What It Takes (70 page)

“Honey, don’t listen to anyone. You just do what you’re comfortable with ...”

And to Ruth, Joe snarled through his teeth: “Goddammit! Don’t you
ever
tell Jill what she’s got to do.”

Later, in the bathroom, Jill told Ruth: “When he gets like that, just ignore him. He just gets that way, sometimes.”

There was Sasso, like a brother to him, smoothing every trip, every meeting. There was his son, John, prepping him, pushing him, for his first big speech. Pick up the paper, and there was Kitty, confiding (just between her and the Hadassah, understand) that the family wanted Michael to run. ...

Only with family could Michael show doubt ... but there was no doubt discussed in the family now. Only in their eyes could he find the fondest, largest view of himself ... and they saw him as either a candidate, or a man who would not match their dreams.

Even at the fringes of his tight life, at the third and fourth remove, everybody had such confidence for him. He asked their help to peer down the long track ahead, and they told him: all the lights were green. What engineer, like Dukakis—at the levers of his marvelous machine—could stay his hand on the throttle?

A thousand Democrats (along with a score of diddybop press, and local wise guys, national big-feet, Ken Bode’s NBC crew, and then, too, Michael’s State House brain trust, his old Greek friends, his speech coach, his family) packed a hotel ballroom in Bedford, New Hampshire, to hear his first “Presidential” address. Democrats in New Hampshire are such an oppressed breed that they have to look past their borders to see what a Democratic officeholder looks like. And Dukakis was the man they had turned to for years, to stop their Seabrook nuclear plant, to face off with their hated and hostile Gov, the Republican, John Sununu. In effect, Michael Dukakis was New Hampshire’s leading Democrat. They owed him. And that night, the Party loyalists paid him back.

It wasn’t the Gettysburg Address, after all, but a good speech, yes ... a call to let the road to renewal begin, there, in New Hampshire. Michael was nervous, careful at first. His son, John (a professional actor), had plastered sticky tape on the podium to remind Michael: Keep those hands down! At first, Dukakis was thinking his way through ...
hands still ... slow here ... let your voice fall
... but as he got untracked, more confident, his hands started slicing and dividing the air over the podium ... and he sounded like he meant what he said. He even slowed down and looked up when he got to a zinger ... and they stopped him with applause! He looked so startled, first time it happened—like he wondered what it was he said. But it happened again, with the next line, and the next—twenty-four times!

And when he got to the part about Pan and Euterpe, their voyages to this land, their hard work (in New Hampshire!), their dreams, their success in the New World ... well, it was a real connection with that crowd. Then Michael introduced Euterpe Dukakis, and at eighty-three years old, queenly and calm, she rose to acknowledge the cheers. And some stood to applaud now ... and, therewith, Michael passed his test: a standing ovation from New Hampshire Democrats, “activists” in the first primary state. And when he finished, there were a thousand people standing, as Michael, with a small, pained smile, held a hand up, as if to still them ... but they did not stop. They were grinning and clapping, even after he sat down. And Michael’s smile had grown wide. ...

And so, two days later, a Sunday, while the press was asleep (the Boston press knew Michael
never
worked on Sunday, his family day), Michael and Sasso flew down to New York and met with Jimmy Carter. And Michael asked his questions: Could he win in the South? Could he do the job? ... Carter said yes, and yes.

Then Michael and Sasso caught a train (Michael loved trains—and no reporter would look for anyone on a train), and traveled to Albany, where he and Mario Cuomo—these two Democrats, Governors, each at the peak of his form; Mediterraneans, sons of immigrants, products of the American dream, both acutely conscious, proud, and grateful of how far they’d come—sat down in Cuomo’s grand and Sunday-silent capitol to talk about the top job in the United States.

Cuomo was in a sport shirt. Michael was in his suit, small, neat, cautious; he propped his right elbow on the arm of his chair, then brought his other hand across his chest to hold his right forearm. Then his legs crossed, left over right, so his whole body was canted into a corner of his armchair. His every move revealed more chair and less Dukakis. But his thick eyebrows were lively, raised in self-conscious enjoyment of the moment. His mouth twisted into a little smile. Michael had a sense of occasion. And this—him and Cuomo, this Sunday, this ... was rich.

He knew Cuomo understood his doubts about governing and running at the same time.

“That’s your advantage, Mike ...” Cuomo said. “You’ve got what the country needs. You know what I mean. ... You
govern
. We
govern
...”

And Michael nodded. He did know. All the big-foot punditry, all the op-ed magma, was hardening on the conviction that “hands-on management” was what the nation lacked, under Reagan.

Cuomo pressed on: “When people want to know what you’ll do, you stack nine budgets on the table. There. That’s your answer.”

Nine balanced budgets, a record of success ... Michael did understand. So, three nights thence, in Washington, when he spoke at the Children’s Defense Fund banquet, he did not confine himself to an airy encomium on the American family. No, he talked about his record: thousands of welfare mothers who found jobs with ET ... a model teenage pregnancy program in Holyoke, Massachusetts ... a bill to force delinquent fathers to pay child support. “Idealism that works,” Michael called it. And again, they saluted him with cheers.

It was that night, nearly midnight, in a hallway of the Capital Hilton, on his way to sleep before a flight, the next morning, to Louisiana and another speech, Michael said to Sasso:

“You know, we said we were going to announce this thing mid-March ...” Michael’s voice was casual. “You thought about how we’d actually do it?”

Sasso stopped in the hallway. “Yeah, I’ve thought. But if you’re closing in, I better start thinking harder ...”

So Sasso flew back, the next morning, Thursday, March 12, to Boston. Michael went on to Baton Rouge alone. By the time Dukakis got back to Boston, John had been closeted in his office for a full day and a half. He had the curtains closed, the outer door locked. No one inside or outside the State House could know he was there. And now he had a plan. ...

In the half-house, on Perry Street, Saturday morning, Michael was at the front door, getting the morning paper. Kitty was behind him, down the narrow hallway that led to the kitchen. Michael did not turn to look at her, or even raise his head. He was hunched, his eyes on the headlines, as he said, “Well, I guess we’re gonna do it.”

And it took a moment, even for Kitty ... and then she got it, and ran to hug him. She was so excited! So proud! God, she had to tell someone, just the girls—she’d call the girls! ... But, no, Michael was on the phone, the wall phone in the kitchen, next to his chair at the dowdy Formica faux-wood table. “John ...” she heard, but she knew it wasn’t their son. Kitty could always tell when it was Sasso on the other end. “Can you come over to the house?”

Sasso was there in a hurry, and Michael walked him back to the kitchen table—it was always that table. When John sat down. Michael said, without preamble: “I’m gonna do it ... I think we can do it.” Michael’s voice carried no heat. It was almost clinical. “It’s gonna be tough ...”

“Yeah. It’s a brutal business.” Sasso’s face kept faith with the solemn words, but his heart was singing.

John already had the schedule in his head. In a matter of hours, on Friday, he’d got Marty Kaplan in California to write a speech ... which he whipped out now. “I’ve got a draft of something here that I think is consistent ...”

And that was the speech Michael would give Monday, a message to the people of Massachusetts, announcing his intention to announce his candidacy. He’d tell a joint session of the legislature (arranged by Sasso on three hours’ notice):

“I love my family, I love this Commonwealth and its people, and I love my country.

“I have the energy to run this marathon; the strength to run this country; the experience to manage our government; and the values to lead our people.”

That day, Michael did sound certain.

“With your help, and with your prayers, a son of Greek immigrants, named Mike Dukakis, can be the next President of the United States.”

There could be no doubt for him now.

Save for the morning after, when Michael picked up the paper: Duke for President was just about the whole front page. But Michael was most surprised to see one picture in that paper, a photograph of him that Monday, that great day, at 7:00
A.M.,
taking out his garbage on Perry Street.

What the hell? ... They must have
staked out his house
!

The white boys warned Gary: there were people, press, going to stake out his house, try to tail him, spy on him wherever he went. “NBC has a stakeout ...” That was the most common rumor. Sometimes they said CBS,
The Washington Post
,
Newsweek
...

It didn’t matter to Hart who it was. “I expect that,” he’d say, and that was the end. He wouldn’t discuss it. He’d get that look on his face, and go silent. He’d told them all before: that was
not
going to be a problem.

Actually, it was all the same problem, what the big-feet called the Character Issue. They said the whole election—at least Hart’s bid for nomination—would boil down to one question:
Who is this guy?

“People want to know who you are,” the white boys told Gary.

“They know who I am.” (And he thought to himself: they’ve had fifteen
years
to know who I am ...)

“No, there’s a
perception
, you know ... they don’t know, really ... where you’re coming from.”

So the white boys went at this ...
problem
, as white boys are paid to do, head-on, with breathtaking literalness:

Hey! Let’s show where he comes from!

That’s why they get the big bucks.

So, they told Gary he had to go to Ottawa, Kansas. They told Gary he had to give people an idea of his roots, that he wasn’t just sprung, full-blown, in suit and tie, on
Meet the Press
some Sunday, while the nation rubbed sleep from its eyes and waited for football to start.

“People want to know about your values, Family Values!”

“People don’t want to know any such thing. It’s only the press that’s asking ... nobody else ever asks me about those things.”

“Don’t take it so personally. It’s not you. It’s just the way they are. It’s just the
system
.”

“It’s morbid curiosity,” Hart complained. “It isn’t natural.”

“Look, Gary, just go for a day ...”

“No.”

“Gary, it’s just ...”

“No.”

“They’re voters.”

“What?”

“They’re voters in Ottawa, too. You don’t have to talk about your family ...” This was from Hal Haddon. Hal was brilliant, a Denver trial attorney of ferocious reputation. And he knew Hart cold—ran his first race for Senate, back in ’74. “Talk to them as voters. You can tell them why you’re a Democrat, and not a Republican, like all of them.”

“Well ...”

So they scheduled a speech for him at Ottawa U, where Hart could talk
political philosophy
... and everybody was happy. Hart was actually, quietly, excited. There were aunts—Nina’s sisters—and cousins, still in town ... and friends from school ... people he’d love to see. He’d gone back in ’84 (after his campaign—he purposely went
after
he was out of the race), just to see friends ... went to his high school reunion. And he had a
great time
.

So Sue Casey scheduled time for a private meeting with family ... before the speech. Just an hour, maybe less, but he’d have time to visit.

And Hart wrote into his notes some lines about the ethic of the town, his school, his friends, his parents ... what he’d learned from them. He was actually going to talk Family Values.

Well, the white boys were in a lather, and they put out the word: this
showed
how much Hart had grown—see? He was playing by the rules. He was sharing his life! He was so ... comfortable!

But when Gary and the press herd got to town,
The Ottawa Herald
greeted them with a front-page streamer about the
sixteen different houses
where Carl and Nina Hartpence lived, while Gary grew up ... and there was a big map, showing the locations, and a long story of explanation:

It was his mother, see ...

Then, there were interviews with people who lived in the houses now, the first with Ronald D. Cowdin, a schoolmate of Hart’s who owned the house where Gary was born in 1936: “I knew him as Hartpence,” Cowdin snarled to the
Herald.
“I don’t remember him as Hart. I try to forget those deals.”

And that afternoon, while Gary and Lee cut away to visit his parents’ graves ...

(“No pictures.”)

(“Gary, one photographer ...”)

(“No pictures.”)

... the herd found his uncle, Ralph Hartpence, who entertained on his front porch with stories of Gary as a strange, persnickety kid ... “Never once did get dirty—thought he’d catch the dickens from his mother ...”

And Gary tried to eat a chicken-fried steak at the L&L Restaurant, where Carl used to eat, but the cameramen started crowding and shoving, and he had to finish and go. And then he got to his private session with the family, in the chapel at Ottawa U—no press, absolutely not, no—and he walked into the room and found ... about a hundred people. Hart’s face froze.

There was family ... he could see his Aunt Louise (who married Nina’s brother), and Nina’s favorite niece, Letafay Weien, and a few cousins—maybe six or seven Pritchards in the group as a whole. But the rest ... well, they said they were Hartpences. Cousins ... somehow. One had an autograph book, and he came right at Gary, wanted him to sign. So Gary signed, and then another one came, with a loose piece of paper for Gary to sign, and then more: they were around him two and three deep, with napkins, telephone bills, whatever they could find—they wanted his autograph. Wanted him to pose for pictures. Gary only had a half hour to the speech, and this went on twenty minutes. They treated him like a movie star—and all the time, Gary’s wondering: Who are these people? Why are they doing this? Why can’t he have
a few minutes’ peace
to see his family?