What It Takes

by Richard Ben Cramer

But you could also see that this was unsatisfactory to Michael. He seemed most intent on showing them, he was, on all points, correct.

  And you could see, too, in the back of the room, a table manned by the local field staff, who would turn those nods of approval into names on the sign-up sheet ... and you knew those names would get back to Des Moines, today, to be put into the computers (Michael’s Iowa ops were computerized up the wazoo) ... and those people in Boone would all get calls, and get names of their neighbors for them to call ... and nothing would drop through the cracks ... no mistakes!

  No, Michael’s machine was always working—as it was, forty-five minutes, to the minute, after Michael started speaking in the coffee shop basement, when his trip director, Jack Weeks (a boxer’s build in a fancy suit and the light gray eyes of a wolf) held the door for the Governor, and Michael’s black wing tips trudged upstairs ... and even there, apart from him, Michael’s machine was working, as Nick Mitropoulos, the body man, the eyes and ears, alerted him that Boston was also in a heat wave, and air conditioners were straining the supply of electric power, the state might have to go to alert, cut back supply in the grid ten percent, require reductions in demand from industry ... Michael grabbed for the proffered phone:

  “No!” he barked. “There’s plenty of capacity. Yeah. Plenty. And I think you—you just go out there, say that ... right. And we’ll launch an immediate investigation. Monday. Yep. Tha-a-nk you ...” He cracked down the phone.

  And even in that minute he spoke, the machine was at work, as his state coordinator, Mark Gearan, discovered a wedding shower in the restaurant’s back room, and Nick said: “Let’s get ’im back there ... and make sure we send her a note.” So, in another minute, Michael burst in, like the IRS, upon a score of little white girls and white ladies, all dressed up in flowered things, while Nick—round and smiling, the pol’s pol, like an old friend of the family—introduced him around, to the bride-to-be: “This is Christy ... she’ll be married Saturday ... and the lovely hostess, Mrs. Irby ...” Michael shook hands, posed for a picture, and he was gone, down the hall, while the side of Nick’s mouth said to Gearan: “Make sure—a note.”

  Gearan said to the fresh scrawl on his clipboard: “Yessir.”

  And fifty minutes, to the minute, from his entry, Michael Dukakis settled his suit into the shotgun seat, reached for the shoulder belt, and with all certainties buckled in, rode away from a most satisfactory visit to Boone.

  43

  The Age of Dukakis

  HE ALWAYS KNEW MORE than anyone else in that chamber. That much you couldn’t miss. The legislature (especially the House) can be humbling—you need help to get anything through. But not for Dukakis. Year after year, through the 1960s, Michael was convinced: things would be better if there were more people like him in that State House. And fewer ignorant hacks.

  He had a million bills in the hopper—he was going to change this board to a strong executive structure, or he was going to change that department into a board ... or he was going to reform this agency by requiring audits by the state auditor, or he was going to reform the auditor’s office by requiring audits of the auditor—every year, a million tinkerings with the vents and valves ... all of which made perfect sense to him.

  In fact, they were of such obvious merit that he would not brook opposition. If you were against him, you must be drunk, or corrupt, or stupid. Half of his remarks seemed to begin:

  “Mr. Speaker, as I have explained before ...”

  Or: “As I tried to make clear to the Representative from ...”

  Or: “It should be obvious to everybody, by this time ...”

  One year, he’d lectured his colleagues so many times ... when he got to the speaker’s well to explain yet another bill, he looked over the House, heaved an audible sigh, and said: “Well. Here we go again.”

  Of course, he was disliked.

  Well, it was mutual.

  Actually, Michael’s attitude was more like disdain. One time, he lectured a government class taught by his colleague Marty Linsky. Michael was asked if it was important to have a good relationship with the legislature. “No,” Michael said. “That’s not relevant.” He wasn’t there to make friends. And to throw a vote to a friend, well! ... That would be a near-criminal breach of discipline and the public trust.

  That’s why he couldn’t be ignored—that discipline: every issue, every bill, he probed for its government implications, and voted on the merits. When the three Reps from Brookline showed up together—Town Meeting, Kiwanis, or the Committee for Fair Housing—Linsky would insist on speaking first. It wasn’t that Michael was such a hot speaker, but he was so sure of himself. If you came on after, even if you agreed, you’d only sound like a weak me-too. Even Beryl Cohen, elected two years before Dukakis—and no mean pol, a smart young comer (by ’64 Beryl had moved up to the Senate seat from Brookline) ... would keep an eye on Dukakis. You didn’t want to end up on the other side.

  That discipline, too, made Dukakis leader of the Democratic Study Group. This was a cabal of reformist legislators—not too many, maybe twenty votes on the best day ... but they were young, serious, well educated, dedicated to the proposition that clean, activist government was the people’s right, and their future. They’d meet, after sessions, at someone’s home, or a restaurant ... meetings would slide into dinner, drinks after that—but not for Michael. He was home for dinner, 6:00 P.M., and then he had meetings, or he had to do his radio show, or write his column for the Brookline paper, or he had legal work for Hill & Barlow ... or Fran Meaney, his old law school pal, still the (unpaid) director of COD, would come by in his Volkswagen Beetle to drive Michael off to another corner of the state, to talk to clean-government Democrats. Michael and Fran had file cards on two thousand Democrats with whom Michael had discussed reform. No struggle was too remote, or too paltry.

  Of course, people called them liberals—Michael and COD, Michael and his Study Group. But they certainly weren’t liberal in their personal lives—straight arrows, to the core (and Michael the straightest of all). Nor were they wedded to the liberal Great Society. Michael was making his name, in fact, as a foe of the federally funded destruction of neighborhoods for urban renewal and expressways. Liberals were heading south, to march in Selma, or Montgomery. But Michael had no taste for the disorder, the unreason, of demonstrations.

  Even at home, there were great liberal causes: for instance, the epic battle to desegregate Boston schools. Beryl Cohen (there was a liberal) was sponsor of the racial imbalance bill, to cut off state aid to any segregated school system. Beryl made his bill the litmus test for racial decency in Massachusetts. But he could never get Michael or the Democratic Study Group to help. In fact, Michael and friends seemed convinced that the irrational issue of race was impeding the crucial work of reform. When Martin Luther King led thousands of Bostonians on a dramatic march to the Common in front of the State House, Beryl marched. (Even a regular Democrat like Frank Bellotti showed up!) But Michael was nowhere to be seen. High visions of racial justice were ... well, they were terrific ... but when Michael said “power to the people,” he meant his people: the duly elected, responsible representatives of the Party, the government—the clean, decent, educated few. That was his agenda. And as the sixties drew to a close, the time had come for Michael to use his two thousand file cards.

  In fact, he’d already made one move: at the ’66 state convention, Dukakis almost grabbed off the nomination for Attorney General. That was the job he had his eye on—second in clout only to the Governor, powerful enough to lure into the race a former Governor (Foster Furculo), and the last Democratic candidate for Governor (Frank Bellotti). Dukakis filed anyway. He was thirty-two, with three years in the House. He urged Democrats to reject “the same tired voices.”

  Fran Meaney managed the campaign. Carl Sapers, Michael’s friend since Harvard Law, had been counsel to a state crime commission, and fed Michael a diet of scandal on Peter Volpe, the Governor’s brother—which Dukakis the
reupon fed to the papers. Beryl Cohen, who was serving on a Senate investigation, fed Michael a list of contracts allegedly influenced by contributions to Volpe, which put Michael back in the papers. Another friend, Hackie Kassler, took care of fund-raisers—cocktail parties, ten dollars a pop. (But before each party, the ladies of Brookline hosted turkey tetrazzini dinners, each plate an extra fifteen bucks!)

  Meanwhile, every weekend, most nights, Michael worked on the people who mattered, the Party officials, the committeemen, who would pick delegates (or would be delegates) to that convention. It was obvious to him: he simply had to identify three to four thousand people and convince them—one by one, if need be—that the Party had to do away with the clubhouse hacks and nominate active, progressive young people ... like him!

  And he was convincing. After all that free press, after a glowing nomination speech by Beryl Cohen, after the Dukakis Girls (Kitty and some other Brookline matrons) made appearance in matching blue-and-green scarves, after Michael’s amateur troops charmed the convention by handing out fortune cookies stuffed with slogans like “Happiness Is Dukakis for Attorney General!” ... the first ballot left Bellotti some thirty votes short of nomination—and Michael in second place.

  Alas, that’s as far as he got. Bellotti’s floor lieutenants got the deal wrapped up. The regulars were too strong in ’66 ... but Michael knew his time was coming—and next time, 1970, he’d be ready.

  And the Party would be ready for him. Reason and decency were on the march! Kevin White, the polished and progressive Mayor of Boston, was positioning himself for the 1970 Governor’s race. (Michael was in close political contact with White.) ... Beryl Cohen meant to run for Lieutenant Governor ... and Michael Dukakis for AG—what a ticket!

  They were all the shiniest of rising stars, who owed nothing to the clubhouse machine. Beryl and Michael talked about whether the state would accept two Young Turks from Brookline ... but Michael said: Why not? They were the best, in tune with modern national Democrats, all in touch with each other, to better serve the people of Massachusetts. ... This was Michael’s dream come true.

  And then, disaster struck.

  Nixon won, in ’68, and asked the Massachusetts Governor, John Volpe, to be Secretary of Transportation. Worse still, Nixon summoned Elliot Richardson, the state’s Republican AG, to be Undersecretary of State. The Democrats in the legislature promptly nominated their favorite, an old-line Boston regular, the Speaker of the House, Robert H. Quinn, to fill Richardson’s unexpired term as AG.

  And there was Michael’s problem: he couldn’t stop Quinn, and he couldn’t run against him: Michael was a Party-builder. He couldn’t try to knock off a Democrat incumbent. Anyway, Michael wasn’t strong enough to fight a bloody civil war.

  So, he did what he had to: he voted for the old regular, Quinn ... and then he walked over to the house of Beryl Cohen—his fellow reformer, and his friend since Brookline High. Michael knocked on the door, nine o’clock at night. When Cohen brought him in, Michael told him without preamble: Dukakis was now a candidate for Lieutenant Governor.

  Beryl just gaped—he couldn’t talk. His head was racing with the things they’d done together, the plans they’d made ... twelve years! All he could finally pfumfer out was the horrible, obvious fact: “Michael, I’m running for Lieutenant Governor.”

  Dukakis just stared at the floor.

  What else could Michael do? He’d gone too far, talked to too many people, rallied every reform group in the Commonwealth about the importance of the process, about the kind of people—serious people—who must come to the fore!

  That was Michael’s most characteristic phrase: “the kind of people.” That’s as personal as he got. Fran Meaney always tried to remind him: “You’ve got to ask for their help!” But it seemed to Michael, if they were informed of his credentials, apprised of his serious concern ... it would be apparent that he was exactly ... the kind of guy.

  He showed them in so many ways. This was the time—amid the upheaval of the McCarthy campaign, Bobby Kennedy’s race for the White House, his assassination, the inner-city riots, the Summer of Love, the intense anguish over Vietnam—that Michael Dukakis found his issues: highway planning and no-fault insurance.

  Dukakis was the first legislator to help neighborhood groups save their homes from the highways. He was the first official to promote alternative plans and planners. And in ’69, after Governor Volpe moved on to Washington, Michael lined up twenty members of the Democratic Study Group to demand from the new Governor, Frank Sargent ... a moratorium ... on highway construction in Boston.

  Dukakis was also first to promote the new concept of no-fault insurance. Small cases would never go to court. A driver would collect from his own insurance—without regard to fault. This would streamline the courts, put money into the pockets of the aggrieved, and cut the cost of premiums in Massachusetts (at that time, the highest in the nation). This was not ideological, it was simply rational—in other words, vintage Dukakis.

  Of course, no one thought he could do it. The lawyers, the insurance companies—they loved the old system. But they did not reckon with Dukakis, who went at this like a steam piston. The first year, he got his bill through the House, but was stopped in the Senate. After ’68, when Quinn became AG and the House leadership was reshuffled, the new chairman of the Insurance Committee, Ned Dever, lined up against him. Michael’s bill languished for another year while he worked on Dever. Finally, in 1970, Dever passed the bill to the floor, the House passed it again, but still, the Senate balked. So Michael went to work on the Senators: he’d sit them down and explain, in clipped, complete sentences, why his bill was the only reasonable and decent solution. He got Fran Meaney to organize a committee on the outside: Lawyers for No-Fault. The Globe piled on, editorializing for no-fault.

  Dukakis went at his issue, in other words, just like he lined up his convention vote for Lieutenant Governor—with the same public-private mix of pressure and argument, the same meticulous organization, and dogged insistence on his own correctness. Eighteen hundred delegates, or twenty-six Senators—it was the same: Michael would hit them all.

  If there was certainty to be had in this line of work, he would have it ... at least he’d go to bed, on the last night, knowing there were no mistakes—no blank boxes on his checklist.

  They stood no more than twenty feet apart, near the door of the convention hall in Amherst, Michael and Beryl Cohen. As candidates, they were barred from the convention floor, so all they could do was greet delegates at the door.

  It was Saturday morning, June 13, 1970. The night before, the delegates had given the endorsement for Governor to the clubhouse favorite, Maurice Donahue, the Senate President. (Kevin White was rebuffed—but he’d fight on, in the primary.) Beryl was on top of his game, on top of the world. His candidate for Governor now held control of the floor. The Senators were Beryl’s pals!

  Then Donahue’s man, Bob Kelly, came out to the gate, motioned to Beryl to step inside.

  “I’m not supposed to be in there.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Kelly sat Beryl down on the steps, then gave him the news: “You’re not gonna win.”

  Beryl went berserk: “What the hell do you mean? ... Donahue’s gonna screw me? ... How could he? ... Why would he?”

  Beryl asked: “Dukakis?”

  Kelly shook his head. “Neither of you’s gonna win.”

  Beryl jumped up, called to his guys—get the Senators outside the gates—right now! The vote was already starting. Delegations were mysteriously abstaining, taking dives ... phone calls from Donahue’s men must’ve frozen the chairmen.

  Outside, Beryl saw Dukakis, just standing at the fence—poor little bastard had no idea.

  “I just got told ...” Beryl said. “Neither of us ...”

  Michael hardly blinked. Beryl thought he must not get it—Donahue was going to shaft them both!

  Beryl couldn’t stand still. He was going down the tubes! When the Senators got there, he gath
ered them under a tree. They had to help him! He was being screwed! They were all being screwed! Donahue wanted a deadlock so he could put in a ringer—his own man. They had to stop it ... for Beryl. He was begging!

  But how could they stop it? If you’re working by deal ... well, the deal can change.

  And then, a funny thing happened on the floor. Dukakis’s votes did not take a dive. They held him near the top through the first ballot—no one had a majority. Fran Meaney, Hackie Kassler, Allan Sidd, Carl Sapers, prowled the aisles for Dukakis. They wore red bandanas. They had hand signals, walkie-talkies. They had captains in the delegations. They had their plans, no matter what—they had assignments to rush the stage if the microphone suddenly went on the fritz and Donahue’s men tried to mumble around, then raise someone’s arm as the “victor.”

  A second ballot started. Up at the chair, delegates were coming forward: What was the deal? Was there a deal?

  Donahue’s men denied any deal.

  Well, then, the delegates were voting Dukakis.

  “The guy came to my house ... twice!”

  All of a sudden, it came clear, there wasn’t going to be any deadlock, any deal—because Michael had not only beaten Beryl Cohen—he’d beaten Donahue, and anybody else who wanted his delegates. Michael had worked on those people for years ... and no one could pick them off with a phone call—that era was over. This was another age—started that Saturday morning—the age of Michael Dukakis, who was, within minutes, the officially endorsed candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts.

  Well, it didn’t quite work out in November. For one thing, Donahue and Kevin White spent the whole primary beating up one another. But even after White dispatched Donahue, there were problems.

  The big problem was Frank Sargent.

  Sure, he lucked into the Governor’s chair (he was Lieutenant Governor when Volpe went off to work for Nixon) ... but Sargent was no slouch. He, too, knew a new age was dawning, and sunrise was not going to find him acting like a Republican in a state where Humphrey beat Nixon, two-to-one. When Democrats in the House and Senate passed a bill to prohibit the President from sending citizens of Massachusetts to fight in “an undeclared war” ... Sargent signed it. When National Guardsmen killed four students at Kent State, Sargent ordered the U.S. flag removed from atop the State House.