What It Takes (95 page)

“See, here’s how it works ...” Joe was painting pictures in the air. Even Marty got excited. And when the flow would pause, or a sentence would finish, there’d be the grin, those beautiful Biden teeth. In no time, Joe got this leveraged deal sketched out. Of course, cash payments wouldn’t start right away ... but everybody would do well. What could go wrong?

“That’s a pretty good deal, sounds like ...” the owner finally said. “Why don’t you have your lawyer draw up the papers, and my wife and I’ll look ’em over ...”

Joe opened his briefcase and started whipping out papers. Marty went bug-eyed.

“It just so happens,” Joe said gravely, “that I have the whole business drawn up, here.” He presented the owner with a multipage document. Joe had typed in the terms while Marty got dressed. Marty didn’t know whether to laugh or leave for the men’s room. The owner sat back in his chair like you could have knocked him over. He said: “Well ...”

Joe said he’d leave the papers. He was already on to the next step. “Place needs to be fixed up,” Joe said in the car. “Get some paint.”

“But ...”

“Place needs a coat of
paint
,” Joe said.

Marty went back to Newark with his paint and rollers. Joe was busy. He was thinking of the second branch. Marty worked in the house three days, twelve hours a day, and he had the downstairs painted. He was ready to head for the second floor when Joe walked in.

“Stop.”

Marty looked down from the ladder. “What do you mean, stop?”

“Stop. Deal’s off.”

“
Joe, what do you mean?
”

“It’s off. Fell through. I don’t know. But listen. Get that paint in the car. I got an idea ...”

Thing was, the get-rich-quick schemes never did make him rich. Something fell through, or Joe changed his mind. ... If they worked, Joe had the money spent six ways before it hit his hand. The sonofabitch could do a deal. Thing was, he couldn’t
not
do a deal.

Anyway, politics, houses ... he never stopped moving up. One year after he won for County Council, the state redistricted and took away half his term. (They were going to make him run again, in ’72—in a GOP district!) ... Joe told his friends,
forget
the goddam County Council! He was going for the
U.S. Senate
... against Cale Boggs.

“Boggs! Shit, Joe! You haven’t got a snowball’s chance ...”

“You just watch.”

That was the same time he fixed up a couple of houses in Newark, sold them, actually got some cash for a down payment on Northstar, his first real house ... a place for him and Neilia. It was actually out of his Council district—major political headache—but he had to have it. It was beautiful, graceful—perfect. That portico!

See, it was modeled on the White House.

W
HAT ATE AT JOE
—the trouble in his soul—was he’d gotten exactly where he’d been going ... for the last two decades, bearing down on this moment ... but it didn’t look like it had in his dreams. He said to the gurus: “I can’t feel the tingle.”

That announcement—he’d heard his call to the crusade, over and over in his head through the years ... but it always sounded better, simpler, than the crap he delivered six times that June. He’d seen in his head how he’d build an organization—but it wasn’t like this chickenshit outfit, no. He’d just got Iowa fixed, and New Hampshire fell completely to hell—had to send Ridley up to shitcan the state director and put in someone new. That first quarter, he raised more money than anyone else ... but he needed more money, more and more. He had a solid two days of money-hunting now—the Hollywood Women’s Political Action Caucus and a half-dozen other groups, all over California—when he should be preparing for the first debate.

Christ! That debate ... how many times had Biden prelived The Debate—
his
debate? A thousand times? ... There they’d be, Joe and his opponent, alone in the glare—High Noon, Main Street—and the other guy looked older, like Nixon ... or Cale Boggs ... and Joey would demolish him, seize the stage, with charm and wit. Joe knew
exactly
... how it was going to be.

But that didn’t look anything like
this
debate, this turkey shoot set for July 1, seven Democrats lined up on stage in Houston for the Bill Buckley show—all answering the same questions, all struggling, squirming, to get off a good line, to say
something
... to somehow climb out of this unbecoming pack. Still, it was important, the nation’s first look at the Democrats on TV. This could be the moment. He had to be ready. That’s why he demanded two days, after California, strictly for debate-prep. He’d hole up in Chicago, get a decent suite, run some meetings, clear his head, get an idea ... then fly into Houston the night before—he’d have a day to relax, to look and feel his best.

But he hadn’t even got to California—still in the air—when the bells went off in Washington. Red alert! Lewis Powell had announced his retirement from the Supreme Court. The news was waiting when Biden landed: his nightmare was upon him. A Reagan nominee to the High Court, confirmation hearings in his committee ... could take weeks, maybe months, maybe a floor fight to manage thereafter. Joe knew instantly: his plans for the year—hell, all his plans—were history, smoke! His campaign—well, his first thought was, he’d have to quit. How could he campaign? He couldn’t quit the chairmanship, run away from his first fight—not if he ever meant to hold up his head again in Washington.

He got the office on the phone.

“I know who they want ...” This was Gitenstein on the other end. He’d just talked to a right-winger friend in Ed Meese’s Justice Department.

Joe knew, too ... but he said nothing, as Mark said:

“Bork.”

That was nightmare on nightmare. For the last few years, Lewis Powell had provided the swing vote that forestalled Ronald Reagan’s “social agenda.” Powell was the fifth vote for the right to abortion, the fifth vote for affirmative action. Gitenstein could tick off a half-dozen cases—each of them five-to-four on the Rehnquist court. If Bork got the seat, every one of those cases would turn ... Bork had no respect for the decisions that made those policies law.

What was worse, Bork was unassailable on credentials, as a scholar, a thinker on the law. He was, in fact, the most revered conservative jurist in the country. Worse still, Biden had said as much, just after he got the Judiciary chair, in the fall of 1986. He’d told Larry Eichel, of
The Philadelphia Inquirer
: “Say the administration sends up Bork, and, after our investigation, he looks a lot like another Scalia. ... I’d have to vote for him.”

Now Rasky was on the phone. He wanted to know what they should say about the
Inquirer
quote.

“That was different,” Biden protested. There was a plaintive note in his voice. All he was trying to say to Eichel was, he wasn’t going to carry water for every liberal group in town.

“I’d have to vote for him,” he’d told Eichel. “... And if the groups tear me apart, well, that’s the medicine I’ll have to take.”

All he meant was, he was going to do it
his
way. All he meant was, he wasn’t going to be their goddam Ted Kennedy! But he couldn’t say that. Why the hell had he said anything?

What could he say now?

He wanted conference calls—legal scholars: Phil Kurland from University of Chicago (a good conservative, he’d have the poop on Bork), Larry Tribe from Harvard, Walter Dellinger from Duke, Ken Bass, an old friend from Wilmington. Joe would have to know what he was talking about. The press was going to kill him. Anything he said was going to look like politics.

“Put the gurus on the phone,” Joe said. There were three or four in the office. They all wanted to talk. Biden cut them off, with one instruction:

“You guys just shut up. No statements.”

“Joe! What are you going to say?”

Biden didn’t answer. He was going to his hotel. He had to think. He didn’t want advice. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I know what I’m doing.”

Which, they knew, was bullshit ... but he’d hung up the phone.

The only thing he could do was try to steer them off Bork. Joe had to make them see: they’d get a fight that could split the country. It wasn’t just abortion ... but Jesus, that was bad enough. The women’s groups would go berserk. Biden couldn’t afford that fight ... he didn’t have the kosher national Democratic pro-choice position—couldn’t support public funding for abortions, for instance. What he mostly did on the issue was duck. He was a Catholic. He never wanted a vote on abortion.

What he wanted to know from Dellinger was all about the “advise” half of “advise and consent.” Joe had to know if the White House ever ran consultations with the Senate ...
before
a nomination. He wanted examples, precedents. Dellinger had them. “I’m gonna call Howard Baker,” Joe said. “I’m gonna ask for a meeting.”

Baker was the new White House Chief of Staff—came in after Reagan and Regan got their asses in a sling with Iran-contra. Joe knew Howard Baker from the Senate. They could talk. The question was: Would Baker talk to Reagan? In fact, Howard Baker was under attack from the Reagan true believers the minute he walked into the White House. They saw him as the evil “capitulationist” who kept leading poor Ronnie into “deals” with Congress, “deals” with the Russians ...
deals with everybody
! ... And they weren’t going to let it happen this time. Bork was their ticket to extend the “revolution” into American law in perpetuity. They’d go to the wall for Bob Bork. And Howard Baker, who had the Iran-contra hearings in progress, Ed Meese sinking in the Wedtech scandal, arms talks with the Soviets, Kuwaiti tankers sporting U.S. flags ... not to mention Ronnie doing his thing and Nancy doing God knows what ... didn’t have much stomach for a new fight.

But Joe didn’t know that. He was in Chicago, trying to do debate-prep. He had the issues staff flown out, and Ted Kaufman was there, and Gitenstein, and Donilon. Caddell flew in from California. He had to make sure the message stayed on track ... but Joe didn’t want Pat’s message. Joe didn’t want Kennedy quotes, or Martin Luther King lines ... it wasn’t
working
. “That’s not how you lead a generation, by talking about it—you just do it.”

So Pat and Joe got into it at the hotel. And Joe started laying down the law about how
he
said things, in
his
words, how he had—what, Ted, how many?—
two thousand
tapes in his attic,
every speech
he’d ever made, and people were going to be listening to
his
tapes ... using
his
stuff, goddammit. ... All the fear and frustration of the last few days poured out on Caddell.

There wasn’t much Pat could do, except take it, and make a little face, like Joe had it all wrong ...

But that was a bad move—the worst. Because that was the same face Joe always saw Pat make, in the back of the room, when Joe was doing a speech. ... There were never press copies ready—not the way Joe worked on his speeches, until the last minute, until they were introducing him—but Pat would have a copy. And he’d stand at the back of the room and follow along until Joe changed something—said something his own way—and then Pat would start shaking his head, making that little prune-face, where all the reporters could see him ... hell,
Joe
could see him ... like Pat had fed this speech with a spoon to Biden, and now Joe was
fucking it up
!

“Pat, that’s it ...” Joe said in Chicago. “You know what? I don’t want this crap. This is
your
story, not
my
story!

“I don’t want you to come with me to Houston. I don’t even want you there. I got one day to get ready ... I’ll fuckin’ do it myself.”

But Joe didn’t have a day. That’s when he got the call from Howard Baker. The meeting was on, ASAP—Meese and Baker would come to the Capitol, do a meeting with Dole, and Thurmond from the committee; then they’d meet with Byrd and Biden. When could Joe come? He’d have to charter a plane, hustle from the airport to the Capitol, maybe he could get home to sleep in Delaware. ... Anyway, that was the end of debate-prep.

What he got instead was a Washington charade, a private meeting that half the nation’s press seemed to know about. Meese and Baker showed up with a list of candidates—a nice list, with women, even a Democrat—very reasonable. And Joe went down the list with them, marking off the ones he thought would be trouble. Bork would be trouble. That’s what he’d come to say. But this was like choosing sides after everybody knew what team they were on. The deal was down. There wasn’t going to be any fight in the White House. Only Joe didn’t know that. So he walked out and told the press that they’d had a fine meeting ... he hoped the President would name a candidate with an open mind ... someone who would not disrupt the balance on the court ... he thought there was a chance.

It was only when he was back in the air, on his way to Houston for the big debate ... the bells went off again in Washington. Reagan had moved expeditiously. Not only had he named Robert Bork, but he’d named the confirmation of Robert Bork as his number-one domestic priority. It seemed Reagan was convinced: the Bork fight would show he was back in the saddle, it would give the revolution focus again, haul it out of the swamp of Iran-contra.

Joe got the news in the airport again. That and the news the press was waiting. Every big-foot in the country had descended upon Houston and they wanted him ...
now.
What was he going to say?

The answer was, not a goddam thing—not now. He had to have some
time
... Christ! What the hell was wrong with this campaign? All those gurus, those smart guys, the head of the goddam
White House Advance
—and it’s
Biden
who has to tell them he’d like to have a room ... a few minutes to think!

So he blew up at the Advance, and Vallely, and Rasky. Cancel the goddam press! He went to his hotel. He had a debate tonight. The first debate, nationwide TV!
Game day!
He had to think!

But he never got a chance to think. There were conference calls all afternoon ... and he had to write some kind of statement. And he had to get to the hall early—press conference in the lobby with two hundred banshee reporters.