What It Takes (186 page)

Mostly, they’d call Hart when the capital was seized by a Karacter convulsion. The Bush administration went into spasm in the starting gate when John Tower, the Secretary of Defense nominee, was depicted as a weasely foul-breathed little sot near whom no decent woman was safe. Hart got hundreds of press calls and invitations to discourse on TV. What were they thinking? ...
And speaking of peccadillos, we’re joined now in our Denver studio by former Senator Gary Hart
... Fat chance! What Hart found out was, it did not matter if he said anything or not. Wannabe-big-feet (a new crop rising) had a responsibility to
analyze the similarities
between the Donna Rice Scandal and the current, lamentable Tower Affair. Then, as the Tower story dragged on (alas, with nothing new and juicy), there were analyses of the
differences
between Tower and Hart. (Hart, for instance, had a well-known death wish.)

Once, on the phone, Hart asked what I thought about the “business with Tower.” I answered with my newest, hottest, wise-guy whispers about two Senators,
two votes
, that
Bush could turn around
—
just a phone call
... but he wouldn’t play hardball!

There was silence on the phone, until Hart said, in a tone reserved for worms: “You gave me a Washington answer.” Of course, it came clear instantly: Hart saw the Tower mess as the government’s, the nation’s, bitter harvest ...
poisoned
... by the same blight that ruined him. Hart thought the sickness stemmed from a dangerous fallacy—Americans think they can know (have a right to know!) everything about their leaders. But that certainty of knowledge is not available. People can’t be tied down, reduced to facts. More dangerous still, politicians try to toe the line. Hart quoted, from his friend Warren Beatty: “When forced to show all, people become all show.”

Months later—the Tower imbroglio was history, though the postmortems and press-apologia were still extant—I saw Hart and noted that the wheel was turning. Maybe the country would scare itself and think twice about Karacter. Maybe Hart would come out a winner.

Hart smiled and looked down. Too late for him. “I’m a failure.”

But everybody was out there, still using his stuff—couldn’t he see any victory there?

“With Mondale and Dukakis as the nominees of my Party? No ... I wasted my time. I should never have gone into politics.”

It was after the Tower fight, little hints started to leak from the Bobster ... maybe life in the Senate wasn’t all the life he cared to live. While the fight was on, he was fine—mile-a-minute quotes, jokes, ideas: he tried to get Tower onto the Senate floor to answer his accusers; he brought Tower to a weird press conference wherein Tower took the pledge—he wouldn’t touch a drink whilst he serve in the Pentagon; in the end, when the Democrats had the votes, Dole tried another tack—put Tower in the Pentagon for
six months
—a trial subscription! Dole offered everything but free storm windows.

Of course, he lost.

Only three Democrats voted aye—and that left Tower three votes short. Tower was finished. (He died in a plane crash, two years later.)

George Bush got a sharp demonstration of what those White House tours were worth: a picture on the Lincoln Bed—plus a quarter, you know. Bush had pals. Votes were something else. (Of course, it never occurred to Bush that this showed the limits of friendship. Bush just concluded, Tower didn’t have enough friends.)

Meanwhile, the lunch-buddies concluded that Bob Dole was back—he
proved
he would carry the ball for Bush.
Flat-out
for the White House!

Yes, Dole would carry the ball. But that wasn’t what the fight showed
him
. “The bottom line in this place,” he said, “is how many votes do you have.” The answer was, only forty-four Republicans—Bush got
his
win in ’88, but the GOP
lost
two seats in the Senate ... and Dole saw no prospect that Bush would spend one minute, lose one friend, or one percent in a poll, to change the lineup. What Dole saw were
years
ahead where he’d have to sweat and scrape for fifty-one votes to declare National Peach Week!

He wasn’t going to give up—Dole didn’t know how to give up. That came clear in New Orleans, at the Republican convention. Dole was in a foul mood all week, complaining about being held up for inspection, like a beef carcass at sale, while Bush made up his mind about his Vice President. People kept asking Dole: What had he heard? What could he do to make himself more attractive to Bush? Dole wasn’t going to do a thing! He never campaigned for the job, never asked to be considered ...
never wanted anything from George Bush
! That’s what he said—especially after Dan Quayle was named. (What had that guy ever done?) ... None of it mattered to Dole. That’s what he said. He and Elizabeth left town, as soon as they could. Then we got to tour their suite. It was glorious—best hotel in New Orleans—four rooms, all connected, a
piano
in Elizabeth’s wing. But what I noticed were the wires, thick cables, running past the piano, into Bob’s room, ten extra phone lines: if Bob got the VP nod from Bush ... he wanted to be ready.

For forty years, Dole had worked flat-out to make a difference. That’s what his first campaign was about, in 1950. That’s what all the moving up was about. That’s what the Other Thing was
for
—bottom line: he had to make a difference, or what was his life about?

What was it about now? The climbing, planning, scrambling, all the up-and-up-and-up—was over. The Other Thing was gone. Dole’s majority in the Senate was gone. No way to control the agenda. Forty-four votes, plus Bush, was not the same as forty-four, plus Reagan. Dole would lead the fight for the White House program. But what program? Darman came to the Capitol talking up a five-year budget deal—but Bush wouldn’t pull the trigger. Maybe next year, or next, or next. Why wait? Without a deal on the deficit, no one would start anything new—how could they? No money. Democrats would pass the programs—no way for Dole to shape the bills. If the GOP lost another seat or two in ’90, Dole wouldn’t even have
influence
. He’d just be in the business of obstruction. Of course, Bush would veto all the spending bills. And Dole would have to work—flat-out—just to enforce paralysis.

Dole got to see Camp David again—first time in sixteen years, since Nixon flew him out there to give him his jacket, and the rope. This time, Dole said, he only got invited ’cause Elizabeth was Secretary of Labor. Bob was a Cabinet spouse. He left before the weekend was through. When he got back to the Capitol, some eager reporter asked breathlessly: “
Senator! How was Camp David? Was it beautiful?
”

“Woulda been,” Dole said, and strode on, toward his office.

Of course, there was ’92. Reporters asked, did he think he’d ever run for President again?

“Aghh, wait a minute. Haven’t even said I’ll run for reelection.”

What?

“Might not.”

Dole was thinking ... he could get on some boards. Make a little money. Bob Strauss heard whispers, and called to say there was always a place in his Big Guy law firm. Warren Rudman talked to Dole about
both
of them leaving—they could start a firm and (Believe me, Bob!) write their own ticket! ... For that matter, the Cabinet table ceased to hold its former fascination for Elizabeth. She had to think of some life beyond her old life. Maybe she could run for Governor in North Carolina—or take on Terry Sanford for Senate, in 1992. (Bob could be a Senate spouse.)

When he went back to Kansas, the old Dole-watchers in the press asked him, point-blank: “Senator, you serious y’might not run?”

“Aghh, don’t
knoww
!” Dole would answer. “Gotta look at it, one of these days.”

At first, no one made much of it—he’d said the same in 1980, the last time he lost for President. ... But then they saw the Democrats lining up, for ’92. (Dan Glickman, Rep from Wichita, stood at the head of the line.) ... Then they heard Dole had talked to Kim Wells, about running on the GOP side.

Dole told one group of reporters, “Have to look it over, look at my options. I wanta make certain I’m in good health.” Dole was sixty-six. Wasn’t gonna live forever. Sister Gloria’s cancer had come back, and brother Kenny had to sit with an oxygen tank, fighting emphysema. How long did Bob have?

Word started to ricochet around the Big Guy circuit in Washington. The staff was on the phones, all day, whispering:
It’s serious
.

Serious? Gaggh! It was
horrible
—Dole was locked away in his inner office ... with
carpet samples
!

The Bobster was going to redecorate his apartment.

Every once in a while, Biden would catch Bush on TV, greeting a foreign visitor, talking at some ceremony ... and just for an instant, Joe would get that sinking anxiety for the guy, like when you see a comedian and no one’s laughing—“Oh, God, he’s gonna screw this up.”

And then Joe would wait for the other shoe to drop: the thought that
he ought to be the guy up there
... but that seldom happened anymore.

It wasn’t that Biden’s politics, or his vision for the country, had changed—they were the same, maybe more important to him now. What changed somehow was the notion that
Joe Biden
was the
one guy
who could step into the breach. Maybe it was less ego ... though Joe felt he was paying more attention to himself now. Maybe he was just paying less attention to what people expected of him.

He really didn’t know why he’d changed—what to call it—but he knew when it happened, or when he felt it ...

It was May ’88. Biden was still in the hospital after his second operation. Doctors often find a “mirror aneurism” on the other side of the skull, and that’s what they found in Joe—along with a vicious blood clot that almost croaked him, actually required a third operation, set him back in his schedule, and gave everybody the shakes again. Anyway ... Joe was finally recuperating, after months of concentrating strictly on the basics—eat, sleep, get some strength. He was lying on his hospital bed, staring up idly at the TV, and he saw: Bush and Reagan on stage, in black tie, in front of a huge model White House, with a fancy crowd and cameras, lights shining in the Gipper’s old eyes as he gave Bush his endorsement, or whatever—a big White House do. ... And Joe was on his way back, gaining strength, he knew, and he clenched his teeth, lifted his jaw, and thought, “I oughta be up there.”

Then he thought, he didn’t want to be up there.

And then he was seized by fear—
why
didn’t he want to be up there? Had he lost his motor? Shit! What would he be worth, if that drive was gone? ... But it wasn’t gone—he’d just lost the panic that kept it near his throat: the feeling that it all had to happen now, today, this instant!

This was not the time in his life that he saw himself up there.

And then he knew, he was all right. He didn’t just relax about his present, his future, but about his past. He understood why he had not been able to save his campaign. It wasn’t like before, his first morning in that hospital, when he had Destiny to explain everything. This was more personal, human-scale. He just never had seen himself living that life, being that President. Even at the end, when he thought he was going to beat Bork, and he saw how he had to campaign ... still, he never saw himself in the White House.

It was the only time in his life he’d tried something like that, something big, when he hadn’t been able to picture how he would be. He ran because people told him he should—their expectations ... he’d tried to do it by the numbers, so much money, so many consultants, positions, speeches, state directors ... but he couldn’t picture himself there, so he never could take control of how people saw him. He never had seen the
why now
, and why
it had to be him
. So how could he make others see? He would never do that—never do anything big again—without that certainty of obligation.

And that’s what he told people, after he was well, when they came to him in the Age of Bush and told him he had to run next time. He said he was exactly where he belonged, for this time in his life; he was doing exactly what he should. He was doing good work in the Senate. He was taking care of his wife and his children, enjoying them, and enjoying them having him.

It was strange—a man like Biden, he’d had his face rubbed in mortality so hard, you’d think he would hear, for evermore, his earthly clock ticking ... but no. He thought, there would be time. If there came a time when he should run for the White House, he’d know ... but more than that. And this was at the bottom. This was what gave him his blessed absence of fever. There would be time, in his life, to establish in everyone’s mind, that he was of good character. If he lived long enough, that, too, would come. People would know, he never cheated in law school.

Dick and Jane Gephardt went to work on their lovely house in the woods of Virginia. They hadn’t touched the place for two years, and Jane’s list, just the basic stuff, was as long as her arm: new paint everywhere, lighting fixtures, new appliances—
everything
had to be done, at once ... so they could sell. After the campaign, the family finances left no choice. Matt was a senior already, and Chrissie was only two years behind him. Matt wanted to go to Duke, where tuition, room, board, and such would run at least $20,000 a year. Dick and Jane would buy a smaller, cheaper house in a new tract, farther out in Virginia, in a town called Herndon.

And then, too, they had to sell their lovely house on Fairview, in South St. Louis, where Loreen had lived, where she’d tended to the flowers and the graceful shrubs for a decade past. She had to move to their new home-in-the-district, which was a condo near the expressway leading out to Jefferson County—new construction again, a heck of a deal ... though even Loreen, who was the Queen of Good Attitude, did concede that it would be
more wonderful still
after there was grass or plants around the buildings and after she got to know somebody, and had neighbors again, someone to talk to.

Still, being Gephardts, they swung into this program whole hog, sold the Virginia house in one day, and moved everything to the new house—except half the furniture wouldn’t fit, so they stacked that in the basement. But they were in, and Dick had only twenty minutes extra on the trip to the Capitol—two hours and change in his Ford, round-trip, if he worked late and missed the traffic. Jane had maybe a half-hour each way—well, forty-five minutes in the morning, with the traffic—to take Katie back to her old school, before Jane could take herself to her job. Matt was already driving, so he could drive himself and Chrissie back and forth, a half-hour each way, to their high school, which he certainly didn’t want to leave, as he was president of the student body—Matt had become quite a pol in Dick’s campaign, a development which Jane viewed with wry ambivalence, but Dick said it was great. Dick and Jane decided, at length, that the strain of moving was
the best thing
that could happen ... because they were so busy now, it kept their minds off their disappointment (Dick had never lost an election) and the upheaval,
God was doing it
... because the campaign takes your life away, and when you come back, nothing feels the same, and it would be too weird to hang on and act like nothing had happened. “You have to do something,” was the way Jane put it, “to start over and make it different.”