What It Takes (11 page)

“I told the President, the other day, we
wanted
to work with him on the budget ...

“Can’t do it without Ronald Reagan ...

“Maybe we could do it without Don Regan ...

“But, seriously, the deficit ...”

It wasn’t a speech so much as a bracing stroll through the mind of Bob Dole. So much going on! And now, these folks at the dinner that night, these fortunate few, these important givers, were all included, all in the swim. The laughter that rippled through the hall was always a low, appreciative, knowing male chuckle.

Of course, the guys at Campaign America were still trying to get Dole to make The Speech. Something with a theme, a
vision
for America. America at the Crossroads! ... Don Devine, the professor-pol who was head of the campaign committee, used to fly around with Dole, giving him copies of that speech outline, over and over. Devine must have carried fifty copies of the thing. But Dole always tucked the speech into his jacket, or rolled it up to help shape his right fist, and talked about whatever was going on that week. Vision was well and good, people liked it. But Dole had a real job, solving real problems. People ought to know that, too.

That’s why he did these Washington events. Bob Dole had to be in Washington. He had work to do. Couldn’t spend all week flying around in Air Force planes, like George Bush. These Capital fund-raisers for every race in the country were Bob Dole’s way of checking in, spreading himself around. At least, that’s how his staff explained it. At Campaign America, the answer to invitations was yes to every event he could possibly get to. Then, they’d draw up a briefing paper, maybe talking points that Dole would ignore, and a contribution check for him to take along (Dole never showed up empty-handed). “What the hell,” Don Devine would say with a shrug. “He’s got to be in Washington anyway. So, if it’s not gonna tire him out ...” But they couldn’t tire Bob Dole out. They couldn’t overschedule him, or feed him too much information.

He was running the United States Senate, dealing with the White House, trying to hammer out a budget, trying to wind up a session, get his members home; he was flying all over the country to help his GOP members, trying to save his majority, working on their campaigns as if they were his own reelection. (In fact, Dole was running for reelection, but he’d scared all the big Kansas Democrats out of the race. His only opponent was a former carpet salesman from Wichita, a nice fellow named Guy MacDonald, who promised not to raise any money, or say anything nasty about Bob Dole. ... “
Okayyy
! Guy MacDonald! Great American! ...”) And meanwhile, he was working every day on the Other Thing.

As Wilbert made the last turn, Dole picked up the briefing memo. “
Okayy,
Guam!” he said to the dashboard. “Where America’s day begins! ...” That’s what they used to say at Republican conventions, when the proud Guam chairman would cast the island’s handful of votes. Dole never forgot anything. This Ben Blaz, the Rep to Congress, won a tough race a couple of years ago, knocked off an incumbent Democrat, beat him by about three hundred votes. Dole knew Ben Blaz was a comer. Dole was cohost of the reception tonight.

But Dole also knew that Bush would have the Governor of Guam all wrapped up. And the Governor would control the delegates. There wasn’t any way Bob Dole would get Guam, or its four convention delegates. In fact, there wasn’t any plan to this night—except more, more of the same.

He rolled the briefing memo into a cylinder and used it to round out his right fist. “Ready?” he said to the air in the car.

“Yes, sir.”

“ ’Bout a half-hour,” Dole said.

“Fine.”

Dole reached across his midriff and got the door handle as Wilbert hit the brakes in front of the hotel. And the Bobster was out of the car:

“Hey, Bob
Dohhhll ...
”

The point was, he wasn’t going to cut back on anything. He’d already given up enough in his life. He sure wasn’t going to give up the Senate. He’d only had the Leader’s job for two years—two short years—and reporters were already asking if he’d give it up for the ’88 campaign. Well, maybe he would. When he was good and ready.

The problem was, he could lose it in a hurry, lose his majority this year, ’86, if the GOP lost more than three seats. He knew which members were in trouble, especially the GOP class of 1980, the fellows who swept in with the first Reagan landslide. They were up for reelection this year, and Bob Dole’s leadership would rise or fall with them. He knew what it would mean if his Party lost the edge in the Senate: both houses of Congress run by the Democrats, no way for him or any Republican—not even Ronald Reagan—to control the agenda. No way for Bob Dole to do what he did best—carry the ball.

So no one was going to outwork Dole in a midterm election. No one had as many invitations, no one had a feel for as many races, no one showed up in as many recondite corners of the political map as Bob Dole did.

God knows. Bush and Reagan hadn’t lifted a finger for the Party last time, in ’84. Everything was for Reagan and Bush. The President spent the last day in Minnesota, trying to win Mondale’s own state, for a clean sweep. The Gipper wanted a landslide—well, he got it. But meanwhile they
lost
two seats in the Senate: down to fifty-three Republicans, and some of those you couldn’t count on. This time, it could turn out worse! Paula Hawkins in Florida, Jim Abdnor in South Dakota, Mark Andrews from North Dakota, Mack Mattingly in Georgia, Jerry Denton in Alabama, Slade Gorton from Washington ... might lose any one of those seats! It was so tough out there, they finally had to wake Reagan up from his nap. Now the President was going to come out in the last couple of weeks, to campaign for the Senators—but the White House didn’t know how tight things were.

Bob Dole knew. Day by day, Dole got the tracking polls from across the country, every state. He knew the issues in those states, the voting districts, their histories, knew some of the County Chairmen. He wasn’t shy about calling them, either.

“Heyy! Bob
Dohhhll
! Anything goin’
on
out there?”

Then he’d listen for a minute or two, while the chairman gave him a fill: whether his man was gaining or losing, what was behind the change in the polls ...

“
Okayyy
,” Dole would say, as the chairman wound down. “Gotta gooo!”

If he got twenty minutes to spend on the phone, it meant days of hell for the Scheduler. That was always his last call: to Molly Walsh, the Scheduler, or Jo-Anne Coe, his all-purpose Office Drill Sergeant. One of them would pick up a phone, and Dole’s voice would rasp in the earpiece:

“Gotta go to South Dakota.”

“When?”

“Pretty sooonn.”

That meant now, tomorrow, this weekend—whenever they could work it out.

He was on the road every weekend, all weekend, usually from Friday afternoon, or Thursday night if the Senate load was light, flying west in a borrowed corporate jet, picking up a time zone or two, flying against the clock to get to a Plains state, the Rockies, or the West Coast, in time for an airport press conference, a dinner, fund-raiser, or a rally for some Republican faithful, who’d light up when Dole hit the room: Bob Dole! Here is juice!

This weekend would be light: the Senate was winding up its term for the fall, and Dole wouldn’t get away till Saturday morning—just time for a flight to Akron, a press conference and a fund-raising breakfast for two Congressional candidates, then a speech to a rally in the airport; then a quick flight to Sandusky, O., for a press conference and another speech at a luncheon rally; then a flight to Cleveland for a rally speech and a joint press conference on behalf of four GOP hopefuls; then a flight to Findlay, O., for another press conference and a mix-and-mingle for Congressman Oxley; then a flight to Cincinnati for a press conference with gubernatorial candidate James Rhodes and his running mate, Bob Taft, and a few remarks at their big-money funder at the home of former Senator Taft; then an hour-and-a-half flight east to Monmouth, New Jersey, followed by a twenty-minute drive to a Hilton, where Dole was scheduled to get in about midnight for his Saturday night’s sleep. Sunday, he’d start with a twenty-five-minute ride to a country club in Manalapan Township to do a press conference and speech at a buffet breakfast; then another drive, another flight, this time to Jamestown, New York, near Buffalo, for a joint news conference with a House candidate; and a drive to another country club for the candidate’s funder-brunch, where Dole would make a few more brief remarks; then another drive to another speech, this to a Chautauqua County veterans’ group, a photo op with members of the County Veterans Council and the dedication of a bridge in honor of the nation’s veterans; then another flight to State College, Pennsylvania, for a speech to five hundred Penn State students, and another press conference with a Congressman, Bill Clinger, and another drive to another hotel for another speech at a fund-raiser, and then another drive and a wheels-up for Washington, National Airport, where the Lincoln Town Car would be waiting in the dark to take him back to the Watergate—unless he decided to stop at the office to get ready for the Senate, Monday.

He never missed a vote in the Senate. There was a certain dogged Kansas dogma to this record: a day’s work for a day’s pay, and the citizens of Kansas paid him to vote. So he never missed a roll call that anyone could remember, not even on wacko amendments, or a 95–0 resolution on National Teacher Week. Of course, that was easier now that he was Majority Leader: now, he was the man to schedule the roll calls; he was the potentate to cross the aisle, to work it out with Democrat Bob Byrd; he held the floor to suggest to the chair the absence of a quorum; now it was up to him when the tyrannical bells went off.

So that meant he could tuck in some time each night, for the Other Thing. He wasn’t going to drop that, either. He wasn’t going to do it like he did in ’80, running around the country with no campaign, not enough money, no organization.

Six hundred votes!
That’s all he got in New Hampshire last time. It was a national humiliation! He almost gave it up, after that, after the ’80 campaign. Thought about leaving the Senate, joining some fancy megamillions law firm. ... Thought about it maybe a week.

Dole called that ’80 race his “noncampaign.” He always brought it up himself to audiences:

“You may not know this ...

“... but I
ran
for President ...”

Here, the low chuckles would start to ripple through the crowd, laughter that would swell as Dole piled on line after line about his failure.

“... Well, losing’s tough, but you get over it ...

“... Night after New Hampshire, I went home and slept like a baby ...

“... Every two hours, I woke up and cried ...”

But Dole was going to make this time different: he wouldn’t have to make a joke out of this attempt. Anyway, if he lost the majority in the Senate, ’88 might be his last chance, his only chance to hold on to power. He wasn’t going to play out the rest of his years in the powerless minority—that was for sure. Bob Dole had known powerlessness.

He knew what it was to live in the minority, to scrape along in the opposition, scrambling to get into the papers, struggling to make a difference, on the edge of the fights, scrapping over the language of the farm bill, nickel-and-diming every issue for some kind of wedge, to get in on the action ... knew it too well: he spent a political lifetime in that sour, still pond, after he came to Congress in 1961.

It was twenty years before he made it to the center of the action. He got his first heady taste of power after Reagan’s first election, 1980: the GOP at last took over the Senate, and Bob Dole became the Finance Committee Chairman. Finally, he had the votes on his side of the aisle. Finally, he got a chance to show what he could do. Reagan swept into office with a mandate for tax cuts, and cuts in the budget. That was the business of the Finance Committee. But Washington’s wise men were convinced it couldn’t be done: once the House and Senate restored the funds to everybody’s pet bill, maybe there’d be a few million cut—maybe a few hundred million. That’s the way it always went. ... Then, one day, in 1981, while he was in the Ag Committee, rewriting the farm bill, Dole stood up and excused himself: “Agh, hav’ta run over to Finance ... got a little package of cuts to consider.” The budget cuts actually ran to twenty-four legal-sized pages, single-spaced: they covered Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment, and the biggest welfare programs. In total, they would chop out $10 billion in fiscal ’82, and another $12 billion the following year. In total, that was a billion dollars more than Reagan’s own people suggested. In the committee room, Moynihan and Bradley started to howl: they’d had no time to
consider ... draconian
reductions! ...
millions of people! ...
But then, the former chairman, the Louisiana Democrat, Russell Long, endorsed the whole package with a simple “Aye ...” and everyone knew what had happened. Dole had greased the skids. The deal was done. So Dole let everyone talk for a few hours, then he rammed the vote home, eighteen to two. In all, he cut $22 billion in one afternoon.

By 1984, when Howard Baker retired, there was some talk that Dole wouldn’t go for the Leader’s job. He had power, with the Finance Committee. He might want to run for President again, might not want to be chained to the Senate’s agenda day and night. But the talkers didn’t know Bob Dole. If there was something to run for, Dole was running.

Still, there were more than a few doubters, and a dogfight for the job in the caucus. Wasn’t Dole a slasher? Would he give every Senator a decent shake, a chance to get his bill considered, a chance to get on TV? What if the Democrats started a fight, and Dole’s switch went off: What would he say? Was there anything he wouldn’t say? There were four secret ballots in the caucus before Dole emerged with the job in his teeth.

There was never any doubt in Dole’s mind: he’d been waiting for this chance his whole life. Now it didn’t matter what the issue was—
whatever
—they’d all have to reckon with Bob Dole. The ’85 farm bill, that was Dole’s farm bill: he put it together brick by brick while the Ag Committee Chairman, Jesse Helms, sat on his hands; judicial appointments, Dole would get them through; Gramm-Rudman, the budget, the contras, the tax code, small business, Social Security, Star Wars. ... There was no limit to his reach.