What It Takes (118 page)

Her every instinct was to administration ... which, for Mrs. Dole, began with administration of self. If she were at Bob’s side ... well, things would surely be different. It was a matter of concern to her that Bob had not the faintest idea what he was going to say that afternoon. She was dismayed that Bob didn’t even have
a set of notecards
for his basic speech. (No member of the Reagan Cabinet would be without!) She went so far as to bring this up with Bob’s staff—as if this were something they had neglected.

Of course, not a word of this could be breathed aloud, because Elizabeth would not feed the canard that Bob Dole could not be organized. The Karacter Kops all repeated the fiction that Elizabeth had, somehow,
taught
her husband (suddenly, in his sixth decade) to “Be Nice.” No one caught her working on her real agenda: “Be Neat.”

Anyway, everybody was busy writing serious-minded feminist nosebleed on Mrs. Dole’s “controversial” resignation. The idea was that we should
all
(harrrumph!) ...
examine
the
assumptions
of a society where a (umph! umph!)
woman
... would give up her job in the
Cabinet of the United States
... to help her (hocchhh!) HUSBAND!

What about HER CAREER?

What all the earnest anguish ignored was that Bob was much more a part of her career than the next report on the next airliner to blow up in the sky over Pascagoula ... that Elizabeth Dole would no more drop her career than would Bob Dole (or Barbara Bush) ... that she
was
making a career decision ... and anyone who did not know that being wife to the President of the United States is a better and more powerful job than being Secretary of Transportation was too dumb to work for government—though, alas, not too dumb to write for magazines.

The fact was, being Elizabeth Hanford Dole, she had no choice.

It wasn’t just Bob’s supporters
begging
her (the Secret Weapon!) to join them at the ramparts. Nor even his staff, who had taken to calling Bob and Elizabeth “The Dynamic Duo.” No! It was
The Washington Post
, and
Washington Monthly
, and (the real Dynamic Duo) Evans and Novak ... who were already beating tribal war drums, criticizing her for helping her husband
at all
... while (hoccchhh!) airliners were blowing up in the sky! For Elizabeth Dole, whose career was personal perfection, this was intolerable.

So ... the real anguish was, she quit ... and
then
she was hammered as a cop-out, a traitor to her gender, a feminist war criminal—no better than, than ... than ... a
WIFE
!

And the true upshot was, she joined her husband’s campaign full-time and spent half her time in a new campaign to convince every audience that she was right to be campaigning. “What WE WOMEN have fought for,” she said (and said), “is the RIGHT to make our own CHOICES!” Then, she’d take ten or fifteen minutes to explain that she didn’t really leave her job because airplanes were blowing up in the sky—no! She’d met the challenges at Transportation. ... “And as Ah left the Department [smile] ... Ah felt Ah was putting aside ONE CAUSE, which Ah believed in very strongly, to take up ANOTHER. Ah wanted to be by mah husband’s side—if not literally [chuckle], then at least figuratively!”

That was true, too: she seldom was with Bob. She was all over the country with her own plane and her own staff, working like a beast to be charming five times a day, in between which events, she’d try to memorize the résumés of another half-dozen City Councilmen while she shoveled M&M’s, or Burger King fries, into her mouth and stood at attention in her hotel room, so her body man, Mark Romig, could zap her with his steam-gun, so her suit would be perfect, wrinkle-free, for her next event, her next interview, her next TV talk show, her next women’s luncheon, where she’d explain again the CHALLENGE of participating in the PROCESS that selects the LEADER of the FREE WORLD ... and ...

She didn’t feel too organized herself.

Which was okay with Bob, who had this organized just like he wanted—double the ink!

Besides, he was going to get a Big Guy ...

This was
serious
now. He had a fish on the line—Bill Brock!

Even Dole’s working staff—true, humble Dole-folk—were happy about this. (Well, there was a brief movement for Paul Laxalt as Big Guy. Laxalt wouldn’t do
anything
. But if Laxalt was out of town, Bill Brock was the laziest man in Washington, so on the whole, everybody was pleased.)

As for Dole, he thought maybe Brock
could
help organize. (Elizabeth thought Brock was
so
organized! Elizabeth approved of Bill Brock entirely.) You know, Brock had been around! Brock was a grassroots specialist! Brock used to run that Youth for Nixon thing! Brock had run a
vicious
race to knock off Al Gore, Sr., and get to the Senate.

Didn’t matter, really: whatever Brock
did
was gravy ... because what Dole wanted was to show everybody that he
had
a Big Guy—and Brock was, number one and foremost, a
Big Guy
.

In fact, he’d been a Big Guy for so long that now there were
smart guys
... who were
Brock guys
! (As was his custom, Dole had hired some: his first campaign for President was managed, briefly, by Tom Bell—“Agh! Guy worked for Brock! Pretty
goood
!” Of course, Bell didn’t last in that job, and Dole finished as an asterisk ... but that did nothing to shrink Brock’s Big-Guyhood.)

For twenty-five years, official Washington had linked Brock’s name to titles of knowing power:
Congressman
,
Senator
,
Chairman
,
Secretary.
Brock had the bankable asset—he was well known, not least to Dole, with whom he’d served in House and Senate ... where they’d voted together to
back Nixon
, and then
Ford
... after which, Brock moved on to
Chairman of the RNC
, in which post he worked to heal the Party, after Watergate ... which healing was complete with the election of Reagan, whose ideology Brock did not favor, but from whom, nonetheless, Brock took jobs—first as
U.S. Trade Rep
, and then,
Secretary of Labor
. ... This was another of Brock’s apparent assets: he had held so many jobs and stood for so little, no one would be moved to quit if Bill Brock hired on—not even Devine or Keene, who measured themselves by their enemies, nor certainly Ellsworth, who got along with Brock, gentleman to gentleman.

In sum, Brock was perfect (i.e., no one would get mad at Dole). And Brock sent all the right signals.

“Kansan,” said a headline in
The Washington Post
, “Has Expert Advice.” The
Post
said Dole had cleared a giant hurdle to make himself Bush’s most-feared opponent: “The selection of someone with Brock’s stature is a clear signal that authority will be delegated in the 1988 Dole campaign.”

Dole could not have thumped the tribal drums any better. Brock was worth all the waiting, all the talk ... Brock was Big, Big, Big ... Brock was, in Dole’s backcourt eyes, better than Laxalt! Maybe better than Sears!

Brock was classy—heir to a candy fortune.

(Lotta moneyyy!)

Brock was southern—from Tennessee.

(Aghh! Super
Tues-day
!)

Brock was not only Cabinet
rank
—he was in the Cabinet
now
... which solved another ticklish problem.

Whenever she was questioned about her resignation, Elizabeth Dole would now rejoin: “Whah,
Bill BROCK
left the Cabinet just a few weeks after Ah did! For exactly the same reason—to be full-time in Bob’s campaign. Ah’m sure he doesn’t feel he’s set aside
his
career! ...”

So, Bill Brock
came aboard,
as Big Guys like to say ... except Brock didn’t hit the deck, just at that moment. He had important personal business, and some trips to make—he was awfully busy. So what he did, he sent a boarding
party
, a posse of guys in suits, to poke around L Street, asking questions of the Dole-folk, like: “How would you
describe
your work for Senator Dole’s campaign?” ... and similarly subtle queries, designed (as Big Guys say) to
evaluate the personnel
.

Of course, coming as they did, from the world of Big Guys, these posse men didn’t have to ask much: it was obvious, the Dole campaign was ... a walking disaster.

The
personnel
! ... They were
so
humble—there wasn’t one of them you’d want sitting behind you at a Cabinet meeting. And the
organization
... pathetic! These poor schlubs were all on one floor, together, everybody ... you know, just ...
working for Dole
!

Well, that was going to have to change.

For one thing, the campaign would have to bring in
first-class talent
(i.e., Brock guys) ... and pay the freight: real talent never came cheap. And they’d have to rent another floor of the building, a couple of floors up, so no one could just burst in from the stairwells ... there would be a decent reception desk, and a comely young woman, with pearls, to pick up the chiming phone and say:

“Senator Brock’s office, please hold.”

But, alas, that would take time. For the moment, it was all the posse could do to penetrate the mysteries.

My God! ... They called a meeting with the bean counter, Kirk Clinkenbeard. Clink was a Dole-folk who’d left his father’s CPA firm in Topeka (his dad was Dave Owen’s first Campaign Treasurer) because of a problem with his vision. So ... came the Brockies, asked their first question. Clink took off his glasses, held a piece of paper
one inch from his nose
, and announced there’d been $9.7 million raised. ... Of course, the posse men started looking at each other like they’d landed in
Mork and Mindy
. C’mon, get
serious
! The campaign’s finance director can’t even see! This guy’s got to go—
first
to go. ... But what they didn’t know:

Clink was the guy Dole called three times a day, to ask how much was in the till. Dole especially liked him because he had a disability.

Bill Lacy, who had run the whole campaign that brought Dole from amid the pack to his current stance, toe-to-toe with Bush in the first five states ... he’d have to go. Guy didn’t even have a strategic plan!

Mari Maseng, who juggled the press, ads, and speeches, who flew everywhere with Dole, telling him, “Senator, I think there’s a positive way to say this ...” and still managed not to piss him off entirely ... well, she’d have to go, too. She could not supply a simple flowchart to show
who approved the Senator’s speeches
!

Kim Wells, the Kansas City lawyer who’d left his firm to work for subsistence, to sleep in friends’ houses for ten months, the man Dole relied on to fix anything that looked broken ... well, an obvious loser! (Couldn’t even
find
him on a flowchart!) The posse confronted him with a simple question: What do you do in the campaign? Wells seemed to think that was funny! He said: “Anything Dole wants.”

It was Kim ... (and Lacy and Maseng and Owen, and Judy Harbaugh, Scott Morgan, Clinkenbeard—it was all the Dole-folk, after a while) ... who started with the Vulcan salute—that sign Spock used to give on
Star Trek
: one palm raised, Injun-style, with the middle and ring fingers split to form a V. “Live long and prosper,” they’d tell each other. That identified them as Vulcans—true Dole-folk. The Brockies were the Klingons. The Dole-folk would pass each other at L Street, and flash the V: “Live long and prosper! ... Prepare for Klingons!”

Of course, by the time it became
us
against
them,
the posse had identified the problems ... who were the people Dole called when he wanted something done—they’d have to go. ... Down the chart! Out of the loop! ... Except Dole still called them. Mostly, he’d call now to make sure they weren’t mad at him. (If they were, Dole wouldn’t call. Elizabeth would call: “Whah, Bob was just saying, just the other
day
, how
sorry
he was, the way that worked out ...”)

Dole was trying to be good—to hand the campaign over, to be organized, like he promised—but he had doubts about the Klingons, too. He
knew
some of them—“Gagghhh! Guy couldn’t organize a two-car
fune
-ral! We gonna
hire
him? ...”

But he’d only say it in the plane, or his car. (Be Nice! ... Hands off!) He had to let them hire or fire whomever they wanted. Then, he found out they wanted to can his Iowa chief—Tom Synhorst (just a farm kid—not Big enough for the Klingons).

That was the one time Dole put his foot down. (Aughh! Only place in the
country
he was
organized
!) ... “Do what you want,” he told Brock, on the phone. “Don’t touch Iowa.”

I
F MICHAEL DUKAKIS COULD
win Iowa, it was over. That’s how Sasso had it figured. Michael sneaks into a state where he’s unknown ... urban ... an easterner ... a Greek! ... and wins?

Then, surely, he wins New Hampshire, eight days later.

Then he sweeps into Super Tuesday as the only national Democrat, the clear favorite in the rest of the nation. ... Sasso had Super Tuesday all mapped out. Michael wouldn’t have to contest all twenty states—spread himself willy-nilly—no. Massachusetts would vote that day. That’s about eighty delegates for Michael. Maryland, Washington State ... Michael had solid chances at wins. If he won one other big state—say Florida, where Kitty could help ... if he could, God grant, win Florida ... and
Texas
... there’s no way he’d lose the nomination, if he didn’t get hit by a bus.

But the first link was the weakest: Iowa.

Michael’s polls there were holding steady—near the top. Michael’s organization was the best. It would identify his voters and deliver them to their caucuses. Sasso had seen to that.

But the race in Iowa was formless: Dukakis, Gephardt, Biden, maybe Simon, Babbitt, or Jackson—someone was going to get hot and sweep the thing.

Problem was, Michael wasn’t going to get hot. Sasso had been leading him gently to a higher pitch of speech. He had shown Michael, in a hundred small ways, how “good jobs at good wages” was, at root, a
populist
message. What
could that mean
... save that government had to take the side of working people, guarantee them a shot at the basics: a job, decent home, safe neighborhoods, good schools, a clean environment for their kids. ... Michael was for all those things—but he came at them through the head, not the heart.