What It Takes (56 page)

That’s how he met Dick Gephardt: met him, in fact, not long after Dick came back to St. Louis from law school, just embarking upon his career, and he had to come into the Clerk’s Office to register, to sign the scrolls as an attorney in practice in the city ... and there was Phelim, who heard the address—Fourteenth Ward!—and he looked this young man over. Clean, respectable; you could see that right away. Suit, blond hair short—“neat” was the word Phelim used—and Phelim O’Toole called out right there in the office: “Young man, you ought to come to our meetings!”

That was 1965, when Dick started coming to the meetings: Dick and Jane, that blond and handsome young couple—she was twenty-three and he twenty-five (about the same age as Tom Hayden, or Rennie Davis, the two past presidents of Students for a Democratic Society ... not much older than the thousands, the hundreds of thousands, who would take to the streets to tear down the system)—they walked into the smoky storefront at 4524 Morganford Avenue, took seats in the back, and that day joined the Fourteenth Ward Democratic Organization, to serve as the club’s youngest precinct workers. In fact, the next youngest member was more than twice their age. And Dick came to every meeting, until Phelim and Margaret Butler made him Captain of his precinct—it didn’t take long—and Dick was part of the system, too. And Phelim O’Toole, who’d seen so many men work, had to go back a long way to remember one who worked like Dick Gephardt—so eager to learn, to listen, to work his blocks, door-to-door. It got to the point where Phelim even talked to Dick about the Alderman job. The Fourteenth Ward was represented on the St. Louis Board of Aldermen by a Republican. A disgrace! And Gephardt might be just the young man to take back that seat for the Party. ...

But alas, Dick Gephardt was still new in the system—just learning the ropes, Phelim said—more than two years before the next election, when Phelim went into the hospital for his arthritis, and right there it was, he had his heart attack. ... And everyone who knew him was saddened—that’s the kind of man Phelim was, all those years, a lot of friends ... and among them, that young Dick Gephardt, who was twenty-seven now, who’d learned a lot from Mr. O’Toole. Maybe he knew more of the ropes than Phelim figured. For instance, he knew just what the system required now.

When he heard the sad news, Dick got right on the phone. Called the Committeewoman, Margaret Butler, and told her he’d like to have Phelim’s job. And when he had it, he called the family, to offer his condolence.

Thing about Gephardt was, he never stopped. He got that Committeeman job, and he was
off
, door-to-door. He’d go down some little street in the ward, and hit every house on every block, to ask the people: Would they like to have their street made one-way? Nobody
asked
him to make the darned street one-way. It was just his idea of something to talk about. ... See, that way, they could park on both sides of the street! ... Of course, at every house he introduced himself. And if those people didn’t want to talk about the street, he’d talk about their alley, or the storm drain that clogged whenever it rained, or the tavern two blocks down, where careless patrons left their beer cans on the curb ... or whatever else that voter wanted to discuss. Actually, they did the talking: Gephardt listened. That was the essence of his method, right there. That, and the fact he never stopped. If someone wasn’t home, he’d come back some evening later in the week (he was doing the next street over, anyway), or he’d leave a note, to let them know he stopped by ... to talk about their street. If he’d already made the stupid street one-way, he’d come back in a couple of months ... to see if they liked it. Was there anything else they wanted him to do?

See, it didn’t matter what it was—that was up to them. He was for them: that’s what they had to know. His message, his program, consisted of showing up at that door.
He was
the program: that good-looking young fellow who was so smart, respectful, eager, honest, helpful, neat—the embodiment of the values he meant to represent. He was there to help them do
whatever it was
... same way he operated inside the system. Dick Gephardt, fast as he climbed, seldom pissed anybody off. He seldom had to. In the end, he wanted the same thing they wanted: to make the system work ... for everybody. You could bet the Fourteenth Ward didn’t have a split ticket again, not with Dick Gephardt hitched in the traces with old Margaret Butler—no, they trotted in lockstep. A unified ward was
the first
demand of the system, the basis of all further gain ... so Dick got that done in a matter of months. And it worked. (See? The system
did
work.) They got their Democratic Alderman, a terrific young lawyer, a bright new face, first time he ever ran, but he got out there early, worked long and hard, door-to-door ... Dick Gephardt.

And after one term on that board, after he’d run for reelection, and led the ticket, he started thinking about the next step up. There were people talking to Gephardt about Governor! And his friends on the board wanted him to run for Mayor. Dick was a heck of an Alderman. Saving the city was what he was all about, right? Dick agreed. He was going to run for Mayor. But just as he was about to go public, the Congresswoman from his district announced her retirement—after twenty-four years! So Dick filed for that seat ... (see, the Mayor’s race could have been bloody, but Congress, well, it was almost a straight shot) ... and after the ’76 election, he was off to Washington.

And with every step up, he got better. Gephardt always—in the argot of ward politics—made a nice appearance. He was blue-eyed handsome, with strong, high cheekbones and a full firm jaw, always unexceptionable in dress, ever sober in demeanor, but friendly, and patient, helpful with the voters. But after a few years in the system, he had command of more subjects. He could explain ... well, anything. He’d get a question in a town meeting about Social Security—just some old coot who wanted to know: Was there going to be any money for him? And Congressman Dick would make a learned, lucid disquisition on the history, current status, and prospects for the trust fund, including a history of his own efforts (and those of his Democratic colleagues) to make sure ... yes, there will be money for you, sir. ... Housing, taxes, small-business loans, veterans’ benefits, deficits, interest rates, banking, insurance, postal regulations ... Gephardt knew about all of them. He was impressive—and so young! It did your heart good just to find a young man like that in politics. ... See, the message—which was the method, which was him, the balm of Gephardt
in se
—never changed.

Let’s say you had a problem. And you wanted to talk to Congressman Gephardt. ... The first fact: you
could
talk to him; you’d get an appointment. He’d be late, he’d be rushed, but he’d get there. (“Great to see youuu,” he’d croon.) Then, what he’d do, he’d listen. That was the second fact: Gephardt listened as hard as any man in America. With Gephardt, listening was a positive and physical act. You could
feel
him listening. It was not like, for instance, Biden, or Dukakis, where listening was the absence of other action. (They weren’t leaving, they weren’t saying their next thing yet, so, therefore, they were still listening.) When Gephardt started to listen, his whole person went into “receive” mode. He locked his sky-blue eyes on your face, and they didn’t wiggle around between your eyes and your mouth and the guy who walked in the door behind you: they were just on you, still and absorptive, like a couple of small blotters. Then, as you talked, his head cocked a bit, maybe twenty degrees off plumb, like that dog in the old RCA ad. Matter of fact, his face bore the same expression: that keen canine commingling of concern, curiosity, interest. ... Gephardt could keep that intelligent-dog look through a six-hour meeting. If it was just you and your problem, he’d stay on “receive” until your tanks were dry ... until you were
weak
from being listened to.

Then, he might talk, at the end—it usually was the end, because ... he agreed! Or he thought your idea was a good one. “Yup, very good ... right,” he’d say. “Well ... we’ll do it.”

Or sometimes, he might explain that he agreed, but this
other guy
had a problem, and then he’d explain the other guy’s problem. But usually he’d have a plan to get the other guy half of what he wanted, to solve his problem, and that way, you’d get what
you
wanted, or some of what you wanted ... if Dick could pull it off ... anyway, he was for you.

And sometimes, if it was a planned disagreement, like a caucus, or a conference on a bill where the Senate and House could not agree, or some other forum of organized bitterness, Gephardt would go onto “receive” for a whole day ... and when everybody was exhausted, and sour, and stinking from flop-sweat, and the whole ship was on fire from the cannonades on either side, there was Gephardt, fresh and bright, not a single strawberry-blond hair out of step with its brethren, his jacket unrumpled on the chair-back behind him, his shirt crisp, dry, and dazzling white, who would suddenly take his chin off his fist, break his RCA-dog face into a smile of empathy for all, and he’d say: “Lemme see if I can make a suggestion. ... Bob, Marty, isn’t this where we can agree, for a start? ...” And then he’d lay down some narrow gangplank of common ground, where everyone, from any deck, could get off the burning ship before it sank. And it was beautiful the way he could do it, because everybody would leave with
something
to tell the voters. He would draw for them their bottom lines—what they really needed, to get away with their skins ... because he did understand, and the way he did that was, he listened.

Of course, it also helped that he didn’t care what came out. Well, to be fair, it wasn’t that he didn’t
care
: if that were true, he wouldn’t have sat there for the last eight hours, watching all those sperm bulls paw the ground. But he didn’t care that much if the top tax bracket ended up at twenty-five percent, or twenty-eight, or thirty. He didn’t walk into that room with his jaw out, and the certain, God-given truth in his breast that the cutoff for aid under Subsection 328-A had to be $14,300 a year (and not a penny less, goddammit). No. What he cared about was doing
something
, and that something he did was to make a bill, and the bill had to get out of committee, and get to the floor, where it could get a vote, and if it passed (and passed the Senate, God willing), and went to the President’s desk, and he signed it, well ... then the system had worked. That was the goal. Right?

Well, that was
his
goal. Gephardt thought his job was to make the system work on the problems. (Kind of radical, but there it was.) Anyone could see, there were problems, right? Biggest budget deficit in
history
... biggest trade deficit in
history
, and getting worse ... factories closing, the jobs ending up in Japan or Taiwan ... farmers drowning in debt, selling out, shutting down ... kids dropping out of school—they couldn’t even
read
... what kind of country was this going to be?

What did people need—a pail of water in the face?
The system was not working on the problems!

What’s worse, Gephardt could not get it done in the House, couldn’t make the system work there—not really. Not that there was anybody better at the game.

In his first year, his fellow Missourian, Richard Boiling, a senior statesman of the House, wangled Gephardt a seat on the Ways and Means Committee, a hell of an assignment for a freshman—happened once in a blue moon. Gephardt did not waste the chance. By his second term he was a leader on health-care costs—he fought President Carter’s proposals to a standstill, and offered instead a massive substitute that he worked out with a brainy new-right Republican named David Stockman.

By his third term, he was a leader of the young House Democrats who wanted to grab hold of the system, shake it up, make big things happen. The Democrats had lost the White House in ’80, they’d lost the Senate. The House was where the action was on the Democratic agenda, and these young fellows wanted seats at the table—they wanted to shuck off the old-guard leaders ... and
take over
. But Gephardt wouldn’t coup the system. He wasn’t going to pick a bloody fight with Tip O’Neill. Instead, he took jobs from Tip: he got a seat on the Budget Committee (with Ways and Means, the tandem gave him a say on every cent the government raised or spent). Tip made him Chairman of House Task Forces, a designated hitter whenever a hot issue hit the House. From that point, Gephardt was the bright young man to see on all the big stuff—money stuff. That’s why Senator Bradley came to Gephardt with his big-league proposal for tax reform. That became the Bradley-Gephardt bill, the major tax bill of the session.

By his fourth term (after six years, just a stretch and a yawn in a normal House career), Gephardt was turning back talk of Gephardt for Speaker. He became a part of the leadership, Chairman of the Democratic Caucus, fourth in line in the majority. And he was doing more: Senator Tom Harkin came to him with his radical farm bill (which became the Harkin-Gephardt bill, the major point of discussion on Democratic ag policy). Gephardt introduced his own trade bill (which came to be known as the Gephardt Amendment, the lightning rod for discussion on the nation’s trade deficit). Gephardt had a bill on
everything
. But it wasn’t enough.

What he wanted to do was to
get everybody together
... get them into one room, and say:

“Okay, guys. What do you want to do about this?

“Okay ... good. Let’s get it done.”

But you couldn’t get it done that way in the House. There were 435 members, who didn’t pay attention to
anyone
. They didn’t pay attention to their Party leaders. What the hell did they need their Party for? All they needed was their half-dozen big contributors, a guy to make their TV ads, and ... they were bulletproof. You couldn’t get them together to do ... anything. Anyway, after ’81, with Reagan and that bastard Stockman running the show, the only thing a Democrat could do was damage control, try to save a program here or there ...
something
besides the Pentagon. ...