What It Takes (159 page)

“... We will fight the Establishment! ... We will pry open foreign markets! ... It’s time to tell the forces of greed: ENOUGH is ENOUGH! ...

“In our America, land is a place to raise cahrn and soybeans, wheat, and most importantly, a place to raise our kids AGAIN ... we will save the family farm in America, because ...”

The crowd was onto this song now, and they joined in as chorus:

“NUFF is E
NUFF!
”

Loreen was jolted back to the here and now by the noise of the crowd, and she woke with a pleasant shiver of joy from a reverie on her boy’s neck, and she looked over the crowd, into the lights, with a smile of blessing and vindication, at the faces in front, staring up at her boy, who was pink as her fuzzy cashmere, and wailing:

“... they’ve done nothing but paid their taxes, fought our WARS, raised our KIDS ... we don’t need to give them a FAVOR ... WE OWE THEM ...”

And the crowd yelled:

“
NUFF izza NUFF!
”

Dick was yelling, too: “We will WIN in New Hampshire ... We will WIN in NOVEMBER ...”

Gep-HARDT

Gep-HARDT
...

“And when we WIN, we’re gonna TAKE BACK THE WHITE HOUSE and GIVE IT BACK to
th’AMERICAN PEOPLE
AGAIN ...”

Gep-HARDT-Gep-HARDT-Gep-HARDT-Gep-HARDT-Gep
...

“I thank you for your help on this cold and snowy night, and I ask for your help ... to change America and give it back its soul.”

With that, the band issued a few bars of Neil Diamond’s “Coming to America,” and the crowd noise swelled higher in a rhythmic scream ...
Gep-HARDT-Gep-HARDT
... as Dick gathered himself, and roared out the only line outside his text, the simple thought closest to his heart:

“
WE’RE GONNA WIN THIS THING!
”

And the band sped the song into full cry, as the crowd screamed
GepHARDTGepHARDTGEP-HARDT
... except with two or three thousand people screaming off the beat, only the strongest consonants came through, so the noise was just a frantic bark:

GARP-GARP-GARPT-GARPT-GARPT-GARPT
...

And there was no script anymore, so Dick turned and hugged his mother, and he missed Jane, but he found his kids, and he bent way down for Katie and hugged her hard and quick, and then Chrissie, hard and quick, and then Dick stood and looked straight into Matt’s eyes, and threw open his arms and advanced on Matt, who grasped him tentatively, and was going to step back, but Dick grabbed him harder, and Matt forgot the crowd and disappeared into his father’s embrace, and Dick laid his head on Matt’s shoulder, and they held like that, neither one would let go. And when they did, they were both fighting tears, but Dick was being pulled to the podium—some business ...

It was Bob, who took the sack off the portrait, and Dick’s eyes popped open a few millimeters at the shock of azure ... and ... Hey! That’s him! He gave Bob a big thumbs-up ... and he started to wander the stage again—Tony Coelho, a hug, Nancy Gephardt, Frank ... and the band was thumping hell-for-leather, but the crowd couldn’t keep barking like that, and the halogens were clicking off, as Dick listed from hug to hug ... and it could have been over—Dick had his back turned—but Loreen understood, maybe better than her son, just what this was about.

She took the painting and strode to the podium, she faced it away from her, and with her fingers grasping the sides of the frame, she mounted upon the podium the Portrait of Dick Regnant. She disappeared behind this icon ... even Dick alive in his hugs disappeared ... and the halogens clicked back to full glare, and the crowd looked up at Dick, and the Dome, and the Flag ...

GARPT-GEHPT-GARPT-GEHPT-GARPT-GARP
...

D
UKAKIS HAD HIS OWN
“victory” party—it looked fine on TV. He announced to his crowd:

“Tonight ... we won the bronze!”

Like there were three guys standing on a victory platform.

That was a brilliant piece of spin, the brainstorm of Estrich’s husband, Marty Kaplan. (In fact, Kaplan’s coup saved Michael’s bacon. Once the Duke’s people started mounting this “bronze” conceit, the triple-E pundits fell into line. Though Dukakis was soundly beaten by Gephardt and Simon, John Chancellor told NBC’s millions of voters: “Well, third place, so far from home, is no disgrace.”)

Anyway, the problem was, Dukakis liked this “bronze” business so much—he
believed
it. At least, he said he did. Didn’t matter that Michael worked a year to eke out twenty percent of the vote. No one could tell Michael he was going to have to do (or say) anything more.

Estrich was in Des Moines for the caucus, and she explained, as calmly as she could: “If we survive tonight, we survive by the skin of our teeth. You’re never going to make it if you don’t get out there and throw some punches.”

But it wasn’t just Susan—and it wasn’t all calm.

Bob Farmer, king of the money men, came to Des Moines to have it out with Michael. Farmer was killing himself. His finance committeemen were killing themselves. They had raised more than $10 million! ... Could he go back and promise that Dukakis would
never again
settle for third place? ...
Well, could he?

Paul Brountas, mild-mannered friend, went ballistic in Des Moines. Since Sasso left, Brountas saw himself as Michael’s friend ... and strategist. That didn’t mean Michael listened. But it meant Paul saw his duty, and did it. ... Why couldn’t Michael see?
This was an unacceptable performance
! ... Brountas had watched his friend Ed Muskie slide down the tubes, with a flush and a gurgle, in ’72—that campaign fell to pieces in a matter of days! ... Michael had to get into the game!
Michael had to stop being so damned stubborn!

They beat up Dukakis all day, all night.

He didn’t give an inch. “You guys ... we did
fine
. We’re on track. Let’s not get down on ourselves. I
told
you ...”

Actually, what he’d told them was that the “basic economic message”—good-jobs-at-good-wages—could win. But he forgot that now. ... He had the bronze!

After midnight, after the speech, after his live shots with the networks, and a few for the diddybop TVs, Michael was back in his suite at the Savery. He had to sleep. He’d be up before six to do the
A.M.
shows, then fly to New Hampshire.

In the adjoining hospitality suite, there were a couple of slack-jawed staff and a stray writer, come to cadge a beer. They were picking at dry broccoli on the food trays, when ... in walked Dukakis.

He couldn’t sleep. Or maybe Kitty was beating him up, too. He asked how they thought it came out. No one answered.

They were gawking at Dukakis in an undershirt—hairy arms sticking out from floppy short sleeves, his thin neck protruding from the white V-neck, which sloped halfway down his slight shoulders. Even his physical self was pure economy.

Then, they talked all at once, tried to buck him up, with borrowed wise-guy patter:

No problem!

Third place was the best thing that could have happened!

Now the campaign would move to his turf, New Hampshire, with two kamikazes splitting the vote against him—instead of one strong Gephardt. If Simon had finished third, he couldn’t go on. Now Gephardt would have to fight a rearguard action against Simon ...

Michael said: “You really think so?” He was nodding with his eyes half-closed, as if he’d already thought that out, but the eagerness in his voice gave him away.

They could see, in an instant, poor Michael was making this up as he went—just like everybody else. He really didn’t know whether he was still breathing ... didn’t have a clue.

They warmed to the task of cheering him up, told him he was in
perfect
position ...

Michael nodded. He ought to sleep. But he stayed, asking more questions—actually, it was the same question: Was he okay?

They told him he’d done a great job, come from nowhere in this state, on issues he knew nothing about less than a year before. “I had a lot of help,” Michael said, with his tone of automatic denial. And that was his cue. He rose to go. “It’s a marathon,” he said. “We’re just at the start—long way to go.” He meant the words to sound determined, but what they heard was sadness. They watched his little back through the door. There was hardly any body to him, just a spare, hairy machine to house that
schtarker
of a brain.

D
OLE WAS STILL ON TV
. ... For hours, he marched the Hotel Fort Des Moines—second floor, tenth floor, third floor, ballroom, up and down the stairways with the TV cables—from Jennings and Brinkley on ABC, to Dan Rather on CBS, to Bernie Shaw on CNN, back to CBS for
Nightwatch
... putting out the message: “Well”—smile—“I think the voters saw sharp differences between me and the Vice President. I think voters want someone who can make the tough choices ...” Dole was drubbing George Bush, thirty-seven percent to nineteen, and he was working the global village like a Kansas Main Street, hitting every storefront, every hand ... and meanwhile—as they fiddled with a new plug for his ear, or the halogen lights on the interview chair, or the cables that would link him to Peter, David, or Dan—the Bobster kept dribbling: “No, I can’t hear Dan ... got my Dan Rather sweater on ... that’s all I could get—couldn’t get an interview ... yeah! ... Yeah, Dan! ... Aaghh, well, you really know how to finish ’em off hegh-hegh-hegh ... o-kayyy—we ready?”

The rooms were small, stacked with equipment and tense with technicians who had to get it right, first time, every time—live TV. And then the Dole entourage—Elizabeth and her body man; Kenny and Anita Dole from Russell (“Told’ya I’d win,” Kenny said); Bill Brock and one besuited flunky; Tom Synhorst, Dole’s triumphant Iowa chief; Mari Maseng (“Smile, Senator”); Kim Wells (Dole might need something written); and Mike Glassner, with his leather folder—would fill the place to bursting, the hindmost peering in from the hallway. But Dole was never crowded. They’d sit him in a chair; the mess of machinery and mankind would bump and stumble into array around the walls, into corners—out of camera frame, of course ... the holy-white circle of light fell only on the Bobster. In one of his first interviews—CNN, Bernie Shaw—Dole tried to move the halo, broaden it, share it: “Bernie, before I forget, there’s somebody on my left here who’s been a tremendous help in this campaign ...” But the lens would not move—Elizabeth wasn’t lit correctly, or something, so she was left, standing, chin up, smiling her most brilliant smile at no one. Bernie just asked Bob another question, and Elizabeth said she had an awful headache.

The strange thing was, it was the same away from the cameras—in the hall, on the stairway. No one got too close to Dole. No one touched him. (Save for one time, when Dole began to fiddle one-handed with his tie. “Z’at straight, Mari?” She hopped up. “Yes, Senator.” But he could tell the knot wasn’t perfect. “Why’nch you go ahead, Mike.” So Glassner came, half-leaping on tiptoe, over equipment, to kneel before the Bobster and straighten the red power tie.) ... No one spoke unless spoken to—or invited by his eyes—and then they mostly scrambled to offer some information. “Senator,” Synhorst ventured, “did you hear what Bush said?”

“Yeah. He said he didn’t know what, aghh, mis
-stakes
he made to get this result.” Dole’s eyebrows dipped, he lifted a little shrug. All the courtiers broke up laughing. He said to Synhorst: “You talk to Wittgraf?” Synhorst’s brow furrowed—was he supposed to? But Dole was rasping his prairie cackle. “Hegh-hegh-hegh, send him a bo-kayyy.”

There was no discussion of what to say to the cameras, to the voters—or how. (Dole would say whatever he thought best.) There was no political talk (save with anchormen)—what this meant to Iowa, to New Hampshire, to the country, to Dole for President ... nor certainly any personal talk—what this meant to Dole, to Bob and Elizabeth, or to all of them, together. In the end, they were not together. In the end, it was Bob, alone. And despite the jokes he dropped behind him, the trail of breadcrumbs ... in the end, that trail led back to an opaque curtain of reserve—Bob alone. You could just about see the curtain fall, when he got to another network room, and he had to wait, and his darting gaze found no work to do. Then his eyes would roll up to where ceiling met wall, where there was no one smiling at him, no one to greet ... and he could think: this thing
was happening
!

Things were happening
for
him—different things—he was
making
them happen. That’s what he meant when one TV man suggested that Iowans had responded to Dole as a neighbor. “Well, I was out here as a neighbor in 1980, too—no one noticed.” They weren’t going to take this away by discussing the
factors
... no.

“It’s still up to Bob Dole to deliver the message, to attract the votes.” That’s what Dole said.

“It’s up to Bob Dole ...”

The way people looked at him now, the way they cheered him, the hope in their eyes when they listened to him ... the way he stood, without a doubt, to meet that—that’s what was different, that was the excitement. It was no dream, no pipe dream, it was a
plan
, a work of will:
that’s what he meant
at his announcement, when he tried to tell that freezing crowd how he’d sat in the sun, on the balcony of his office, and he’d looked out at the Mall, the White House, the monuments—and he
had to think
: Could he do it? Could he meet that? Could he, by the same will that had kept him alive when he was
nothing
,
garbage
, could he meet hope of that size now, make that kind of difference? Was that in him? ... And he’d answered:
Yes! He could make that difference
—
he
...

“Senator? ...”

They moved him to the ballroom floor. NBC had rented a corner of the big room where Dole’s faithful had gathered. And they’d built a platform between their space and the Dole-crowd, so Brokaw could interview the Senator with the Iowa folk going nuts behind Dole—for effect, you know, good TV. And you could see, when Dole arrived at the head of his train (longer now: they were joined by Bob’s nephew, Jeff Nelson, and his wife and daughter—they lived in Des Moines), it was going to work like a charm. ... Dole went straight to the platform and stood, and the techies fired up the lights on the Bobster, and the crowd caught a look at him—and even before Elizabeth struggled up, in her tight skirt, to stand next to him, the crowd was yelling: “Go
GET’EM BOB
! ... DOLE! DOLE! DOLE! ...” And the Bobster was crooning: “
HowweDOOOnn
? ... How’
DOOOOnnn
?” ... with his thumb poking the air, fist pumping—he was bouncing on the balls of his feet. And then ... NBC was not ready. They were okay in Des Moines, but they didn’t have the network, or Brokaw was busy, or it was time for local commercials—something ... they told Dole it would be a few minutes, so he climbed down, and Elizabeth after ... and then, everybody was standing around.