What It Takes (141 page)

It wasn’t till he got to Houston, the day of the debate, that Dole would sit still to run through questions ... but by then he was so offhand (or trying to look offhand), he’d just toss off wisecracks.

“I think tonight may be sort of a fun evening,” Dole said, in his introduction to the national TV audience. He said he’d been friends with Walter Mondale, in the Senate, for years ... “and we’ll be friends when this election is over—and he’ll still be in the Senate.”

Dole seemed determined to keep this light. (Mondale, on the other hand, seemed just determined.) ... But it’s tough to be light with the nation’s networks, a thousand of the nation’s press, and tens of millions of the nation’s voters judging every word.

How many thought it was funny when Dole said George Meany (head of the AFL-CIO) “was probably Senator Mondale’s makeup man”?

How many thought it was funny—or fair comment—when Mondale linked Dole to Nixon and Watergate? ... Or when Walter Mears, of the AP, asked Dole about his criticism of Gerald Ford, when Ford pardoned Nixon?

Dole didn’t think it was fair, or funny. You could just about see his spine go stiff, his brow grow dark, as the anger took hold. He said he didn’t think Watergate was an issue ...

“... any more than the war in Vietnam would be ... or World War II, or World War I, or the Korean War—
all Democrat wars
... all in this century.”

Mondale’s mouth fell open a notch, and hung there—he couldn’t believe Dole had slipped into partisanship about ... a world war!

But Dole didn’t slip—he stalked in ... and he didn’t stop:

“I figured up, the other day: if we added up the killed and wounded in Democrat wars, in this century, it would be about 1.6 million Americans ... enough to fill the city of Detroit!”

After that, Mondale let him have it:

“I think that Senator Dole has richly earned his reputation as a hatchet man tonight ...”

Of course, Dole thought that was
so
unfair. He said, after the debate: “I thought I was very friendly. I called him ‘Fritz’ a couple of times. He called me ‘hatchet man.’ ”

In fact, Dole was sure he’d won the debate—scored his points, made his jibes stick. It was a shock to him when the flood tide of editorial condemnation crested. (“Democrat wars” was common political discourse in Russell—like “Republican depressions.”) ... Dole tried to
explain
: he didn’t really mean the Democrats
caused
all those deaths, those wars—he just wanted to let Mondale know, if he made Watergate a Republican millstone ... well, there were weights to drag the Democrats down, too. He even hinted that if
anyone
had the right to talk about the suffering of war, it was
him
, Bob Dole! ... You want to make something of that?

Of course, that only made it worse.

Why couldn’t Dole just ... back off?

All the hatchet-man Grape-Nuts that reporters had stored now came rattling into “analysis” pieces—character will out, after all! Pat Caddell, Carter’s pollster, filled the breakfast bowls when he told the big-feet that Mondale was a plus for the Democratic ticket ... but Dole was dragging the President down! This poop got to be so well known by those in-the-know, that Dole became the subject of the Carter campaign’s only negative ad. (With four of the last six Vice Presidents moving up to the top job, who would
you
like to see a heartbeat away?)

Dole just kept flying. What else could he do?

In the last weeks, he hit four or five states a day—mostly through the Midwest and South ... where he’d rasp out his message that the name of his candidate wasn’t Nixon-Ford, it was Jerry Ford! ... Carter could talk about trust, but Jerry Ford had earned it!

Dole was getting sick, his voice was almost gone. Elizabeth would call the Schedulers to tell them Bob
had
to rest—they were killing him. Then Bob would call and add a stop to the day after next ... they were so close, just a little more push ... they could make it—Carter could still go sour! ... Carter’s margins were melting away in Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Florida, Oklahoma—Dole got the tracking polls every day. Jerry Ford was, at last, loosed from the White House, and he thumped and stumped around the country, showing the grandeur of his office (thousands came out, just to see
Air Force One
) and the Everyman values to which he still clung (every Ford rally featured the Michigan fight song). There was a half-hour TV show in all the major markets, with Ford answering questions from that penetrating interviewer, Joe Garagiola ... and lots of negative ads, feeding the public doubts about Carter.

And in the last week, the final Gallup Poll showed ... Ford and Dole edging into the lead! ... It wasn’t really a lead—just one point—easily within the margin of error. But that statistical nuance was beside the point. They had come from
thirty-three points behind
! ... On the last weekend, Ford called to say: “You’re doing a great job. I know you must be exhausted—but keep it up. We’re going to make it, Bob!” ... They had climbed back to even—against all odds. And they were moving—Dole could feel it:

“I smell VICTORYYYY! ...”

They lost by two percent ... by fifty-seven electoral votes ... by the barest handful of votes in Ohio and Hawaii. Those two states would have turned it around: if 9,244 votes had changed (one one-hundredth of one percent of the votes cast nationally, or one vote in every ten thousand), it would have thrown those two states to Ford and Dole ... and completed the miracle comeback.

Dole had so many ways to measure how close they came—and how far they’d come: the farm vote held solid for Ford ... Dole won all of his assigned states—the West, the heartland (save for Missouri—he was
sure
the Democrats stole that in the cities!) ... Dole did not want to give up—they could demand recounts in the tightest states. ... But Ford ruled that out, day after the vote.

By that time, Dole was in bed—fevered and weak. He only got up to host his party. He was giving a party for reporters who’d traveled with him. ... That’s when Barbara Walters asked the question—like a knife in his ribs:

Didn’t Dole think, Ms. Walters asked,
he was the one who lost the White House for poor Jerry Ford
?

That sent Dole back to his bed. How could she
say
that?

He did his job! ... Did it well!

He showed he could play in the big leagues—the biggest!

He showed himself, anyway.

It was a couple of days later, when Dole got back to the office, Taggart asked: “Well, think you’ll run for national office again?”

“Not for four years,” Dole said.

Actually, he started just weeks after the vote—Dole did a speech in South Dakota, then a stop in Illinois, and then ... he was flyin’ around. He made sure to bring up the VP race himself.

“Well,” he’d say, “they told me to go for the jugular—so I did. ... It was mine.”

He knew he would run again—in four years, eight, or ... as long as it took. Next time, he wouldn’t do dirty work for anyone else. It would be his campaign ... so he knew, it would start in Russell.

O
N MAIN STREET, AS
Dole was about to begin his announcement speech, a man in the crowd keeled over from the cold. Dole stopped, bent, stared down at the pavement with a look of concern ... murmured something about a doctor ... but he was live on the morning shows, so after a few minutes he had to go on.

In fact, there were eight people who collapsed that Monday morning, from cold, or excitement, or by happenstance. Frostbite? Heart attack? ... No one knew. The hospital wouldn’t distract attention from the show, so no information was released on the patients or their conditions.

The point was, Bob looked wonderful up there. And no one could miss how real was this frozen street scene, compared to Bush’s high-gloss Hyatt ... and the cameras here had a beautiful shot from the riser in the center of Main Street—but they blocked the view for local folks, who had to come around the riser to the foot of the stage so they could see, and so Bob could see their signs ... and that meant people in the near folding seats, like Bob’s sisters, Gloria and Norma Jean, had signs in front of them ... and when the signs blocked the cameras, the techies had to shift in a hurry ... so Anita, Kenny’s wife, got clonked in the head with a camera, or a tripod leg, as Bob got toward the end of his speech, as he improvised that terrific close ... where he’s sitting in the sun on his Capitol balcony,
thinking
: Could he be, should he be President?

“And I thought to myself, ‘I could make a difference.’

“And I thought, ‘I will make a difference!’ ... ‘I
can
make a difference!’ ... ‘I
have
made a difference!’ ...”

That was the bottom line with Dole, and probably why he looked so happy as he ended his speech and the music kicked up again, and he grinned out over the crowd, swinging his fist, bouncing to the beat ... and then he climbed down to the street, to the people in the front row, people in wheelchairs.

(Advance had wanted to move those folks—make an aisle in front of the stage, but Kenny warned them: “You’re makin’ a big mistake. Bob Dole. ... That’s what it’s all about.”)

Kenny had to scoot to a storefront, where station KAKE had a makeshift studio—a panel discussion on Bob Dole, featuring Kenny, Bub Dawson, and Bob’s old coach, George Baxter. The three men were wired with earplugs to hear the anchor-humans in Wichita.

“Kenny, what is it that’s so special about your brother?”

Kenny started to answer ... but he had his head cocked at an angle, like he couldn’t figure how to speak to this voice in his ear. The cameraman was silently, frantically, motioning at Kenny to sit up straight ... sit
still
... stop
mumbling
!

Kenny said, after it was over, “Might as well had a corncob in my butt as that plug in my ear.”

Gloria, Norma Jean, Gladys, and the rest crowded into Dawson Drug, waiting for Bob. Gloria was fretful. There’d been such a rush to get out of her house, she hadn’t time to pack a bag for Bob—no goodies! And when Bob got off stage in the rush, everyone was pushing, she couldn’t even grab his arm to tell him. ... And, then, Bob never came back to the drugstore.

In the end, Gloria had to go to one of the cool, crisp strangers with the microphones in their sleeves to ask if she could go into the alley where they’d parked Bob’s car. “I’m his sister,” she said. “I just want to hug him.” The stranger’s sunglasses looked her up and down.

“I always hug him ...”

They finally let her into the alley, and she caught Bob getting into the car. She just had time for a quick hug. “Got any goodies?” Bob said.

“No, Bob. I ... there wasn’t time.”

“Oh-kayy. Gotta gooo ...” He was into the car. He had to get to Iowa, to make his speech again.

Gloria couldn’t go to Iowa. That was not for her. The press would go, Bill Brock, the Big Guys. ... Gloria stayed in Russell.

She was exhausted. Bob’s announcement just about finished the family. When she got back to her house, she got her makeup off, got out of her dress, collapsed into a chair, and it looked like she didn’t have the strength to draw breath. The grandkids had the house jazzed up with bunting and posters—but in the middle of it all, Gloria only looked grayer. She was barefoot, in her robe. She had that sick blood-pressure feeling, her kidney was giving her trouble.

Kenny came over, and Aunt Mildred Nye. They were sitting at the table, Mildred was scanning the paper for more Kenny Dole quotes. “Here it is!” she cried. “The ‘
sacks of concrete
’ ... why, Kenny, you’re nothin’ but a bullshitter!”

Kenny was spluttering. “When are you leavin’? We’ve got things to do here! Don’t you have a long way back? ...”

In her armchair, Gloria was musing: she really could do a White House cookbook, all the recipes, if Bob, well ... she was the one who
knew
how he liked everything—like she told that reporter, the liver and onions, told him just how to make it ... it wasn’t hers anymore. Bob wasn’t theirs anymore. That’s what she told the reporter. “He belongs to all of you now.”

But Bob looked happy. Didn’t he?

Oh, yes, Bob had Dave Owen call Anita, and Dave said Bob was pleased.

“That’s good,” Gloria said.

In Russell, in the exhaustion, there was no way to tell ... but, yes, Bob was happy. He was, well, he was so pumped up, they got to Great Bend, to the airport—big plane,
Presidential Airways!
—and they loaded up the press, the Big Guys, and finally the Bobster, who came up the front stairs and ducked his head into the cabin, where he heard the music, the theme from
Star Wars
, with the trumpets and those echo-spacey laser-whooshes ... Gaaggh! It was fantastic!

“Heyy! We got
vision
!” Dole said. “We even got vision
mu-sic
!”

B
Y THAT FALL, IT
was painfully clear, Dukakis had no vision for Iowa—or anywhere else. He’d lost the thread, the excitement that used to lend his prosy words their urgency. He’d been saying the same thing too long.

He’d still talk about his Massachusetts Miracle, but his sentences would start: “I don’t have to tell you, I hope ...” He’d still talk up new uses for farm crops, but—this was so
obvious
, it was hard to believe he should still have to say it:

“We’ve got more productive capacity than we know what to do with! [Shrug] ... I think we ought to be
getting on
with this, folks.”

Yes, he did. It seemed to him like a lifetime, he’d been saying this stuff ... and nothing was happening! And he had not a clue as to how he could
make
something happen. These Iowans were kind, polite, serious, deserving ... he never ceased to tell them how grateful he was for their attention, their reception of him—terrific ... but he had no idea what they liked, or disliked, or why.

He thought they still mistrusted him.

He thought they looked at him funny.

Of course, no one said anything.

But he did look like a foreigner. He talked fast. He had an accent. Or they thought he had an accent. Or he thought they thought he ... well, you know. He thought they didn’t like him. What it was ...
he
didn’t like him—because he didn’t know what he was doing out there!