole had seen to Bush’s bottom, he thought—in New Hampshire, eight years ago, 1980 ... when Bob Dole was nowhere and Bush was riding in the curl of the great wave. In those days, the Iowa bounce was a bounce—front page of the papers, cover of the newsmagazines, lead story on the six o’clock report. ... Bush was everywhere after he won Iowa—shot up twenty-five percent in the polls. Bush versus Reagan—that was the story. “There is a widespread perception,” The Washington Post reported, “that Reagan is fading fast.”

  That’s why Reagan arranged to debate Bush, one-on-one—the Nashua Telegraph would sponsor the event. It was recognition that the race had boiled down to two men—why not make the face-off fact? Just two guys on stage at the local high school, Saturday night, three days before the vote.

  It was high electoral theater.

  And the last straw for Dole.

  How coul
d they freeze him out? How could they act like Bob Dole didn’t exist? Dole, Howard Baker, Phil Crane, John Anderson ... were they non-candidates?

  Dole peppered the papers with angry quotes about Bush—the “Rockefeller candidate” ... who was “hired help for the big banks” ... “a member of the Trilateral Commission!” (Bill Loeb, publisher of the Union Leader, was happy to retail the slurs.) ... Dole-lawyers filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission to stop the Nashua Telegraph debate. The newspaper had to pull out as sponsor. But Ronald Reagan picked up the costs.

  At that point, Dole began calling the other campaigns, working out an ambush. They would all show up at the high school—force a showdown, right there on TV—let Bush try to keep them out ... while the whole state watched.

  The beauty part was, Reagan’s people were in on it! John Sears, Reagan’s number-one man, helped script the drama. Dole sent his young Advance kid, Mari Maseng, to find a holding room for the four excluded candidates, and someplace they could talk to the press. By phone from his Manchester hotel, Dole worked the details with relish. How long was that hallway to the stage? Where would Bush be sitting?

  On the night of the debate, there were fifteen hundred people in the high school gym. Jon Breen, the Telegraph editor, moderator of the debate, was shuttling between the Reagan and Bush gangs, trying to work out what to do about Dole, Anderson, Crane, Baker ... four candidates had invaded! Would George Bush accept their participation?

  Bush refused even to talk to those guys—this was his shot at Reagan! Rules are rules!

  They sent New Hampshire’s Senator, Gordon Humphrey, to reason with Bush: “George, give ’em a chance. It’ll be good for the Party!”

  “Don’t lecture me about the GOP,” Bush snapped. “I’ve worked a lot harder than you have to build the Republican Party.”

  In the gym, the crowd was yelling—the debate was forty minutes late. Finally, Bush came on stage, smiling and waving. Reagan appeared, to cheers from his faithful. ... But then the other four guys filed in, behind the desks, like spectres from a Dickens tale. The moderator, Breen, announced that he meant to stick to the rules—this would be a two-man debate.

  Governor Reagan started a speech—how everybody ought to be included. Breen instructed the technicians to turn off Reagan’s mike. That’s when Reagan started yelling—he was beautiful! A line from an old movie: “I paid for this microphone, Mr. Green!”

  The crowd cheered—even Bush supporters cheered. The other four guys on stage started clapping, waving to the crowd. Breen was trying to get them off stage. The crowd was yelling. Reagan gracefully stood, and shook all the other fellows’ hands as they left. But Bush froze, like a kid who’d rather take his ball and go home. He sat there steaming, couldn’t say a word. ... He looked like a perfect weenie.

  Well, Bush got his debate with Reagan—but no one remembered anything they said. What they remembered was that gorgeous Reagan moment (“I paid for this microphone!”) ... and maybe a couple of lines from the press conference Dole arranged in a schoolroom.

  Howard Baker said of George Bush: “If he is the front-runner, he wears the crown most unbecomingly.”

  Dole, as usual, was more direct: “As far as George Bush is concerned, he’d better find himself another Party.”

  Bush was so rattled he left the state—went to Houston for two days, to “rest” before the New Hampshire vote. Meanwhile, in those two days, Reagan bounced past Bush in the polls. Bush lost New Hampshire ... and Big Mo. Ultimately, he lost any chance to unhorse Ronald Reagan.

  Worse still, he left behind an image of George Bush as a wimp extraordinaire—a stickler for form who choked when it counted. It was a portrait that would haunt him for a decade, a gift from the Gipper (who would never forget how Bush just sat there) ... and from Bob Dole, who wanted Bush to know that the damage would not be confined to that night—nor even to that campaign.

  “George!” Dole rasped as he left that stage in Nashua. “There’ll be another time.”

  This was his time, Dole said—’88 was Bob Dole’s year. For three days after the Iowa caucus, Dole ate into Bush’s lead in New Hampshire. Dole made up eighteen points—and he was still climbing. Wirthlin reported on the tracking polls every morning.

  “You’re up ...”

  “It’s moving ...”

  “Undecideds are breaking for us ...”

  One week before, Dole would have been happy to finish in the same bracket with Bush—to cut the Veep’s lead to ten points. But now he could smell ... victoryyyy!

  Dole would ask new reporters on his bus: “D’ja see Bush out there?” They thought it was a Dole joke. But Dole wanted to know—was Bush just gonna sit there?

  Tell the truth, Dole couldn’t make sense of what the Dole campaign was doing: he’d spend all day, snaking around the state in huge motorcades—convoys, more like it—forty ragtag vehicles (Greyhounds, rent-a-cars, Winnebagos, a big snowplow that said “Dole” on the front) and two hundred people ... descending on some little town library ... or a school! (“Gaghh! What’re we doin’ with fourth-graders?”) ... But Senator Rudman and his smart guys insisted: that’s how it was done in New Hampshire.

  Dole could have done without ninety percent of his own crowd—hell, he’d get along with one car and a kid to drive. But everybody wanted to be with Dole. Rudman was his corner man, Wirthlin was a constant. Brock—well, Bill Brock was the Big Guy. Dole’s D.C. offices were empty (Senator might need help in New Hampshire!) ... Washington lawyers, lobbyists, experts from the Finance Committee—they all had to talk to the Senator about New Hampshire! There were paratroop pooh-bahs dropping in from other states—they needed to “touch base with Bob.” There were reporters—a hundred, at least, that Dole had to carry along—and the networks wanted Dole to wear their microphones, or maybe they could ride a crew in his car, for a day-in-the-life: you know, minute by minute, on the way to the White House.

  They wanted face time.

  Face-to-face with Dole.

  Dole wasn’t sure how this airborne, mechanized assault brigade looked to voters. He wasn’t sure anymore what he was trying to show to voters. “One of Us” didn’t quite fit here. The family farm was not an issue. “People with real problems” could perish unaided, as far as the State of New Hampshire was concerned. These people were conservative—a funny kind of conservative: talk about a couple of trillion dollars for Star Wars—people cheered. Bush could spend a million flying himself and fifty staff into the state for a dinner—nobody made a peep. People liked that go-go, write-a-check, paint-it-gold style ... as long as they didn’t pay any taxes.

  Dole thought he might have a problem with taxes. Jack Kemp had spent the last year—for a while, he put ads on TV—painting both Dole and Bush as closet tax men. So Dole was going to cut his own tax ad. First night after Iowa—a GOP dinner in Nashua—Dole was going to tuck a line into his speech, how he’d veto any new tax bill from the Democrats. Kim Wells wrote the line—went so far as to type it on a half-sheet of paper. Rudman’s guys got the film crew into the dinner ... they were all set up. But this being the Dole campaign, they didn’t have a TelePrompTer—and, of course, no one could make Dole rehearse. So when Dole tried to unload the line, he had to pull out the paper, and he scowled at the sentence (couldn’t read a thing without his glasses) ... he stumbled in the middle and it sounded like something someone told him to say. The upshot was, the tax stuff looked lousy. So they made an ad with different film—Dole talking Gorbachev, U.S. strength, and peace.

  Maybe they’d have another chance—Dole already said, a million times, he’d veto any bill that raised the income tax rates. ... Anyway, Wirthlin said the tax issue wasn’t cutting with voters. And Kemp was not the problem—just Bush: What was he doing?

  Not much.

  Four days before the vote, Dole’s smart guys checked around and announced, to the delight of all, that Bush wasn’t doing anything! He had no new ads scheduled—hadn’t bought any airtime for the weekend—save f
or one half-hour roadblock, all channels, for one of Ailes’s specials, “Ask George Bush.”

  That was Friday—that wonderful snow day—and Dole with the only news on TV. (Al Hayyyg—great American! ...)

  Late afternoon, in his hotel room, Dole was closeted with Wirthlin and Rudman, who were telling Bob things were going ... great. (“Bob, I know New Hampshire and, believe me, Bob ...”)

  Dole’s new ad ran before the local TV news: it was Dole talking off the cuff about national security. “So we haveta be strong!... Not for war—Bob Dole doesn’t want war. Bob Dole wants peace!” The camera went to freeze-frame on Dole’s face.

  “I love it!” Wirthlin said.

  Dole was squinting at the screen. “I don’t get it,” he said.

  Walt Riker poked his head in. “Agh! C’mon innn,” Dole said. “What’s cookin’?”

  “Senator, you’re ahead! These’re from CBS—I just got ’em ...” He read off the numbers:

  Dole 32 ... Bush 29.

  “They gonna use ’em?”

  “Think so.”

  “Pretty goood!”

  It was better than good. It sent Rudman into orbit: Believe me, Bob, the people of New Hampshire, Bob—remember, I told you, Bob?—Bob? ... Meanwhile, Riker was conducting, channel to channel, a Dole TV rondo. After seven years as Press Secretary, Riker was a cable-ready maestro: he hit four networks, three Boston news shows, PBS, New Hampshire’s Channel Nine, Headline News twice ... and Dole was never off the screen for more than a minute. Dole, Haig-and-Dole, Haig, Dole, Haig-and-Dole Dole Dole. ... Wirthlin had his black book out, he was on the phone to Time and Newsweek. Strictly off the record, understand: he was promoting Dole for the cover. “You guys’re gonna want it. Dole’s going to win this thing!”

  Dole couldn’t pay attention, as he wanted, to the TV (Gagghh! Haig was live with Dan Rather—killing Bush—should’ve made an ad with Haig!) ... or the phone calls (“No, this week is the cover!”) ... or the “Bob-Bob-Bob.” ... He had to think—this thing was moving fast. He lifted his eyebrows, murmured to Riker, who told the others, “Senator’s gotta get a little rest.”