What It Takes

by Richard Ben Cramer

  Anyway, Watts was a feeder of mere middling appetite at the trough of Dole consultants. Dole’s old pollster, Tully Plesser, was adjudged to be not Big Guy enough, so Dole for President hired on Dick Wirthlin—about fifty grand a month (but, to be fair to Wirthlin, that was only supplement to his ongoing deal with the Republican National Committee, good for 800,000 simoleons per annum). ... Murphy and Castellanos, the media ops who produced the splendid $30,000 video of the Bob Dole story, clearly were not Big enough ... so DFP engaged a new guru by the name of Don Ringe, who came aboard for the satisfyingly Big Guy sum of $40,000 a month—which was just a retainer, ads would be extra ... which was no threat, as Dole observed: Ringe did not produce any ads.

  But Dole only said that in the car.

  He really had handed it over. ... Of course, the press pack didn’t believe that for a minute. Everybody knew. Dole was just trying to act Presidential.

  The pack could not accept his excitement, all the good feeling he brought to his events—had to be a tactic, right? They were sure Dole was hiding his Karacter (everybody knew he was a bitter hatchet man) ... so, uh, he was trying to act upbeat ... right?

  Well, it was a hell of an act! He looked, for all the world, like a man who thought he was going to be President. People were telling him, he was going to be President. They were asking him questions they would ask a President.

  In New Hampshire, one afternoon that January, Dole cut away from his press herd to do a sit-down with the editors and bosses of The Portsmouth Herald. It was a conference-table affair, most cordial.

  One of the news pooh-bahs said he’d seen Elizabeth on a recent stop. “She was terrific, really good. Made everybody feel real comfortable.”

  Dole’s comment was entirely candid: “She’s a very disciplined person.”

  Dole said he’d be in New Hampshire often, with Congress adjourned. “You know, I’ve seen six or seven Presidents, and they’re never happier than when Congress is out.” Right away, the room eased with knowing male chuckles. Dole said: “One of ’em told me, it’s like being born again when Congress leaves town.”

  Dole was going to take these guys for a quick tour through the cloakroom, the insider world of verbal nudge and wink. Within ten minutes, he was in deep cloakroom, telling a story—him and the President, arguing the INF. “So I told the President, I said, ‘You know, you got Cranston and all these liberals for your treaty now—but what happens when you want more for conventional weapons? They’re going to vote no, and then we’re really in the soup! You know, you got Jim Wright already talking about a peace windfall!’ ” One Dole eyebrow descended in eloquent disapproval. “There isn’t going to be any windfall. Conventional arms cost more than nuclear.”

  Robert J. Dole, Commander in Chief, was not going to let Speaker Wright touch the Pentagon—that much was clear.

  It was also clear, these spellbound editors thought they were sitting with a winner. The general manager, Azio Ferrini, asked Dole: “How do you feel about just the enormity of the responsibility?”

  Dole leaned back in his chair: “Well, you gotta use your Cabinet more. You gotta find some good people, gotta know everything ...”

  When it was over, Dole stayed behind for a minute or two, to say goodbye. When he got to the car, he was almost skipping. He said to Mari Maseng: “I don’t know if he’s going to endorse me, but he’s for me! He’s FOR me—says I’m going to win!” The driver, a local, said: “Then he’ll probably endorse you.” Dole was still talking: “... Says Bush is soft! Says what we got is an appointee against a professional politician!” Dole’s eyebrows were dancing. “I said, ‘Well, I never put it exactly like that, but ...’

  “Well. Let’s goooo!”

  Dole was trying not to get too excited. He said that was one thing he learned from Ronald Reagan (maybe the only thing): the Gip never seemed to get too up, or too down—he was always just a little optimistic. Dole thought that was a good way to be.

  Good way, maybe, for someone else.

  Dole might as well resolve to be Sudanese.

  The fact was, Dole couldn’t act, at all—couldn’t act like he didn’t care (when he did), couldn’t act like he might just have a chance (when he was winning), or act like criticism rolled off his back (when, clearly, it was aimed at his throat) ... Dole couldn’t act like he was having a fine time, playing the game—no matter how often Mari, at his elbow, hissed: “Senator, smile!”

  This was no game. For one thing, he couldn’t afford to lose. “You know, I’m not running again,” he said, on one midnight flight back from Iowa. “Sometimes you have to lose, and it makes you stronger. You can come back. But I’m not running again. This is my time.”

  It was even more than that:

  For the first time, he felt he ought to win. Who was going to row the country out of this sea of red ink? The Democrats? (Steering the wrong way!) ... George Bush? (Who’d do the paddling for him?) ... Dole saw only one man tough enough. For the first time, in his mind, he was The One.

  And the most delicious fact in his grip: he could do it!

  Not just the election—though his standing was on the rise everywhere (“I was in Texas and Alabama and Mississippi yesterday, and it’s happening!”)—he could change the direction of the country, thereafter.

  It didn’t even look that hard to him. He knew the job ... and he knew what people could take. Sometimes, when voters asked about the deficit crisis—What had to be cut?—Dole would break off his answer with a shrug: “Come on!” he’d say. “This is America! Nobody’s gonna hurt that bad.”

  To Dole, it boiled down to a matter of will, and the glorious fact was, that’s what he brought to the job. He’d read enough history to know how they talked about the times calling forth a single man. ... No one from Russell, Kansas, would talk aloud in terms that grand, but ... Gagghh! Kinda looked like it was working out!

  He had to stop at another newspaper—Foster’s Daily Democrat—he went to toodle the editorial board ... meanwhile, the crew from Tanner ’88 would be waiting at the door. They were shooting a cable TV series about a fictional Presidential campaign, starring the mild and charming Michael Murphy as the mild and charming candidate—a fictive Democrat—Jack Tanner. Dole was supposed to help out with a cameo.

  While Murphy waited for Dole’s meeting to end, he talked about how easy it was to work with real candidates. He thought that running for President must be a lot like acting. (The one who surprised him, he said, was Gary Hart. “He just—the elevator doors opened and there he was, with just one guy, frail, alone. ... You know, suddenly, I believed he had to push that girl off his lap.”)

  When Dole came downstairs, he barely broke stride, just paused on the sidewalk with Tanner. The cameras rolled.

  “Hi. Jack Tanner.”

  “How ya runnin’?”

  “Good, good ...”

  “You’re closin’ the gap!” Dole said.

  “Well, not like you! I’m envious,” said Tanner.

  Dole dropped an eyebrow, flashed a hint of smile, and said: “We’re workin’ on it!”

  Dole was flawless. “O-kayy ... good luck!”

  Of course, he wasn’t acting. He was being Bob Dole ... as he was, just out of camera frame, at the door of his car, when he uttered into the winter air this prairie haiku:

  “Agh! Hollywooood! ... Let’s go! ... The big moneyyy!”

  Dole had no fear of cameras—nor of the herd: he knew how to make news, and he was surely the only candidate to admit he would listen to the press. (When voters asked how Dole would avoid the fog that suffused the White House in Iran-contra, Dole’s first remedy was press conferences. “They’ll tell you if you’re missing something.”)

  So, of course, he was offended when the press kept asking about his money—his income, taxes, net worth. He knew the stuff came from Bush. (It came, precisely, from the Bushies in Iowa, who were panicky now, trying to prove Bob Dole was not “One of Us.”) That made sense—Bush was losing. Bush had nothing to
say for himself, so he was trying to knock down the Bob Dole story. Okay ... but Dole could not believe the press was going to help! They were trying to make Dole admit ... he was rich!

  Well, it was gonna be a cold day in hell—Dole had just got so he could talk about being poor!

  And what did it matter, anyway, if Bob Dole, at age sixty-four, had a million dollars, or a couple of million? The point was not where people ended up—it was where they started.

  If he had a few dollars now, well, uh, well ... he worked for it. He made it the hard way! He, he ...

  He married it.

  But he wasn’t going to say that.

  In fact, he wasn’t going to talk about that money.

  In 1974, when he had to make his first disclosure, Dole’s fortune was $30,000, in a cash account, in a bank in Russell. ... That changed the next year, when he married Elizabeth Hanford. But that didn’t mean Bob did anything with that money ... or even knew much about it. In fact, Elizabeth didn’t know much. When she asked Dave Owen, Bob’s money man, if he’d help with her finances, she brought a shopping bag to the office. She was in a meeting when Owen picked it up: he was on his way out of town, and he took it with him, on and off airplanes for a few days. When he got a chance to poke through the bag, he was horrified to find bonds, bank statements, old receipts, savings certificates, check stubs, insurance policies, credit card reminders, stock certificates ... everything jumbled in a heap that was worth ... well, to put it simply, Elizabeth had two million in a shopping bag. She wanted Dave to take care of it.

  So, he did. Elizabeth signed over a power of attorney, and Owen became her personal investment adviser ... until 1985, when the Doles (by that time, Senator and Secretary, the capital’s pet power couple) set up Elizabeth’s blind trust. The trustee was to be Mark McConaghy, Dole’s old staffer on the Finance Committee who now worked for Price Waterhouse. Of course, McConaghy was a policy wonk, not a businessman, so he brought in Dave Owen as investment adviser.

  Anyway, Dole never seemed to notice that he lived like a millionaire: cars waiting, airplanes, staff. It seemed to him an extension of his Senate stature. He wasn’t rich—he just had work to do! As for money ... well, Dole didn’t think about the money. He had nothing to do with that money!

  Alas, he did, of course.

  He didn’t just have his apartment anymore, and his parents’ old house in Russell: he had a condo in a Florida white men’s preserve. Well, legally, Elizabeth had the condo—but that nicety didn’t stop The New York Times from turning its “candidate profile” into a heavy-breathing investigation of how the Doles did the condo deal. (In the end, the Times couldn’t pin down anything improper.)

  Dole couldn’t content himself anymore with writing the occasional shy and secret thousand-dollar check to some charity, or some down-and-outer, like he used to whenever he felt the urge, to help people (usually disabled people) get back on their feet. Now he had the Dole Foundation, which was another million-dollar affair, with its own intricate and legalistic exigencies.

  Dole could not issue anymore a one-page Senate disclosure, listing his salary and maybe some speaking fees. ... Now he was earning another forty thousand a year from his Face-Off radio shows with Ted Kennedy; he had investments—and possible conflicts of interest with industries affected by legislation in the Senate; and then, too, there was income from Elizabeth’s trust, part of which had to be reported jointly, and ...

  Alas, inconvenient as it was, Dole was rich.

  And what was worse: after Bush started pointing out that Dole was rich, the newspaper in Hutchinson, Kansas (Dole’s old nemesis—“the Prairie Pravda,” he called it), suddenly found itself in possession of a stack of information about investments made and contributions passed along by Dole’s friend, Dave Owen. (Jeez—wonder where that stuff could have come from!)

  So The Hutchinson News launched its own investigation, to suggest that Owen was making a dirty fortune ... wielding Dole’s political influence ... to steer federal contracts ... to friends who would contribute ... both to Owen’s favored political campaigns—and to the engorgement of the Elizabeth Hanford Dole Trust.

  Phew!

  Well, it was complicated—all of Owen’s business was too complicated by half ... and by the time the Times went to work again, reporting the stuff reported by The Hutchinson News, it didn’t just look intricate—it looked awful.

  It looked—it smelled—to the pack on Dole’s plane like ... bad fish!

  So, in New Hampshire, Dole conducted a bang-up event in a packed pancake house: Elizabeth introduced him with the Bob Dole story, then Bob came on with a charming appeal to open up the Party ... to let the government respond to people’s real problems ... and to preserve the opportunity, which was America’s hallmark and her gift to the planet ... and, amid a standing ovation, Bob made for the door, where the press was waiting.

  Senator! What’s your net worth, jointly, with Elizabeth?

  “Beats me.”

  WhatchurestimateSenatoryoumustknowabouthowmuchYOURNETWORTH?

  Dole stopped and faced his accusers. “I’m the candidate,” he said. “My net worth is very little. But I don’t have any idea.”

  Are you a millionaire?

  “Me? I doubt it. I own an apartment and a car, and I don’t know how much money is in the bank, but ... I guess very little.”

  Don’t the voters deserve to know?

  “They’ll find out. They know. I publish it every year, so it’s no secret.”

  Will you release your income tax returns?

  “I don’t know. I’m not going to let him set the timetable. ...”

  (He didn’t have to say he was talking about Bush. It was Bush who demanded that Dole release his tax returns.)

  “This has got nothing to do with my background! ...” In the shadowed entryway of the restaurant, Dole’s face was getting darker. This was what he got for taking questions.

  “... I can’t understand why the press would swallow this in the first place! Obviously, this is a diversionary tactic. And some of the press bought it. They like to poke around! Every year, I put my disclosure in the Record—everything, including joint ... which makes me look rich. My little holdings, I think, will be made available, but that’s not the point. The point is, where did we start in this life? I know where I started, and I know where I got—where I am. Just because I’ve been somewhat successful is, I think, sort of the American dream! ...

  “Nobody gave it to me. I didn’t have rich and powerful parents! ... I don’t really have much. ... I’ve given about half a million to charity over the last several years. I’d like to see the Bushes match that.”

  There was a question about how voters might regard this pissing match between Bush and Dole.

  “We didn’t start it! We want to talk about the issues and leadership. Others don’t want us to talk about that. I’m not going to stop talking about that—I’m a strong leader, that I’ve got more done, that I’ve got a record—if I stop all that because someone doesn’t like it, then I don’t have a campaign. And I think it’s working! When you say, ‘Vote for Bob Dole, because he’s One of Us,’ that hits a tender spot—I can’t help it. I am what I am. And I was what I was when I was growing up. And a lot of people out there identify with that.”

  Dole walked out into the sunshine. He’d stated his case.

  Of course, on the news that night, there was no sunshine—and none of Dole’s pancake-house speech—just a dark hallway, a scowling hatchet man, bragging about his half-million to charity:

  “I’d like to see the Bushes match that!”

  It went on for days, everywhere Dole stopped: less than a month now until the voting began, and the only questions Dole heard were about his money.

  The Bush campaign was challenging Dole to release five years of his tax returns. So the pack asked Dole: Would he release five years of tax returns? The Bushies were distributing hot poop from The Hutchinson News. Reporters asked Dole about the poop from the News.
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  Sometimes, Dole’s answers were plaintive (“You know, we’re running for President of the United States—and someone’s going to win! Let’s be serious!”) ... and sometimes, blustery (“Gaghh! You swallowed that story from Bush?”) ... but nothing seemed to satisfy. To Dole, it was apparent: they thought he was going to win ... they were trying to take it away ... they were coming at his throat ... and the knife in their hands was Dave Owen.

  Always, always, there were more complicated questions about Owen and his real estate deals, his banks, corporations, partnerships, loans from the Dole trust, sales of property to the Dole trust. ... Senator, were you aware that the Dole trust had purchased the office building in Overland Park, which is listed as the address of the E.D.P. and Eagle partnerships, through which Dave Owen participated, with your former aide John Palmer, in supplying food service to the Army at Fort Leonard Wood?

  Dole’s Senate Press Secretary, Walt Riker, tried to calm the waters ten times a day, pointing out that Dole knew nothing about the deals for the trust: “You know, that’s why they call it a blind trust.”

  From Kansas, Dave Owen issued blanket denials of wrongdoing—specific denials wherever he could get a hearing. He got the Kansas City Star to knock down one charge—that he’d formed shell corporations just to make contributions to campaigns—but that’s because he knew the reporters in Kansas City. What about the other hundred and fifty newspapers, all trying to penetrate his business?

  Owen talked to the editor in Hutchinson—knew him from years back, in Topeka—but the fellow said he couldn’t interfere with a news investigation. Owen called Kim Wells because Kim’s father was on the board of the company that owned the paper; but Kim, of course, couldn’t get the stories squelched. Owen called to assure Dole’s Big Guys that there was nothing to these stories, but the Big Guys were busy assuring the national big-feet (just on background, understand) that Owen never did much for Dole’s campaign, he was just a hanger-on, despite his title of Finance Chairman (just the kind of guy they were trying to clean out of the campaign; they’d warned Dole about him, but, uh ... don’t use my name, huh?) and somehow they couldn’t find time to call Owen back. Owen was supposed to meet Dole in Miami and travel with him back to the Midwest, but what with trying to answer the charges (The Washington Post wanted full explanation—now!), Owen was pinned down, so he sent word to Dole, in Springfield, Missouri, that there was nothing to this brouhaha—nothing wrong—but when Dave called the plane, he only got the body man, Glassner, who neglected to mention where Dole was going to stay that night, so Owen never did talk to Dole. He did talk once to Mari, who said Dole wasn’t in a good mood ... but after that, Mari didn’t return Dave’s calls. So Owen called Kim Wells again, and Kim said he’d talk to Dole ... but somehow Owen never heard from Wells.