What It Takes (112 page)

“
Shot!
...” Junior cried in approbation, and then, more quietly, into the cart-wind: “These guys don’t think you can do it ... what we all know you can do ... this putt is
mine
—in the
CUP
! ...”

That was about all—not much had to be said,
could
be said, within the web, in Maine. ... It was, actually, a couple of days later, in the air, aboard
Air Force Two
, on the way to San Antonio, Bush told Fuller:

“When we land I want a statement saying I’ll do the debate ... October 28. I’ll be there.” Fuller was surprised: he hadn’t heard any discussion about that. But there was nothing in Bush’s voice that invited discussion.

Bar said: “Oh, you’ll have to call George ...” (She meant George W.) “He’ll be so pleased.”

Bush got up and motioned her into the forward cabin, told her there was no need to rub Fuller’s face in it. He didn’t want the staff looking over their shoulders at the family.

Junior got the news in the next day’s
Post
—at least, one version of it:

“... Bush announced his change of heart in San Antonio after discussing it with aides on the way to a speaking engagement there, the aides said.”

Anyway, the lead was true: George H.W. Bush was coming out to campaign.

Y
OU COULD SEE WHAT
happened in San Antonio from the papers ... well, you could see what happened to Dole.

It wasn’t his speech. His speech went fine. He had those Legion fellows laughing, cheering ... he knew they were his.

But that part didn’t make the papers—his speech. No, the stories were all about Bush agreeing to debate ... and then Bush’s speech—that’s what tripped up Dole.

Bush used this line—just a throwaway, a passing dig—about the Congress trying to micro-manage foreign policy instead of leaving it to the White House, to the President ... who, in Bush’s view, was in charge of Standing Tall.

And Dole took the bait—he defended the Congress, or at least his Republicans, who were
backing
the President,
supporting
the White House!

Dole was extra-sensitive, as he was just then promoting his own five-point peace plan for Central America, his own first adventure in Standing Tall.

Even so, he didn’t make a big deal out of his defense. He answered one question: it was probably four minutes out of his day. ... It was just that those four minutes were the next day’s news:

BUSH, DOLE TRADE BARBS

Which was a clear violation of the “Be Nice” rule ... but what was worse: there was
no news
about Dole ... nothing about his life, himself ... what linked him to that Legion crowd. He was off his message—and after that ...

Well, it was hard to watch, after that ... like watching a skydiver when his chute won’t open.

Bush was safely back on his boat. Dole had to go on ... but he wouldn’t go on—not on his schedule. He was supposed to go to Austin—interview with a guy from
Texas Monthly
, a press conference with the statehouse press corps. That was the problem: Dole got it into his head they were going to ask him who he had in Austin—what pooh-bahs? And he had no bigwigs to announce. So he wouldn’t go ... and, worse:

He got out his maps in the plane, and announced: they were going to West Texas—Lubbock—
and then to Midland
... flying into the crack of the Empire’s death-star—
Midland, Texas
... wrestling for Bush’s own life. Set it up!

So at the next stop, the poor body man, Mike Glassner, sneaked to a pay phone and called in desperation back to headquarters—to Judy Karnaugh, the Scheduler, who was ... not exactly sympathetic:

“I don’t
care
who you call. Lubbock is
not on the schedule
... how should I know who to call?”

“Judy, come on,
please
. He says we’re going to Lubbock. Don’t you have a number? ... Just the County Chairman!”

Of course, the County Chairman was a Bush guy, and anyway ... they didn’t call him till four o’clock on the afternoon before they showed up ... so, the next day, Glassner’s voice on the phone was smaller ... calling from Lubbock. Dole was doing press, before the event, but Glassner had peeked into the hall:

“I can’t tell him,” Glassner said.

“You have to tell him! It’s his own fault!”

“Judy, there’s three
people
... the chairman and two old ladies! That’s all!”

Of course, Dole was furious. That’s why he demanded they
set it up for Midland!

Glassner was on the phone, again:

“Judy, Senator says Jimmy Allison’s wife will set it up. He says you know how to find Jimmy Allison ...”

Judy’s voice was ice:

“Tell the
Senator
... this is
not
the wife he remembers. ... You might also mention: Jimmy Allison is dead.”

Of course. Dole went anyway. It was disaster ... but he had to do it. Alas, it was not just about Dole’s life—not to Dole. It was about Bush’s, too ... that whole Texas business Bush liked to peddle—Dole couldn’t believe it, couldn’t see how anyone
would
believe it.

You could see how Dole looked at it ... though he wasn’t supposed to talk about Bush:

“ ‘Course, you could say
I
was from Texas,” Dole told one crowd. “I was stationed at Camp Barkley, near Abilene, in the war. ... I got to Texas before George Bush! ...”

The crowd chuckled amiably. But it wasn’t a joke. What had Bush
ever
done to claim Texas? ... Sure, he ran there—and lost.

“I think what chairmen want is a qualified winner,” Dole mentioned. “... Not a qualified loser.”

Of course, that made the papers, too. Well, what of it? ... He didn’t say the guy’s
name
! ... Gaghhd! Come
on
! What had the guy ever
done
—that hadn’t been
handed
to him? ... Dole never could figure what they saw in George Bush.

D
OLE SAW HIM, OF
course, when Bush got to Congress, in ’67 ... people said the guy was a star. Nice guy, sure ... far as that went. Not too far.

Dole had been in the House for six years! He figured he understood what Bush had going: he was the son of Prescott Bush. Well, Bob was the son of Doran Dole. That was a difference ... so what?

Then, too, there was Bush’s district—Houston—people talked about that. Made a difference.

Well, the difference Dole saw was, that district was made for Bush! Bob never had that kind of luxury. The minute he got to Washington, Dole was a marked man. His district, which was already huge, was going to be combined with Floyd Breeding’s—a Democrat! Dole had to fight to survive!

But he toughed it out, he
worked
his way back.

Two years later, his race was even harder. Had to fight his way through the Goldwater disaster. Pulled it out by his fingernails, and five thousand votes—five or ten votes in every town, he had hit them all ... in a district as big as New York State ... driving all night toward the next lights on the prairie, with one big fear:

Flat tire.

What the hell would he do?

Of course, no one knew that ... Dole wouldn’t talk about that.

No one knew either what it took to get dressed—those mornings on the road. Bob could use a buttonhook for the shirt now, but the top button might take a half-hour—and still might not work. He’d tie his tie himself now, even if Phyllis was around—but he might tie it five times. Had to be just so.

Nobody knew how he had to do his letters. Thousands of letters—he dictated every one, every word. Then Judy Harbaugh would bring them in and hold them on the desk while Dole signed with his left hand ... until he told her, one day: “I’ll do it.”

He lifted his right fist onto a corner of a letter, and held the paper himself. It was awkward. But he wouldn’t let her help anymore. “There’s so many things I can’t do,” he told her. “I’ve got to try something every day, just to see if I can.”

He didn’t expect anything to come easy.

He sure wasn’t going to sit still in the House. He had a chance now, and he took it: Kansas’s senior Senator, Frank Carlson, announced that he’d retire in 1968 ... same day, Dole announced he was running for Senate.

He’d have a primary against a man who’d already run statewide and won—the former Governor, Bill Avery, a friend of Dole’s (they’d served together in Congress) and a big name.

It would be tough.

Well, you had to be tough!

Actually, it could have been tougher: Dole might have had to face Garner Shriver, another Congressman who’d run a dozen times—never lost—in Sedgwick County, Wichita. Garner owned that part of the state.

But Garner dithered, then backed away. Nobody could figure ... what did Dole say to Shriver to push him out of the race?

“No, he never talked to me,” Shriver recalled. “Uh ... you see, he had this war record. Well, I did, too ... but I didn’t have this, uh ...”

Shriver cocked his arm at his side: “... that was, uh, very visible.”

In the end, it wasn’t even Bob’s arm. Had more to do with stomach. Garner had watched Dole in Congress.

“I don’t think I had the desire he had. ... I just didn’t have all that push.”

People said Bob campaigned for that Senate seat like his life depended on it. Avery was well known (he’d won the governorship in ’64 despite Goldwater’s loss of Kansas by eighty thousand votes) ... and Dole’s name was new to most voters. Bob had to get around and make himself known—in a hurry!

He had a driver now, Bill Frazier, and they must have done a hundred thousand miles around Kansas. Frazier was a three-hundred-pounder, a trencherman, a smoker and drinker ... but just the kind of guy Dole tended to rely on—big, ugly, and humble. He’d drop out of school every time Dole had a campaign. Probably never did finish school.

Anyway, it was always Dole and Frazier—they’d hit every wide place in the road. Dole only knew one way to campaign. He’d glad-hand his way up Main Street, on his way to a coffee-klatsch ... if it was a big town, he’d start with coffee at some supporter’s home, just to work up steam for the big event, at a rented hall. If it was a large hall, he might hook up with his quartet of girl singers, the Bob-o-Links ... or his bevy of booster ladies, the Dolls for Dole—with their pineapple juice ... or maybe he’d send brother Kenny ahead with the old “Roll with Dole” wagon. ... Anyway, by the time Bob hit that hall,
he’d
be rolling—cracking jokes, telling stories, making up his speech on the spot ... by the end, he’d be flying, barking out names, greetings, grabbing hands, chuckling for photos, moving through the crowd like a big steam engine. ... Then he’d sink, in silence again, into the shotgun seat next to Frazier, and a hundred miles might go by before either one said a word.

Still, he talked to Frazier more than anyone—who else did he have to talk to? ... Phyllis would come along for the big events, but they weren’t her happiest evenings. You’d see her near Bob (not too near), with an edgy smile ... unless she saw someone she knew—then she’d light up. But there weren’t many she knew. (It always made her feel inadequate: she couldn’t remember all the names, and a
microphone
—oh, God!—
petrified
her.) She’d never tried to be Bob’s partner in politics. How could she start now? ... She told him she didn’t like that “Dolls for Dole” routine anymore—made her think of
Valley of the Dolls
. ... Of course, Bob kept the gals. He wasn’t much for advice.

Dole knew the Senate was the big league, so he hired a
consultant
, a guy named Roy Pfautch. Dole listened to him for about two weeks, then tuned him out. Never fired him, of course. He’d just stop listening ... joke about the guy, behind his back.

Dole still talked to Huck Boyd; Huck was always there for Bob. But despite his national connections, Huck was a man of western Kansas—northwest Kansas, to be precise—and never had as much drag with the eastern Kansas nabobs, the old guard: Alf Landon, Oscar Stauffer, or Harry Darby, the Kansas City boss. That was Dole’s problem. His district covered half the state, but the wrong half, the empty west. Nobody knew Dole in the cities—Wichita, Topeka ... Kansas City! What could he do in Kansas City?

He’d have to put it together by himself—go around the old guard. Outflank ’em, outwork ’em. He scheduled big events in all three cities—fund-raisers, hundred dollars a plate—and he went major-league. He hired a famous singer—well, pretty famous—Marilyn Maye, to sing Bob’s theme song, “Step to the Rear (and Let a Winner Lead the Way).” She had it in her contract, she had to be introduced as “Marvelous Marilyn May.” Bob did that ... but after Topeka, she announced she couldn’t be bothered to go on. Bob had to hire a big band—in a hurry. He
lost
money on Kansas City.

The problem wasn’t really Kansas City. That was Wyandotte County—mostly black, not a factor in a GOP primary. The problem was in neighboring Johnson County, the most Republican county in eastern Kansas ... a political jungle—twenty-five separate municipalities, each with its Mayor and City Council, and all well-to-do suburbs, foreign turf to Dole. Those people spent more time in Chicago, or New York, than they ever did in Russell, Kansas.

Dole found a way: he found a guy—Dave Owen. Owen was a comer, running for State Senator. He had that county wired. By the time he’d put together his organization and held a big party at a hotel to show it off, nobody would even file against him. So Owen turned his organization over to Dole—whole hog. ... Why?

“I don’t know, I met him ...” Owen said. “He had hero written all over him. He overcame his injuries. He never said a word about it. ... I liked his style. There was something macho about him. He was kick-ass-and-take-names. Bob Dole stood for that.”

So he did.

Dole’s friend Bill Avery had lost the governorship, after one term, because he’d imposed a new income tax. The Democrats killed him, in ’66, with that tax issue.

And so in the summer of 1968, when polls showed Dole flagging (“Gagh! What’re we gonna
do
?”) ... he took a page from the Democrats’ book: