What It Takes (15 page)

Anyway, Dole had nothing but praise for Reagan, and deference, at least in public. Whenever Dole spoke in a state where Reagan’s grand tour would later touch down, Dole always reminded the crowd that the Big Guy was on his way. “Aghh, I’m just doin’ little
advance,
f’the President ...” Whenever Dole talked about the need to cut spending, he said it was Reagan who showed the need to cut spending. It was Reagan who’d changed the tone: “Y’don’t see anybody these days proposing big new spending programs ...” And no one ever heard from Dole that Reagan had already dropped the ball; that Dole did forty-three states, this year, for Dole. No one ever heard from Dole that if it weren’t for Reagan waffling, maybe they’d have some money to spend. If it weren’t for Reagan’s mania of self, they might have a bigger bulge in the Senate. Dole might not
have
to spend Saturday night flying an extra three thousand miles to get on the front page with Broyhill ... wouldn’t have so many tight races, wouldn’t have to go to North Carolina, could have sent another plane for Elizabeth, maybe wouldn’t have lost his voice, wouldn’t have to listen to Riker losing
his
, yelling into a bad connection on the air phone ...

“NO! REPUBLICAN CAN-DI-DAYTZZZ ... YEAH, PLURAL!”

Riker was dictating the press release to the Capitol office. He’d written it on a legal pad, with blank spaces for the numbers and totals. Dole looked it over and changed the lead, made it more than an announcement of the final campaign swing. Now the top paragraph predicted a win: “... the U.S. Senate will remain Republican.” Dole knew how to get ink: you had to make news. He also knew when to make news, and Saturday afternoon was too late. They’d already missed the first Sunday papers. And they still didn’t have the totals.

“NO,
YOU
STICK IN THE NUMBER. ... WELL, GET THE REST OF ’EM AND GET IT OUT! ... JEEEZUS!”

The jet was flying back into weather, bouncing around in the sky. Just what they needed on that final push. At least Dole could smell the finish line. None too soon. His throat was raw, and dark circles shaded the tan under his eyes. Well, Elizabeth’d be there. She’d have everything arranged.

But there was no arranging the Broyhill campaign—not at that point. Elizabeth had no more idea than Dole what they were getting into. Dole landed late, in a rainstorm, at Hickory, North Carolina, and sat in a van while they drove him through the dark on slick mountain roads ... for forty-five minutes! It was like a hostage scene. No one he knew had any idea where they were going. Dole Advance never scheduled
any
car ride more than thirty minutes. But this wasn’t Dole Advance.

They got to a high school, some kind of fish fry: bad vibes; no media; crowd was down; Dole was late; raining like hell. Everyone wanted this to be over—especially Dole. But this was Elizabeth’s home state. Of course, she was being “nahce,” meeting the locals. ... “Whah, thank you
so much
,” she’d say, in response to their effusions. Dole was halfhearted, working the crowd, as he listened for her silvery chuckles of delight behind him. He meant to keep this short and sweet. He’d say a few words—more than he should with his voice gone—then: “Gottagooo ...”

But there was no escape. After the fish fry, they packed into the van for another forty-five-minute trek. This time, they got lost in the rain, trying to find a recreation center in the town of Lenoir.

Close to eleven o’clock, and the chucklehead with the van didn’t know where he was going!

Be nice ...

So they got to Lenoir and there’s a crowd, maybe hundred and fifty, that’d been “warmed up” for about four hours ... they looked like the people who kill time in those pay-TV chairs in airports: they’re watching, but they don’t want to be there. The Doles walked in and everybody sat up, waiting, but Broyhill hadn’t shown yet. Elizabeth got up and delivered her remarks, and then Dole scratched out a few lines. But Broyhill didn’t get there. Broyhill was lost, somewhere in the rain. So what could they do? The Doles stayed and “warmed up” the crowd for another half-hour.

It was after midnight when they got back to the plane. Dole just wanted to know the flight time. Then he sat, quiet, awfully quiet. Elizabeth was worried because Bob was so tired. Really, she had no
idea
it was
so far
... and on a night like this, whah, she
never
. ... But no one else felt like chatting. Some North Carolina folks had sent along some barbecued pork for the flight, so once they were up, they set to their sandwiches, and after a while, in the darkened cabin, there was just the smell of the smoky pork, the hum from the engines, the hiss of the air vents. Elizabeth was still nervous, but she could always eat barbecue.

It’d be near 2:00
A.M.
when they got to Kansas City, maybe a half-hour later when they got into the hotel. Dole would be up in a few hours to do
Face the Nation.
He’d be nice, Presidential. ... He’d make a few jokes in the studio. On the air, he’d suavely predict victory.

But really, he wasn’t so sure anymore. Somehow, it didn’t feel the same. Maybe he was just tired ... hard to tell. No one would see it on TV. He’d look fine. He always did. But somehow, when it got like this, everything seemed harder. He’d try to shrug it off, like he always did, if it came to that. If the news was bad, he wasn’t going to whine.

Still, it didn’t help, later that day, when Riker found out the papers were going with a story from George Bush, about all the miles he’d flown, the candidates he’d helped, the money he raised. Riker said the totals weren’t as big as Dole’s, but no one was going to do a second-day story on the same thing from Dole. Bush’s press release had gotten to the papers in plenty of time.

Dole just made a face, and issued a mournful haiku, a meditation on the struggle against an incumbent VP:

“Agh,
Air Force Two
... lotta people, typin’ ... flyin’ around.”

The thing that was neat about
Air Force Two
was the way it helped him make friends. He’d be doing a state, so he’d get the Congressmen, State Party Chairman, or State Treasurer, even a County Chairman or two, and ferry them along to the next event. They loved it. They’d talk about it for the next year. That was one beautiful plane!

Actually, it wasn’t just one: any plane he rode was called
Air Force Two.
In the bad old seventies, when Mondale was Veep, and the government still worried about things like fuel and noise, the Vice President flew on small, efficient DC-9S. But now, in the age of Reagan, Bush mostly flew a big old 707, the Stratoliner, a Cadillac-with-tailfins kind of plane, so heavy, noisy, and greedy for fuel that no commercial airline would be permitted to land one at an American airport. The Air Force had enough of the behemoths to keep two on call for Reagan, maybe send another overseas with a Cabinet Secretary, and still give one (or one and a backup) to Bush, to ease his travels. On most trips, he got Number 86-6970, which was the first jet a President ever flew. It was delivered for Ike, at the end of his term, and it was JFK’s number-one plane. Sometimes Bush got Number 26000, the plane that flew LBJ back to Washington after Kennedy’s assassination, on which he took the oath of office in the nation’s darkest hour. Of course, by the time a guest learned any of that, he felt like he was riding a shrine.

And the way George Bush was, he’d never leave guests stuck in the back, even in the fine first-class seats that lined the rear cabin. No, someone from the staff would lead them up through the staff seating section, and through the office cabin, with its tables, word processors, Xerox, fax ... and forward still, to the Power Cabin, where the Vice President would receive them in his big swivel chair. That was the grandest part of all.

Lyndon Johnson had the chair built in, along with the table and an L-shaped bench along the wall, so guests or staff could sit at the table, while Johnson held court in his swivel-throne. Johnson had them build in a button he could press to raise and lower the table. There was a TV, of course, and the highest level of Bush-friend-perk was to sit with the Veep in the Power Cabin, transcontinentally munching the public popcorn, while the latest (though, alas, not always the best) movie transpired on the VCR.

Bush used the plane as a five-hundred-thirty-mile-an-hour living room, and he dressed accordingly. Whenever he’d get on, even for a twenty-minute hop, he’d slip off his suit coat and don his AFII jacket, a short blue windbreaker made by London Fog, with “Air Force II” embroidered across the back, a Vice Presidential seal on his left breast, and on the right, in embroidered script: “The Vice President.” Bar had a jacket, too, with the same decoration, and on the right breast, an embroidered “Mrs. Bush.” Whenever they got on the plane, stewards had the jackets ready, his draped over the back of the swivel-throne, and hers on the table, or laid out in the very foremost cabin, the private Vice Presidential stateroom. For longer trips, the VP would strip off his work clothes and get into slippers, baggy sweatpants, a golf shirt, and, of course, the jacket.

If he was leaving an event, the first thing he’d grab was the thank-you list, which the Lead Advance handed aboard as he said goodbye to the Veep on the tarmac. These were the names, addresses, and salutations (Mr., Mrs., Miss, Ms., Dr., etc.) written out in a grid, along with the nature of each person’s gift or work in aid of the event. Bush always did the thank-you notes first. Oftentimes, he’d have a dozen done before the plane got off the ground. Then he’d call his briefers in, usually the Chief of Advance, followed by the staff who arranged the next event, or the State Department briefers if he were headed overseas. Sometimes, on a long trip, he’d keep the briefers up there for hours, peppering them with questions, until he found one they really couldn’t answer. Then, for some reason, he seemed satisfied. That was a note he could quit on.

But after the briefing, invariably, it was time for friends. That’s when the staff would lead the pols up front for popcorn and shoot-the-shit, and maybe, if the hour was right, a martini that would fell a horse, prepared by the practiced stewards to Vice Presidential specs, in a water glass, size of a tumbler. See, the Veep allowed himself only one. (Of course, a guest could have as many as he liked: once, upon deplaning, the aged and befuddled Richard Lyng, Secretary of Agriculture, took a dramatic stuntman tumble down the back steps of the plane to cement; but he lived to buy further surplus.) Whatever the hour or the circumstance, this was the part the Veep liked best. He’d bring them up, order them drinks, and talk politics: he loved to talk politics, as some men love to talk sports. Or if he knew them better, it might be anything, as long as it was common ground: fishing, boats, children, tennis. ... (You
play
? Y’gotta come to the house, got a court there. Why’n’cha come next weekend? C’mon! Your son play? Doubles! It’ll be
fun
! ...)

What a Great and Good God it was who gave George Bush work he so enjoyed! And work that contributed so surely to his progress on this earth below!

So, when Bush went to speak for George Wortley, Congressman from Syracuse, and then to a dinner in Manhattan, he picked up a couple of County Chairmen from the New York Conservative Party.

“Hey! Wanna ride down on
Air Force Two
?”

“
Yeah ...
uh,
yes, sir
!”

So they got on the plane, and within ten minutes they were up in the Power Cabin, posing for a photo with The Man himself. Of course, next month, the pic showed up on the front of the party newsletter. And Bush used the photo a thousand times. (
Who says conservatives don’t like Bush?)

Of course, all the Governors flew with Bush, too. That’s what he was working on in ’86: Governors, all over the country. See, that was the White House plan: the Reagan guys, the A-Team, palmed off the grunt work on George Bush—what the hell, he’d do it. ...

But what a Great and Good Godly stroke! Governors were just what he’d need for next time, for ’88, when at last he’d turn from toil for others and, finally, do something for himself. Governors were the ones who had the contacts all over their states—and not just people who’d help in campaigns. Those were the people a Senator knew: a Senator came back just to run every six years. But Governors had to work every day with people in the towns and counties, handing out contracts, putting folks in jobs. A Governor met the local press, knew all the small papers, and the local reporters—not just the one overworked schlub who covered Capitol Hill in the Washington bureau. A Governor could make all the difference in a state:

KEAN: BUSH VISIT MEANS N.J.

HAS A FRIEND IN WHITE HOUSE

That would be the headline from Trenton, if the Governor, like Tom Kean, was a friend who’d billboard Bush’s day in the Garden State—his visit to that toxic-waste cleanup site, all the help he’d offered on that Superfund. ...

Of course, if the Governor wasn’t a friend, then his appointed State Police Chief might find time to take a couple of press calls. ...

That would be a different headline:

BUSH VISIT WILL COST

$200,000 IN OVERTIME

So Bush was focused on Governors, and not just on their campaigns: he was working on them, one by one, making friends, finding common ground. Tom Kean wasn’t even running in ’86, but Bush made a point of seeking him out, asking his views on two issues that interested Kean the most: education and welfare reform. Of course, Kean was a friend from way back. Same with Dick Thornburgh in Pennsylvania. But big Jim Thompson, in Illinois, he was looking for a horse to ride: had to be a good horse, to carry him all the way to a Cabinet job in Washington. So Bush had long talks with Thompson—revenue generation, what it’s like to run a big state, that kind of thing. Bush let Thompson do the talking—and signed him up to be a cochair of the PAC, the Fund for America’s Future. Of course, that also froze Big Jim for the whole ’88 cycle, put an end to any budding plan to run as Illinois’s favorite son. But it wasn’t just the fellows in the biggest states. Kay Orr in Nebraska—got to know her when she was State Treasurer; Bob Martinez in Florida—friend of Jeb, Bush’s son who lived down there; Henry Bellmon in Oklahoma—he was with Bush back in ’80; even Mike Castle, in Delaware, who had to be with Pete du Pont, and Mike Hayden in Kansas, who’d have to be with Dole: Bush wanted to know them. He wanted to be friends.