The Republicans in the Senate and House had finally reached agreement on all the details of a new seven-year balanced budget package, voted it through and sent it to Clinton, who was certain to veto it. It was a moment to relax. On Tuesday, December 5, Congressman John Kasich, the House Budget chairman, was over talking with Dole. Discussion turned to whether they would be able to get any of the blue dogs to join them to override the veto.
“Who are the blue dogs?” Dole asked.
“They’re the conservative Democrats,” Kasich replied.
“We don’t have any blue dogs over here,” Dole said, chuckling, “we have hot dogs.”
Kasich laughed and smiled, his smirky boyish laugh.
“What about Snoop Doggy Dogg?” Dole said, knowing he had an appreciative audience. Dole remembered the name of the rap star from his speech attacking Hollywood.
Panetta’s strategy on the budget was for them to hang tough, continue to pound the Republicans but also make it clear Clinton wanted to negotiate. This was always dicey and they had to work the problem day to day. The long-range goal was to get Gingrich to abandon his crazies. And in the process there was no telling when the Republicans would get smart and see they were suffering badly with the public. Panetta was also tired of the budget, convinced nothing would happen until the next deadline. One of his sons had just had the first grandchild in the Panetta family, and Panetta was planning a family holiday. At the moment he was more interested in his grandchild than the budget strategy. He didn’t want to be sitting in the White House on Christmas Eve.
Morris continued to be a thorn for the chief of staff. Unbelievably, one of Morris’s key Republican clients was Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, the majority whip and Dole’s deputy in the Senate. Lott was closer to Gingrich than to Dole. Morris made big claims in White House meetings about Lott’s power in the Senate. “All roads lead to and emanate from Trent,” Morris said. He said Lott was the key to both Gingrich and his House, and to the Senate. Clinton had authorized Morris to listen to Lott but not to undertake a separate track for negotiations on the budget. Panetta knew there was no way to know what was really happening in the Morris-Lott relationship, but Morris seemed to bring back some good intelligence that was handy. And the whole bizarre, intertwined series of relationships perhaps made Clinton seem a little more unpredictable to the Republicans.
The weekly evening meetings on the campaign were also getting to Panetta. Clinton and Morris would go on and on, willing to talk all night. Panetta often wondered, when is this going to be over? Sessions that should take only 20 minutes to decide on what ads, where to run them and how often they should be on the air lasted four hours or more. One meeting lasted until 1:30 A.M.
“I’ve got the whole goddamn White House to run,” Panetta told one of his assistants, “and I’ve got to be here at 7:30 the next morning.” He had to handle all the minutiae that could cause the White House or the federal government to unravel.
Morris was driving obsessively for a budget deal because getting those issues off the table and out of the 1996 political debate was one of his grand designs. A deal would almost ensure Clinton’s reelection, he said. At one White House meeting, Morris said, “We’re going to have an agreement even if it’s December 31, at 11:59 P.M. and 59 seconds.”
McCurry didn’t go to the campaign meetings because he felt he was already perceived as way too political for a White House spokesman. But he received detailed reports after each meeting, “mind dumps,” he called them. McCurry understood why the meetings were so long. Beyond Clinton’s tendency to talk anything to death, formulating the campaign message was the candidate’s toughest work. No one could do it for him if it was going to be genuine. Clinton’s message had to be worked out personally.
The next afternoon, Wednesday, December 6, Clinton summoned the cameras and reporters to the Oval Office.
“Throughout our history,” he said, “American presidents have used the power of the veto to protect our values as a country.” He picked up a pen which had been sent from Texas. “Three decades ago, this pen you see here was used to honor our values when President Johnson used it to sign Medicare into law. Today, I am vetoing the biggest Medicare and Medicaid cuts in history, deep cuts in education, a rollback in environmental protection.”
Clinton then tried to write his signature to veto the bill.
“Can you bring me some more ink, boys?” the president asked. His staff secretary Todd Stern had some on hand, and Clinton signed his veto.
George Stephanopoulos said publicly, “The Republican budget is dead, the Contract With America is dead. Now let’s go to work.”
White House polling showed that the president’s message on Medicare, education and the environment was working magnificently.
More advertising, Morris insisted. Clinton personally approved the script for another ad that Bob Squier produced that day attacking the Republicans.
“Belle is doing fine. But Medicare could be cut. Nicholas is going to college—but his scholarship could be gone. The stakes in the budget debate. Joshua’s doing well—but help for his disability could be cut. President Clinton. Standing firm to protect people. Matthew bought a house—but will the water be safe to drink? Mike has a job—but new taxes in the Republican budget could set him back. President Clinton says balance the budget—but protect our families.”
It was simple.
Conservative radio and television host Rush Limbaugh, who understood a hard sell, complained on his radio show that the Republicans were not doing enough television advertising. “This budget battle is more important than the 1996 election,” he declared, and the Senate, House and Republican National Committee needed to get to work.
That night Gingrich answered the phone to receive news that he had been cleared of all ethics charges involving his personal and campaign finances except one that would be investigated by a special counsel. Tears began streaming down his face. His wife Marianne also cried, and Gingrich broke down, weeping uncontrollably. His advisers and he later tried to insist the tears were mostly of joy and relief. But the revolution had been dealt a big setback. Clinton had not caved. The budget had not yet been balanced. Taxes had not been lowered. The social and health programs had not been cut or changed. Clinton stood firmly in the way.
There were no tears from Dole. When I went to interview him several days later in New Hampshire where he was campaigning, I found ambivalence. “Some in our party see it as a total failure if we got up to the five-yard line and couldn’t score,” he said. “My view is we did it, he vetoed it. Game’s over. Start a new game.” Dole added, “It just makes the case we’ve got to have a Republican president.” The 1996 election could be about the difference between the Republican approach and the Clinton approach. “I’m not going to be too upset if we take it to the people,” he said.
On the other hand—there was generally another hand with Dole—he said he wanted a budget deal with Clinton. “I think in the short term, particularly through the nominating process, it’s a big plus for Bob Dole. If we don’t get it done, I don’t know how it plays.” He said he was still worried about Phil Gramm’s charges that the Congress did nothing, that the majority leader had made the Senate “a black hole” in which the Contract With America had been dropped.
At the same time Dole acknowledged that a full budget agreement with Clinton would boost both the economy and Clinton’s reelection chances. “I think we put him on first base at least,” Dole said, perhaps even “halfway to second.”
Suppose Dole won the Republican nomination and lost to Clinton because of a booming economy? I asked. How would he feel?
“I won’t feel too good,” he replied. But people would get jobs and interest rates would drop, he said.
We talked at length about the political impact of a budget agreement and Dole’s tendency to accommodate Clinton on foreign policy.
“I try to separate my own ambition when I can,” Dole said. “After all, we’re all in this together. And he is the president. Particularly when it’s foreign policy, I don’t think we ought to be playing games. Some people play games all the time.”
On Thursday, December 14, Bob Squier produced a television ad called “Children” that savaged the Republicans for pushing more children into poverty, and making cuts in education, the environment and Medicare. Over $1 million of television time was purchased to begin the following day in key battleground states where polling showed the most undecided or persuadable votes.
With images of a child on the screen, an announcer’s voice said, “America’s children. Seven million. Pushed toward poverty by higher taxes on working families. Four million children get substandard health care. Education—cut $30 billion; environmental protection gutted.” The images switched to Gingrich and Dole as the voice continued, “That’s the sad truth behind the Republican budget plan. The President’s seven year balanced budget protects Medicare, education, and gives working families with children a tax break. It’s our duty to America’s children—and the President’s plan will meet it.”
Late Friday, December 15, Clinton said publicly that the Republicans had broken off negotiations, and he wasn’t going to give in, so the next day the federal government would shut down partially for a second time.
Dole wanted to open the government temporarily, but it stayed closed over the weekend.
On Monday, December 18, Clinton and his advisers realized the administration was playing a dangerous game. The Republicans might be getting all the heat on keeping the government closed, but Clinton had to show he was willing to talk.
He called Dole and proposed a temporary reopening and then serious talks between himself and Dole and Gingrich.
Dole was eager to talk, but he had second thoughts when 30 minutes later he saw the Clinton ads on television kicking the Republicans on Medicare, education and children.
Dole later told Scott Reed that he believed Clinton would say and do anything to get reelected. “This is what we’re dealing with,” he said. He wasn’t angry or even particularly hot. Clinton was just a problem. “We have to understand—this is the type of person we’re dealing with.”
Dole figured the political season was on. In the budget negotiations he felt he couldn’t be the first to speak because of widespread suspicions among Republican conservatives that he would make a deal with Clinton. At this stage just before the Republican primaries, he couldn’t be seen as a moderate compromiser sharing some of Clinton’s policies. So he let Gingrich or Armey present their proposals first.
Throughout 1995, Dole had felt he had to bite his lip about the Contract. “On the Senate side we were the bad boys, and we didn’t get it done in 100 days.” They didn’t get it done in 200 days or in 300 days. The Senate was the black hole for Gingrich’s Contract. But Dole felt the House Republicans had miscalculated. “There’s a way to use power when you get it,” he said, “and my view was that maybe they’ve just been a little too much in a hurry. You don’t undo 40 years or 20 years or 30 years in 100 days or four years.” He added, “President Clinton nailed us to the mast on the government shutdown.”
Gingrich and Armey had been insisting that any Medicare reform include the so-called medical savings accounts, allowing those who put money aside to pay for health care to take a tax deduction. The greatest proponent of the idea was Golden Rule Insurance Company, which sold a version of such accounts, and its former chairman J. Patrick Rooney, who had given more than $1 million to the Republican Party and to various Gingrich spin-off organizations. Clinton and Gore opposed the tax deduction, believing it would favor the healthy and the wealthy who could most afford to set up the medical savings accounts.
In a phone conversation with the president, Gingrich complained about the $1.5 million in anti-Republican advertising that had just been launched, and he accused the president of bad faith.
“Well,” Clinton replied furiously, “if you want to know about your Medicare program, it’s a complete rip-off of the American taxpayer with Rooney and Golden Rule! It’s an obscene political payoff. But, of course, I’d never publicly accuse you of that.”
Clinton and Gore felt that the retort had been effective. Gingrich seemed to back off, and the Speaker much later said he wouldn’t insist on the accounts.
Another White House meeting among Clinton, Dole and Gingrich was scheduled for Tuesday, December 19. That morning Reed called Gaylord, Gingrich’s adviser.
“Look,” Reed said, “we’ve got to make sure today is not fucked up.” Dole had been sniping about Gingrich to Reed, accusing Gingrich of recklessly keeping the government closed, believing it would force Clinton to cave in. But Reed said he and Dole were determined to keep the relationship with Gingrich intact. Dole would not split with the Speaker despite Gingrich’s unfavorable rating, which was climbing to nearly 60 percent. Reed said that after the White House meeting, Newt had to keep quiet. “Just stand there and let Dole carry it, and then they both turn around and walk away. Instead of Newt popping off and making the evening news and we’re set back another day. That’s what we need.”
Gaylord said he would try, but Gingrich had just been named Time magazine’s Man of the Year and was riding a little high.
Clinton, Gore, Dole and Gingrich met for two hours, seeming to reach agreement on a short-term reopening of the government with serious follow-up talks about the full budget. Dole and Gingrich left feeling they were making progress. But afterwards Gingrich did not stay quiet, outlining in detail to the media what he thought was the agreement. A White House plan would not be considered because it still used the wrong numbers, he indicated.
Vice President Gore watched Gingrich on television. An obvious distortion, he declared. He immediately marched over to the White House briefing room to explain that the White House plan would be part of the negotiations, despite what Gingrich had said. Gore felt a natural rivalry with Gingrich.
Later Gingrich could not persuade the House Republicans to pass a short-term spending bill to reopen the government. His top leaders voted 12 to 0 against it and him. They wanted to keep the government shut down and use it as leverage to force Clinton to sign a version of their seven-year balanced budget. The moment of truth was coming for Gingrich. He was caught. On one hand, Clinton and Dole were pushing for a deal of some sort and Gingrich, as a full participant in their discussions, had tacitly signed on. On the other hand, Gingrich’s own team of House Republicans was willing to have an Alamo finish.
Dole was very unhappy, but he did not explode. He had decided he would have to keep cool, keep the pressure on both Clinton and Gingrich.
Clinton saw the opportunity. He called Dole to explain that he was going to denounce the House Republicans in public. Dole did not resist.
“My new best friend, Bob Dole,” Clinton declared to his aides afterwards.
Clinton went public. He, Dole and Gingrich were on the side of opening the government. “Today, the most extreme Members of the House of Representatives rejected that agreement,” Clinton said.
Clinton and his advisers believed they were close to breaking the Republicans. Gingrich would either have to put his speakership on the line and force the House to reopen the government or Gingrich would have to break with Dole.
Everyone agreed to a four-day Christmas break in the negotiations.
On Tuesday, December 26, Clinton phoned his new best friend, but Dole was out. Dole called back about 3 P.M.
“What can we do to get the government running again?” Clinton asked.
“I’m not an advocate of shutting down the government,” Dole repeated. “I’m not an advocate of paying people for not working, frankly. That’s a point lost on some House Republicans.”
Clinton agreed with that.
Dole said that Leon Panetta had given him a two-page proposal that might get them out of the impasse.
Clinton went into a long discussion of the technical issues of spending restraints and about whether it would be possible to have more money available in the sixth year and so forth.
“When are we going to finish?” Dole finally asked. He was very anxious and losing his patience. He liked to be straightforward and frank. “I’ve got to get to Iowa. My election is in February, yours is in November.”
“Yeah, I know,” Clinton said, sounding sympathetic.
“If we don’t get this done, New Year’s is coming up next weekend,” Dole complained. “Do you think we can get a framework of an agreement by Saturday night if we work all day Friday and all day Saturday?” Dole wanted something.
“I don’t know,” Clinton said. “I hope so.”
Dole said he needed to go to New Hampshire afterwards.
The president said he wanted to go to South Carolina for the famous Renaissance Weekend gathering of seminars, discussion and networking.
“I’d sneak down to North Carolina,” Dole said, “and spend a day with my 94-year-old mother-in-law.”
Clinton delicately turned to the subject of the other key member of their negotiating triangle. He said he hadn’t spoken with Newt. Some earlier private phone conversations with Gingrich had been rough. Gingrich had accused Clinton of bad faith and complained about the negative television advertising attack on the Republican budget.
“Well, are you going to call Newt?” Dole asked. Clinton and Dole had taken to having private discussions about mood management of the Speaker.
Clinton wasn’t delighted with the prospect.
“I can call Newt, and take his temperature,” Dole said, taking Clinton off the hook.
Clinton said fine, and they ended the call.
Dole learned that Gingrich was taking some time off, and he didn’t call the Speaker.
The next day, Dole picked up a column by Robert Samuelson in The Washington Post called “Budget Charade.”
He read, “On policy matters, congressional Republicans have utterly dominated. They have set the agenda, and President Clinton has been a bit player. By contrast, the president has completely dominated the public relations struggle. He has constantly made the Republicans look mean, petty and silly.” Samuelson argued that Clinton was really responsible for the two government shutdowns. Clinton, Samuelson noted, had generally adopted the Republican policies of budget balancing and tax cutting, and then engaged in a “Houdini-like feat of deception.”
Dole agreed. They were being clobbered on the public relations front as the Democrats poured millions into ads. Where was Haley Barbour, the chairman of the Republican National Committee? Dole felt Barbour was spending too much time with the hard-line House Republicans, siding with them rather than him.
Dole took the Samuelson column and told an aide, “Fax a copy of that over to Haley, and put, ‘Read carefully,’ on it.”
The Republicans had come up with a series of changes in Medicare that would restructure the program, and in Dole’s view that was the only way to save it. If Medicare was allowed to run unchanged on automatic pilot, it would eventually bankrupt the federal government. The policy changes were the important steps, but they seemed technical. Elderly millionaires and those with no income were having the federal government pay the same share of their Medicare health insurance bills. It made no sense to Dole. But most of the debate was about how many billions would be cut, and that had scared people.
Just recently in one of their telephone calls, Clinton had told Dole, “Maybe I talk too much, maybe you should be talking more in these meetings.”
Dole didn’t say anything in response. “What do you say to the President of the United States?” Dole wondered.
“This is between the two of us,” Clinton said, as he always did, “I’m not going to use this in the campaign.”
Dole pushed for some real policy reform on Medicare.
“Oh, I’m willing to talk,” Clinton said, “and I hear you.”
They didn’t talk any more about the campaign. The closest Dole came in his White House contacts was when Gore and he talked about raising campaign money.
“How much have you got in the bank?” Dole asked.
Gore said about $26 million was pledged but it hadn’t all been collected, “I know you got about $24 million,” Gore said.
So they were keeping track, Dole thought.
Indeed they were. By using the Democratic National Committee money for advertising, Clinton’s managers were able to continue to save much of the Clinton-Gore campaign money. And the Morris-Squier advertising blitz was in full force. In the fall, the ads attacking the Republican budget had covered some 30 percent of all media markets in the nation. The December 30-second commercials followed the pattern showing Clinton as champion crime fighter and as the leader seeking tax cuts, welfare reform and a balanced budget that would protect vital health programs, education and the environment.
By Christmas, the pro-Clinton ads had been on the air in an incredible 42 percent of the national media markets. The advertising pattern was designed to project one theme as spot after spot showed Clinton as a figure of national reconciliation, a healer bringing the various sides together, who rounded the sharp edges of the Republicans. Clinton was shown as a man comfortable and above the fray, the president-in-office, not a candidate and certainly not identified as a Democrat.
The Democrats’ meticulous and nuanced polling showed gains, often 10-15 points in favorability for Clinton, in the crucial markets in primary states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, Illinois and Ohio, though not Iowa and New Hampshire, the first primary states, where the Republican candidates were on the air fighting it out among themselves. The Clinton advertising was more potent because there was no candidate on the other side and little or no advertising directed against Clinton. “Unopposed storytelling,” Squier called it.
By the end of the year, $18 million had been spent on this extraordinary media campaign. Morris, Squier and the pollsters attributed a significant portion of Clinton’s rise in the national polls to this effort. Ickes and Stephanopoulos disagreed strongly. Clinton and Gore, however, thought the advertising was a big plus.
The media didn’t catch on immediately. Of course, when the Federal Election Commission report was filed the next year, the large expenditures would be disclosed. But that would likely be a one-day story. It was uncertain if anyone would figure it out. And next year it would be history. People would likely remember Clinton’s stunning rise in the polls, not one of the contributing reasons for it.
Clinton continued to spend time most weeks reviewing the spots, honing down what he wanted said in 30 seconds. The focused advertising spots continued to impose more and more discipline on the president. Ideas, language and attitudes had converged with the protracted budget negotiations. So in the course of his working day as president, he generally stuck to the same lines and themes. The result was more consistency. Instead of projecting his ambivalence as he often had in the past, Clinton was staying on message.
Two days after Christmas, December 27, I flew to Iowa, where Dole was campaigning. As I flew back with him to Washington, we had a two-hour, uninterrupted interview. One of the subjects was the vice-presidency.
We began with 1976, when Dole as a 53-year-old senator had been selected as President Ford’s running mate. Was it a surprise?
“When the phone rang that morning,” Dole recalled, “I was stunned, surprised, shocked, but not completely.”
Why?
Dole acknowledged that he had urged that he be considered for the vice-presidency in a discussion with former Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, a close Ford friend. “I lobbied Mel Laird. I said, ‘Mel, you’re out here advocating, you named all these guys that ought to be vice president. You know you’ve got trouble in the farm belt, you got to mention somebody from the farm belt like Bob Dole.’” Dole recalled that Laird responded favorably, “Okay, I’ll put your name in the slot.”
So if in 1996 Dole became the Republican nominee and learned someone was lobbying to become his running mate, what would be his reaction?
“Well, I guess it depends on how they do it,” Dole responded, citing a bunch of people who also had lobbied for him.
But you were lobbying for yourself?
“Only to the extent that I remember being there,” he said, providing a classic Dole non-answer and dodging the question.
When you look back on 1976, were you ready to run for vice president?
“Probably not quite,” he said.
Did you realize that at the time?
“I don’t think so,” Dole said. “I feel differently about it now.” He probably should have had more experience and he could have handled running better. “On a scale of 1 to 10, I wasn’t a 10.”
What were you?
“I don’t know, maybe a 7. But I was important from the standpoint of agriculture and veterans.”
Ford wanted you to be the attack dog on Jimmy Carter?
Dole quoted Ford as telling him, “I’ll stay in the Rose Garden and you go out in the briar patch.”
Would you pick a vice president to be the attack dog?
“I think it would depend,” Dole replied, saying that the polls and the various weaknesses of people he might select would play a part. Another factor, he said, would be “whether your running mate had credibility” to criticize the opposition. For example, he said, “I’ve never talked about Clinton and Vietnam.” He added that he had never used Whitewater to attack the president personally.
What would be your criteria for picking a vice president?
“I’d want somebody I know pretty well,” Dole said. “I wouldn’t want to pick, you know, go back to the Nixon days and pick somebody that you didn’t really know. Agnew,” he said, referring to Spiro Agnew, who had been the Maryland governor when he was picked by Nixon in 1968. “Turned out to be a winning combination,” Dole added, noting that Nixon-Agnew had won the election. He didn’t mention that both later resigned. “But I want somebody I can work with. Somebody I can totally trust, and they trust me, and they know me, and there are a lot of people I think fit that description. We’ve got a crop of great governors out there.”
Would you want somebody who’s more than a 7 on a scale of 10?
“Sure,” Dole said. “I’d want a 10.” He volunteered that in 1988, George Bush probably didn’t want a 10 because he picked Dan Quayle. “I might have been a 10 in 1988,” Dole said, recalling that Bush did not pick him as his running mate though Dole probably by then had the experience. “But I think you always shoot for a 10,” Dole added. With the exception of Nixon’s selection of Agnew, Dole said, he admired Nixon because “he wasn’t afraid of somebody smarter than him, and it doesn’t bother me any.”
What would be the process of selecting a vice president and who would work on this decision?
“Mostly me,” he said. “I think I’ll have some people around to check things out, but it seems to me that it’s got to be the nominee’s decision and not some board of directors out there sitting down [considering] geographically and electorally and da-da da-da da-da. There may be something to that but it’s got to be—a partnership.”
He added, “Very frankly, I think Vice President Gore was pretty well picked. In fact, I’m surprised at how the vice president interrupts, takes over, even in the budget discussions…which I think wouldn’t bother me. I’m used to staff people interrupting me.”
What did he think of Powell’s decision not to run?
“I felt like here is a guy who really believes in his family,” Dole answered, “really consulted his family. Who had a lot going for him. Wouldn’t have been easy. He might even have not been the nominee, but he would certainly have been a challenger. And who knows where he’d be today? He might be out of it. He might be on top of the heap.”
What about Powell’s explanation that he didn’t have the fire in the belly?
“Well, I thought that was probably legit,” Dole said. “I mean, you’re up there, you’re on stage all day long. You’re not supposed to make a mistake.”
Though Powell said he wasn’t going to seek the vice-presidency, Dole didn’t think that Powell was ruling that out totally. “Sounds like he’s not rejecting it out of hand,” Dole had said to Sheila Burke, his Senate chief of staff, as he watched Powell on television announcing he wouldn’t run.
“I don’t think he’d be anybody’s vice president,” Dole said of Powell. But in the right situation, with the right nominee, Dole believed that a strong case could be made to Powell. Vice presidents were more active in recent years and could take a big load off the president. Dole didn’t know if he would even try or be able to persuade Powell to take the vice-presidency. But the proper Republican nominee would have a pretty powerful argument to make to Powell, Dole said, adding, “Wouldn’t be a bad Secretary of State either.”
Over the years, Dole said he had watched Powell operate. Powell had been able to get along with nearly everyone in the Republican Party, from Senator Jesse Helms to Senator Bill Cohen.
Dole would love to see a black like Powell on the Republican ticket, have a “big tent” as they called it, the party open to minorities and everyone.
Neither Nixon, nor Ford, nor Bush had gone for the 10s in picking their running mates. Having witnessed all that history, Dole said he was set on picking a 10 if he became the nominee. No Agnew, no Quayle, not even a 1976 Dole.