What It Takes (172 page)

The road crew came with him from Florida, and Shrum was on the plane in those days ... but they all told each other Dick must be awfully tired. They left him to “rest” in his suite.

Dick Moe flew in, Jack Guthman from Chicago, Don and Nancy Gephardt from New York; Joyce Aboussie showed up with her St. Louis crowd; Uncle Bob came to the hotel with his wife, Kay ... but no one had the heart to barge in on Dick. They mostly stayed downstairs, in the bar. If they were talking in the hall, and happened to pass his door, they whispered past the Secret Service man.

The suite was plush, tan and taupe, and empty, dim in the afternoon light. There was Dick, and the TV, and no one ... except Loreen.

“Come sit down,” she told him. She patted the couch. They sat, touching, holding hands, fingers locked—his right hand, her left ... they talked a bit, but mostly sat silent, while the afternoon light gave way to darkness. Dick didn’t want the lights on, no ... thanks. Loreen watched her son in the lurid splashes of TV light while Dick stared at the screen, waiting for the news he hoped would never come.

It came, of course, over and over, in that slow-motion horror ... for
hours
—maps flashing, check marks studding the screen next to the other guys’ names ... sadness, resentment, the cry in his throat of woulda-been ... and then, he was numb. He had hoped, to the very end, for
something
—not a state, perhaps, but a few local districts ... a few delegates. But, no. Everything was lost. Florida, Texas—Dukakis picked the two biggest plums. Gore swept the border states. Jackson won the cotton South. The anchors had a hard time picking the “winner” ... in time, they gave up.

“
But the big surprise, Peter, on the Democratic side, is the disastrous showing by Congressman Richard Gephardt
...”

“If we’d had the money ...” Dick said, in the suite.

But Loreen was beyond the comfort of earthly explanation. “If it was supposed to be,” she said, “it would have been.”

Dick nodded ... but he could not accept—not that night.

“This is the best for us,” Loreen said. She made Dick look straight at her eyes. “There is a reason ... even if we don’t know the reason. The Lord is doing it.”

Dick said he agreed.

It was late when Gephardt appeared on TV, from the ballroom of his St. Louis hotel. (Why rush? Maybe people would go to bed ...)

But Carrick was still watching, in D.C., and he saw Dick embrace every person on stage. There was a long hug for his brother, Don. Then, Loreen: they stood near the podium, hands on one another’s shoulders, eyes locked. They stayed like that for what seemed like a minute. (Loreen was telling Dick: she was never more proud of him than she was that night.)

On the screen, Dick turned, and the hometown crowd sent up a cheer:
Gep-HARDT Gep-HARDT
... Dick laughed aloud, into the mike. “You bet!” He posed there with a double thumbs-up. When they were quiet, he began:

“Well, I never told you it was gonna be easy ...”

Carrick was proud of Dick’s grace. He thought
he
couldn’t have done it. Not that way. Not that well.

Then, there were interviews with the networks. It was the first time Carrick could remember anyone congratulating his opponents for their victories.

Carrick felt sick at heart. It occurred to him, again—the thought he’d been living with, all day, since that conference call: we have not really served this man ... not as he deserved.

The next day, they all flew to be with Dick. Gephardt was still on his schedule, moving on to South Carolina—another disaster in the making. ... Carrick and Reilly rented a plane, a small King Air. Murphy, Doak, and Tony Coelho came along, as did the money man, Terry McAuliffe, his deputy, Boyd Lewis, and the field director, Donna Brazile. They called ahead to let Dick know: they’d meet at a supporter’s home, outside Columbia, South Carolina. Debra Johns told the traveling press that Dick had a private dinner that night. The last thing they needed was a deathwatch story. Carrick and the killers snuck through the airport. No one could know Gephardt’s future was on the line.

It was a long night, full of talk—argument, as always, but the heat was gone ... no point fighting for the biggest stateroom aboard the
Titanic
. And they all felt another change: there was the campaign ... and there was Gephardt’s life. In the last days, those had ceased to be the same.

Carrick ran the show: he started with McAuliffe, to run down the money. Dick was a half-million in debt ... maybe a million, once all the bills came in. If Dick chose to fight on in Michigan (Illinois was too expensive, too soon—hopeless) ... well, that would be another half-million. Dick would have to grind it out, retail ... smart money was gone. Dick would have to get his face in the phone, and beg.

Coelho just wanted Dick back in the House. He’d told Carrick, that morning, maybe it was time for Dick to quit. ... But now it came clear: if Dick blew up in Michigan, he’d have so much debt he’d
have
to come back to Congress. No way to raise the money otherwise. ... So, Coelho said maybe Dick ought to go on.

Shrum said there was no disgrace in getting out. Shrummy could write the speech! A beautiful exit. Shrummy was sure: there would be no lingering negatives on Dick.

Reilly was sure there would be. His numbers showed the flip-flop tag had stuck like tar—get out now, and history would conclude that Dick’s own record drove him from the race. Gephardt had traveled forty-eight states, asking people to stand up and
fight
. ... How could he quit now, first time he got a bloody nose?

Donna Brazile said the field staff could do Michigan—they’d own the place! Precinct by precinct, just like Iowa ... and they’d do it all in two weeks.

Murphy said: “You’re not gonna win Michigan.”

Doak had the quaver back in his voice: “Look, it’s been a crazy fuckin’ year ... who knows? I think you could win! If Duke finishes third in Illinois, how’s he gonna get the delegates? It’s a brokered convention! ... Let’s mix it up, let it happen!”

Trippi said maybe it was time to let Dick unite the Party. Get out now, endorse Dukakis ... go to the Hill, get those guys behind Duke ... back to Iowa, urge those delegates to unite behind Dukakis. The goal was a Democratic President: if Dick got out, he could
un-broker
the convention, unite the Party ... and Dukakis would know, it was Dick who made him king.

Reilly said he knew Dukakis, they didn’t. If they thought for a minute that little shit would be
grateful
... well, forget it.

It was Debra Johns, who’d been so quiet, who finally turned to Dick: “What do you think, Dick? Everybody’s talking ... what do
you
want to do?”

They all turned, and Dick dropped his RCA-dog look. He didn’t even pause: “I’ve been doing this two and a half years now. I’m not getting out until they cut my head off and hand it to me.”

There was silence. Everybody staring ... Dick was so fierce. They hadn’t realized, the want had always come from him.

So, Michigan became the next hope.

People started getting up. Shrum said he never really thought Dick should quit. Trippi said he just thought the idea had to be considered. “Yeah,” Coelho said, “and dismissed out of hand ...

“So ...” Coelho turned to Dick. “So, if you don’t win Michigan, we’re gonna file for Congress?”

Dick hadn’t moved. His eyes were locked on a corner of the room. He wasn’t seeing them.

He was thinking back ... how he started, after ’82, because he had to—someone had to—get control ...

And he was thinking ahead—how would he get the money? Money for Michigan ... money for the debt ... money for college.

March 29th was his filing deadline.

Michigan would vote March 26th.

He was going back to the House. He had no more control ...

“Yeah,” he told Tony, absently.

No one in that room knew he’d charged up a hundred thousand dollars on his personal Amex Gold Card. No one knew.

“God,” Dick said, as he stood. “Who’s gonna tell Jane?”

D
OLE FOUND OUT THEY’D
taken a million dollars from his Senate reelection fund—that could have been his
retirement
money!—and spent it on ads all over the South ... states they never had a prayer of winning. They threw it away! (Gyagghh! They ran the Footprints-in-the-Snow Ad in
Florida
—people never
seen
snow ... not to mention, Bush was forty points ahead there.)

The Big Guys promised Dole they’d pay it back. Then the smart-guy lawyers figured out—a week too late—the campaign laws wouldn’t let them pay it back. That money was history.

That’s when Dole pulled his ads off the air in Illinois.

Then the press found out, and the Friday papers (four days before the Illinois vote) were filled with speculation:

Dole was going to call it quits
(sources said ... observers said).

Dole denied he was quitting.

Of course, they didn’t believe
that
crap for a minute!

And Dole did not, could not, tell them about the TV time he was trying to buy—the Saturday special, the half-hour statewide.

That was the whole point: he wanted to spring that, make it a big deal—couldn’t give Bush time to get ready! That was Dole’s secret plan.

Then, too, the Dole campaign still had to tie down a few, uh ... loose ends.

Dole had in mind a TV show ... but
live
TV—he would
make something happen
. He picked a little town, Galesburg, near the Iowa border, 185 miles west and south of Chicago, the site of Knox College, host to a Lincoln–Douglas debate in 1858—that’s where Dole would challenge George Bush to meet him, one-on-one. Bush was going to be in Galesburg Saturday night for the Lincoln Day Dinner ... so Dole would show up in Galesburg, too ... crowd the VP, get in his face, make him
react
, on the spot ...
just like Nashua, in 1980
—while the whole state watched, live, on TV.

So they flew in the video wizards, Murphy and Castellanos, to Chicago—that was Friday. Brock had a limo waiting at the airport to whisk them into the bunker at the Hyatt. The smart guys were already calling all over the state, trying to buy a half-hour time block. Hot-shot Washington communications lawyers were threatening million-dollar lawsuits if the Illinois stations wouldn’t sell the time. Dole-folk were on the phones to Galesburg, trying to map a battle plan:
We could crash the Bush event
—
just buy a ticket! Y’know, we’d challenge him right there: C’mon, you wimp!
... Dole’s Illinois chairman, Lee Daniels, came in with some of his Chicago mob—guys with pinky rings and broken teeth. Daniels was throwing a fit over the stories that Dole would quit. Henry Hyde, the smarmy Rep from the Sixth District, was going to endorse Dole—now
that
was in jeopardy. Daniels demanded that Brock call Hyde. One of Daniels’s mob, a guy named Paulie—who had not only the ring and the teeth, but shades and a shoulder holster—was informing the Dole-folk: “We’re gettin’
focked
! In Du Page County. You got that? Focked
over
!” ... Then the phone rang in the staff room. It was the Bobster, from his suite: What about his TV show?

“Impossible,” Murphy said.

They only had twenty-eight hours! They hadn’t even bought the time. They couldn’t hire a crew until they got the time. Dole wanted
remote TV
—no studio, they’d need a camera truck. He wanted
live TV
in a small town 185 miles away—that’s
satellite time
. Where would they get the trucks? St. Louis? Would the stations in Illinois
take
a live feed? ... Why not tape? Why not Chicago? Guys ...
Guys! ... What
was the show?

Wasn’t ten minutes later, an Advance man strode in, told Murphy: “Room 320, five minutes.” When Murphy got there, the phone rang.

“Whah,
hah,
Mike!”

Mrs. Dole was just thinking how
great
that Bob Dole video was, how it
touched her hort
... and ... by the way: Bob
really wanted
his show from Galesburg.

“Well ... there’s problems ...”

“Let’s
trah
to do it.”

“Uhnn ...” Murphy said.

Mrs. Dole was relentlessly, sugar-sweetly implacable. “Mike, it’s awfully important to him.”

“Uhnn ... alrighty ...” he said. “We’ll do our best.”

After that, she called again—for Castellanos: same message.

Then her staff called: the speechwriter, Aram Bakshian,
had
a half-hour speech,
already written
—wasn’t that
great
? (Actually, it wasn’t great. It was just a half-hour speech. Aram had in mind that Dole would
read
this thing, staring, full-face, into the camera. Murphy started calling it the People of Earth speech. ATTENTION, PEOPLE OF EARTH!)

Another Advance man grabbed Murphy: “Come with me.” He pulled him down the hall to the staff suite. Bernie Windon said to a phone: “Here he is, Senator ...” He handed Murphy the phone.

“Agghh! What’sa
prob
lem?”

“Well,” Murphy said, “there’s four problems. Number one, we need a satellite truck, and there’s NCAA basketball all over the country Friday night, so all the trucks are out on the road. Number two, we’ll need a camera truck with switching—right now we’re looking in Milwaukee for one. Number three, we’re going to need a lighting truck so it doesn’t look like a home movie. I think we can get one. Number four, if we get the time, we’re not sure the station’ll take a live feed, and we’d have to get satellite time, and all that.”

As usual, Dole was surprisingly hip:

“Aghh, have you tried Conus?”

“I’m sure we have,” Murphy said.

“Well, check with Walt Riker in Washington. He’s working on this, too.”

“Okay, I will, Senator.”

Dole wanted Murphy to know he was not unaware. ... “I think we’ve got to do this live. Not in a sterile situation,” he said. His voice was soft, almost pleading. “We wanna get Bush in there. If he walks in, you can’t tell him, no, it’s already taped. It’s got to be interesting—big event for the press—build it up ...”