What It Takes (117 page)

It was Bond, after all, who’d run Iowa for Bush in 1980—Bond and Wittgraf—in that wonderful year when they’d won
every
straw poll, and then
whipped
the front-runner, Reagan, in the caucus ... that put Bush on the map! ... And after that campaign, it was Bond who moved into the gray granite pile, next to the White House, to serve as
political adviser
in the OVP. ... It was Bond (and Wittgraf) who saw to the care and feeding of the old “Bush Brigade” in Iowa—meetings, mailings, reunions ...
for eight years
... waiting for the next chance to trumpet George Bush for President.

This was the chance. This would be the first time Bush would work the same stage as his rivals. This was Bush’s coming out. This was Bush returning to the scene of his (and Bond’s) great triumph in 1980 ... so Bond meant to cross all the T’s on this Iowa Cavalcade.

He had his top deputy, Mary Matalin, watching the arrangements. Winning the straw poll meant having hundreds of people show up to vote ... and that meant tickets—at twenty-five dollars a pop. So, the Bush campaign got people to buy tickets. Then they reserved buses to carry ticket holders to the hall in Ames. They sent a mailing to all known Bush supporters, statewide, explaining the importance of the vote. They followed up with phone banks—“Can you come on Saturday?” ... Then, too, they had Bobby Holt, Junior’s oilman friend from Midland, raise another forty or fifty thousand dollars for the Iowa GOP, so it could hand over
more
tickets for Republicans who’d be safe votes for Bush. ... And that was before the blizzard of arrangements from the Schedulers (the VP had to speak first!), the Secret Service, the Chief of Advance, the Wocka, the White House Military Office ...

And that was before the speech: that’s where the white men wanted to have their cake and eat it. ... See, the Gipper wasn’t popular in Iowa—barely won there in ’84. So this was Bush’s
chance
to show he was his own man. He could illumine
his
issues—fill in the shadows of a Bush Presidency, open up a crucial crack of light between him and his Big Friend.

Well ... couldn’t he?

No.

Loyalty!
Was that too complicated? ... George Bush was not going to distance himself. Bush was not going to have
any issues
come between him and his friend. ... Sure, he’d mention education—Reagan was for education, you know, as a concept ... and ethics: Bush and the Gipper were
for
ethics in government!

But he wasn’t going to mention ethics ... and Ed Meese.

Ethics ... and Mike Deaver. No.

What kind of team play would that be?

What kind of politics? ... To Bush, it was simple: he was identified with Reagan. So, strengthening Reagan strengthened Bush. Anything to undercut Reagan would eat the ground out from under ... George Bush! That’s why he’d never show his cape in any of those White House bullfights—even when they begged him. The Don Regan thing! ... The white men
all
told Bush, he had to say
something
—get out front!—to
show
he was easing Regan out, taking care of the problem: he was saving the President!

No!

In fact, Bush did help Regan out the door (had to fight off Nancy Reagan—let the Chief of Staff get away with his kneecaps!) ... but Bush did his part invisibly. He’d never show that the Gipper couldn’t clean his own house.

So, Bush got the speech he wanted: a loyalty speech. It wasn’t much of a, uh, shocker, but ... they did their best. The new speechwriter, Reid Detchon, gave it all he had: Bush meant to be a Boy Scout—how about a
tough
Boy Scout?

“
For the last seven years, I’ve stood side by side with a GREAT President
...

“
And I’m damned proud of it!
” ...

That was the opener.

So the Bush Stratoliner swooped down upon Des Moines, and the choppers were waiting for an airlift to Marshalltown ... where the limos and vans were idling in line for the scores of staff—everybody came—and the doctor, and the military aid ... and the ambulance fell in with its strobes awhir, and the CAT squad rumbled in its armored Suburban ... the whole big-league big top swept down Highway 30 into Ames, to a Holiday Inn, where the Service whisked the VP off to a holding room—security and comfort! The VP might want to rest ... and thence to the campus of Iowa State, to the field house where the faithful had gathered ... and everything went fine.

Except ... Bond and Atwater split away and climbed to the lop of the hall, last row of the balcony, where they could look down on the swarm below ... it was like a convention floor: a press pen with two hundred reporters and crew—everybody came to a straw vote—and behind, the
thousands
... too many thousands! The place was teeming with Republicans! ... Wait a minute! Were these Republicans? ... They didn’t
look
like Bushies—you know, with sport coats and flowered dresses. These wore
T-shirts
, and funny hats! And they were clapping, and whooping in rapture, like Christ was coming, and
the T-shirts said ... Robertson
.

Atwater’s head sank into his hands. “Oh, ohhh, oughhh,” he was moaning. “Where’s our people?”

“Well, they didn’t all sit together,” Bond said. “They ...”

Atwater fixed Bond with a gaze of earnest menace.

“Ah’m gonna kill you.”

Bond’s eyes were fixed on the crowd. He said: “We’re dead.” (He meant, already.)

But ... not so fast! The VP still had to speak!

So they brought Bush out from the holding room, and introduced him, and he stilled the applause, looked down at his speech ...

“
For the last seven years
...”

Bush’s eyes swept the hall—who
were
these people? Those
hats
!
ROBERTSON
...
ROBERTSON
... And the buttons:
I WAS THERE WHEN ROBERTSON WON!

“
I’ve stood side by side with a GREAT President. And I’m
...”

God! They were, uh, Christians!

“...
very very proud!
”

Of course, the Christians didn’t know the difference ... but a score of reporters circled the missing “damned” on their speech texts.

Couldn’t pull the trigger on his own best line!

The wise guys were right!

Jesus! What a wimp!

What made Dole a star at the Cavalcade—made this bit of guerrilla politics work—was that he had no speech. Well, that wasn’t strictly true—there was a speech (
All typed up! Pretty gooood!
) ... it’s just that Dole never used it.

(By that fall, they’d stopped writing texts for him. They had to—he’d go through a writer a week. They’d hand him a speech and he’d drop one eyebrow, fix the writer with a glittering stare, and demand: “Aughh! Is this the best you can do?” The mortified writer would take it back, start over. ... One time, he pushed a writer through four of those rewrites, till the day of the speech, whereupon Dole gave the squint-of-death to draft number five. “Gaggh! Is this the best you can do?” The frazzled writer practically screamed back: “YES!” ... “
O-kayy
!” said Dole, rolling it neatly into his fist. “I’ll read it now.” ... At any rate, by that September, they’d just tape him speaking off-the-cuff, then shred up his own words into new coleslaw. What the hell! He’d say what he wanted, anyway.)

One other key was the Kappa Sigma house, right there at Ames. Kappa Sig was Dole’s fraternity. It was also the fraternity house of a couple of Dole’s Iowa ops, and their friends on campus. ... (In the end, the key may have been that Dole had young staff with friends at college.)

Anyway, the big Cavalcade in the field house was
televised
... but the candidates couldn’t see—no TVs in the holding rooms. That’s why Bush walked in cold.

But Dole had a guy watching TV at the Kappa Sig house ... and that guy had an open phone line ... to a phone in Glassner’s ear, in the holding room, in the field house, where the Bobster was caged ... and the upshot was:

Dole knew.

He knew how that crowd raised the roof when Robertson was introduced ... and screamed and cheered two or three dozen times in the middle of the Reverend’s speech. ... Dole knew when Bush’s speech fell dead, and the Veep just stalked offstage. ... Dole knew how Kemp got nowhere with that crowd, bashing the Democrats, doing politics.

Dole knew enough not to talk politics—not traditional politics: he tossed away his own coleslaw ... and he talked values—straight to that crowd.

He was glad to see them, he said.

He meant to
welcome them
to the Party, and the process.

Because their participation was a great sign for the GOP ... and for the country, which was in need of moral leadership, the rudder of Christian values. ... The stakes were high—as he well knew (leading the fight for Robert Bork, on the Court!) ... but with
their help
... and
their prayers
...

Praise the Lord! He was like a visiting pastor!

The key to it all—the fact underneath—was that Dole knew more than the phone from the frat house told him. Dole knew why these people didn’t look like Republicans, why they’d never shown up in any crowd before. Dole never needed a writer to tell him how to talk to the dispossessed.

These people were left-outs. (That’s why they were watching Robertson’s TV show!) ... The message Bob Dole left with them, that Saturday, was simple: they mattered to him.

That was the day when Dole got the endorsement of Iowa’s Senator Grassley (“Chuckeeee!”) ... and it was Grassley who introduced him, with the phrase that summed it up in one line.

“He’s one of us!” Grassley said.

That line stuck with Dole. It was perfect for Iowa—for everyplace (and everyone) left out of Reagan’s shower of gold. It linked Dole—in four words!—with the millions (these God-struck folk at Ames, for example) who felt that Washington was a place cut off from their town, from their lives, from the values they held dear.

Dole knew what it meant—the minute he heard Grassley twang it out! ... He could
see
what it meant in that field house at Ames. ... Bob Dole was One of Us. George Bush had to be one of
them
.

When the speaking was done, Dole did not leave, but stood at the door for an hour and a half, shaking hands.

By that time, Robertson had triumphed in the straw poll. Dole ran second, ninety-some votes ahead of George Bush.

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.”

E
LIZABETH 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?