Suddenly two firsts in the Dakotas and a second looked a lot better for Bob Dole. “Boy, got a new life,” he said to himself. It was the third time he’d come back from the brink of a third-place finish—New Hampshire, Delaware and now Arizona.
Later that day, Reed and Sipple had positive ads on the air in nine states. They were playing beat-the-clock to get to the South Carolina primary in three days. No one was running negative ads against Dole there, and Dole had not spent much time there so he was not overexposed. That meant little time for voters to develop doubts. But South Carolina was the first southern primary state, and Buchanan’s message of social conservatism, pro-worker populism and isolationism might just register.
Thursday night, February 29, Reed watched the evening news. Most times Dole was shown out on the campaign trail with boom microphones in his face and all around him, stopping to make a few comments as he moved in and out of the van or a car. He looked like he was being mugged. He did not look like a president. Dole was too anxious to service the press. “They’re fucking us,” Reed shouted at the TV. Earlier, Reed had been banged hard in the cheek by a TV cameraman when he had been engulfed in the swarm. It was very dangerous.
“We’ve got to tighten this thing up a little more,” Reed recommended to Dole later. “Wave, look like a president, get in the car and go. Get what we want out of that camera and move on.”
The morning of Friday, March 1, the day before the South Carolina primary, Reed reviewed the polling showing Dole in the high 40s, even into the 50s. Dole had never had anything like that. Could it be true? Dole’s favorable rating was in the 70 percent range. Maybe with their positive ad they could get a large portion of that 70 percent to the polls to actually vote. With so many disappointments, however, Reed held his breath. He lowballed the tracking poll numbers to Dole, saying they were ahead with only 38 or 39 percent.
Money was low, with only about $5 million left. Reed was tightening up on expenses. He was literally going around the office unplugging fax machines that didn’t seem necessary.
Senator Bennett joined Dole that Friday for a New England swing. Junior Tuesday was coming up in four days: the five remaining New England states and Georgia, Colorado and Maryland. In Connecticut, Bennett frantically took notes as Dole spoke to a large crowd in a packed state office building. It was almost perfect. Dole stuck to his eight points. He was forceful, pounding the lectern occasionally, not reading. Bennett wondered what in the world he was doing on this trip.
“Great job,” Bennett told Dole afterwards.
They flew on to Rhode Island and Dole’s performance was a notch lower, but Bennett didn’t say anything. Then next in Massachusetts, Dole went down a notch more. On Saturday, in Maine, Dole started to come apart. He hit the same points but started adding stuff about Senate procedure, wandering off. In Vermont, he unwound some more. Bennett could see that Dole was clearly bored. He could not deal with performing like a plug-in cassette tape. Bennett decided he had to say something.
About 3 P.M., they got on the plane to go to New York.
“Any exit poll numbers?” Dole asked about the South Carolina voting, which was still in progress.
Dole 42, Buchanan 29.
“Okay,” Dole said, trying to be calm, cool. The numbers were higher than Reed had reported in the tracking poll. “Well, that’s good,” Dole said. “That’s good.” But the early exit polls had been high before. Dole said no more. It was a more conservative state where Buchanan might have hit pay dirt, or where Alexander might have caught fire. But in his innermost he thought he was going to win now.
Bennett decided not to give a fully candid performance review, but since Dole seemed to be feeling good, he decided to offer some fragments.
“By the way,” Bennett said, “when you tell the story about growing up in Russell, Kansas, that is the emotional high point of what you do. And when you do that, don’t add any more after that. It detracts.” His advice was simple. “No matter what happens, when you tell that story, you’re through.”
In New York, Dole did his eight points and told the story about growing up in Russell. The crowd was cheering, going crazy. He finished the story. He paused. “God bless America,” he said, and he turned and sat down.
Less was more, Dole saw yet again. Something he had known for a long time, his entire life really. Hadn’t he? Wasn’t that the essence of his war wound? He had made more out of less.
Warfield watched Bennett’s interaction with Dole. It was nice to have another body for Dole to talk to without Warfield having to absorb every single question. Bennett had explained to Warfield that he was aboard because there was no one around who would plainly tell Dole yes or no. Guess what? Warfield thought to himself. There was still no one who plainly could tell Dole yes or no.
Warfield received word that one of the networks had called South Carolina for Dole, and then all but NBC called it for him.
“Senator,” Warfield said to Dole, “I think we might get a nice response from the cameramen back there.” They were Dole’s friends. “They’ll cheer if I announce the race has been called.”
“Yeah, sure, go ahead.”
Warfield went up, took the intercom, and said, “I’m pleased to announce that according to the Associated Press, ABC, CBS and CNN, Bob Dole’s the winner in South Carolina.”
The cameramen, the crews, the staff went wild; an uproarious clatter erupted from the back of the plane.
“AAArrrggghhh,” Dole said, throwing his thumb in the air.
The victory was sweet. Dole ended up with 45 percent, Buchanan with 29—a 16 percent edge. Forbes, with 13 percent, and Alexander, with 10, were in the dust.
“Now you’ve won,” Bennett said, “you’ve won big and the bounce out will hit New England. You’re going to carry all the places we’ve been in New England, and New York will fall into place.”
“Yeah,” Dole said.
Elizabeth gave him a big kiss.
“I’m so proud of you,” she said. “Isn’t it great?”
But Elizabeth felt they needed to focus on what was next—the eight states of Junior Tuesday in three days, then New York two days later, and then five days later Super Tuesday with the big southern states, Florida and Texas. There was very little time to sit back and relish the victory. Okay now, she said to herself, tomorrow we’ve got to do such-and-such. Where was that schedule?
“Why don’t you sleep?” Bennett asked Dole.
“No,” Dole said, “I’ll sleep coming back.” But he didn’t.
From the stops in all those states and the response of the crowds, Bennett concluded that ordinary Republicans were still not in love with Dole. But the Republican officeholders who had come out in droves to support Dole had decided that any other candidate at the top of the ticket would jeopardize their own reelection and the party’s stature. They effectively had said, “Holy cow, if I share the ticket with Steve Forbes, or particularly Pat Buchanan, it could be over. But Dole is respectable, not going to drag me down.”
Reed thought that South Carolina was the shot that would be heard around the world. Finally, they had won big. But he told himself again, “You can’t get emotional about this stuff. Emotion doesn’t work in this business.”
“I’ve got to say to you, Mr. Clinton,” Dole said at a rally that night in South Carolina, “we are going to veto you in 1996.”
When Dole received applause for a line, he tended to use it again, and he did so over the next several days. The talking points helped him sound more concise, and he was able essentially to hop from one applause line to another. He was animated and more direct. Many reporters noticed it and mentioned it in their stories. David Broder wrote, “Dole has appeared increasingly confident on the stump.”
Over the weekend before Junior Tuesday, when eight states would hold their primaries, Reed spoke with Gaylord, Gingrich’s top adviser.
“You got to say something good about Dole,” Reed said. Time to deliver. “Is your guy going to vote?” Gingrich could vote in the Georgia primary, one of the eight Junior Tuesday states, on March 5.
“He’s going to vote absentee Monday,” Gaylord replied.
“Why don’t you get him to say he’s voted for Dole?” Reed pressed.
“Fine, that’s easy.”
In his Monday morning phone call with Dole, Reed reported, “By the way, Gingrich is going to vote for you today and say to reporters that he voted for you.”
“Oh, great,” Dole said. Big endorsement in the Speaker’s home state.
About 15 minutes later, Gaylord called Reed.
“Here’s the Speaker,” Gaylord said, “let him tell you what he did.”
“Hey, congratulations,” Gingrich said to the Dole campaign manager. “You guys are going to win. Marianne and I talked and we decided, you know, I ought to keep my vote to myself.”
Oh, great, Reed thought.
Gingrich said he was doing everything possible to help Dole. He had led the public charge urging Lamar Alexander, whose best finishes had been thirds in Iowa and New Hampshire, to drop out of the race. But Gingrich said his own vote would remain secret, and he had already told reporters he was not going to reveal his choice.
After the call, Nelson Warfield called Reed from Atlanta to report that Dole, speaking from the platform, had just thanked Gingrich for voting for him.
“Aw, shit,” Reed exclaimed, as his assistant burst into the room to say reporters were calling.
“I need you to help us on this,” Reed said in an immediate call to Gaylord, who was on a plane with Gingrich, flying to New York.
Gaylord laughed and handed the phone to Gingrich.
Reed told the Speaker his problem. Dole always blurted out the news before it happened.
Gingrich burst into loud laughter. “I’ll bail you out, fine. Let me just call Marianne and then we’ll put out a statement.” His office later faxed a statement saying Gingrich had voted for Dole.
The next day, Tuesday, March 5, the earliest exit polls showed that Dole might win all eight states. Reed called Bay Buchanan, Pat Buchanan’s sister and his campaign chair. Reed and Bay had a good relationship going back several years.
“Let’s get together,” Reed said.
She went nuts and yelled, “We’re going third party. Pat’s not there, but I am. What you’ve done is outrageous.” The personal assault on Pat in the negative Dole ads had been out of bounds, she said, the worst thing in American politics in 25 years.
“What’s done is done,” Reed replied.
What’s done was unacceptable, she said, refusing to meet.
Reed felt she was a psycho, and he concluded that Buchanan himself was on a jihad and impossible to deal with.
Reed and Dole discussed the Buchanan factor. Dole still considered Buchanan a friend.
“We’ve got to ignore the guy,” Reed said
They would get Buchanan the next Tuesday if they won those primaries, Dole thought. He had known Buchanan for decades, and he appreciated Buchanan’s humor, loved watching him on CNN’s Crossfire show. “I like his wit, and I like that smile he has,” Dole said, “and he kind of laughs at himself, you know, that little laugh.” Dole didn’t personally like some of the things Buchanan said about him, but he sure appreciated the performance.
“Beltway Bob!” Dole said, repeating one of Buchanan’s favorite names for Dole, “that’s clever stuff. Busboy for corporate America! You’ve got to admire a guy like that. I mean, it doesn’t irritate me. If somebody else would say that, I’d be all upset, but when Pat does it, I think, boy, that guy’s smart.”
If Buchanan were to run as a third-party candidate, Dole realized, that would hurt him. But he thought Buchanan was both smart enough and enough of a party man not to break with the Republicans. “Hopefully,” Dole said, “he’ll call some day and say, ‘I’m ready to suit up.’”
Later in the day, Dole returned to the Majority Leader’s Office in Washington. The exit polls now showed he was going to win all the primaries, 8 to 0, the five New England states, Georgia, Maryland and Colorado. In some cases, it was by more than a 2-to-1 margin. Though Buchanan had the most second-place finishes, Forbes was second in Connecticut, and Alexander was second in Rhode Island. The opposition was splitting the vote, and Dole was winning in all regions of the country.
Clinton had called and, about 3 P.M., Dole returned his call.
Clinton said that in the wake of a suicide bomb attack in Israel that had killed 14 people, he was immediately going to transfer sophisticated equipment to Israel for detecting explosives.
Dole said he agreed with the decision, and he apologized for the delay in getting back. “I’ve been running around trying to find out what’s happening in all the primaries,” he said.
Clinton said that Dole ought to win because he was the only one in the field who understood how it all worked down at the White House.
About 6 P.M., Dole, Gingrich, Reed, Sheila Burke and Joe Gaylord gathered in Dole’s office. The Speaker had been pressing much of the day for such a get-together.
Gingrich said he wanted to help pull the party together—the Republican National Committee, the House majority, the Senate majority, the Republican governors. He wanted to head up a task force, a strong policy group to lay out themes and issues, and to get personally engaged in the race.
Dole wasn’t paying much attention, walking in and out. “Anything going on?” he asked several times. New exit polls? What was on television? He had to have some makeup for an upcoming television appearance.
Gingrich was focused. He said he wanted to come up with what the presidential campaign was going to be about, what Dole was going to run on. “We need to have a team effort,” Gingrich said.
Dole wandered in. “Well, we haven’t won the nomination yet, you know, don’t take anything for granted.”
Gingrich said he wanted to start working on the agenda.
“I appreciate that very much,” Dole said, “the thing’s not over yet, it’s just beginning.”
“Great,” Reed said. “We’ve got a team effort. We’ve got all the governors, we’ve got all the senators. You will be a huge asset to control the 236 guys,” a reference to the House Republicans. “The first thing we need to do is agree that there’s going to be a presidential Dole message of this campaign for the party.” The message could not be driven by the day-today activities in Congress, Reed said.
Gingrich said he agreed. He proposed a big meeting, strategic planning.
“Great,” Reed said, “we’ll talk about it later.”
Dole didn’t talk about it with Gingrich. He made it clear to Reed what he wanted. “There’s not going to be any Contract with anybody,” Dole said. “It’s going to be what Bob Dole outlines for the campaign and for America.” Dole realized Clinton wanted to tie him to Gingrich—“Have Newt and Bob in every picture.” No more.
Later that evening, Dole went to the Holiday Inn near Capitol Hill. Up in his suite, the final results came in at about 9 P.M. It was indeed 8 to 0. Reed came to the suite to bring Dole to the victory rally downstairs.
Dole walked over to greet Reed.
“Congratulations,” Dole said, and shook Reed’s hand. Some of Dole’s Senate colleagues had expressed private doubts about Reed early on, but there was nothing like victory to erase doubt. It was the most emotional Reed had ever seen Dole, except when he was talking about his war wound. He was obviously reaching out.
“Congratulations to you,” Reed responded. “We’re going to make it.”
Elizabeth was smiling.
“We’re going to make it now,” Reed said confidently to her. They were heading over the top.
Elizabeth gave Reed a kiss.
At the victory celebration downstairs, Dole called Reed and some of the other senior campaign staff up on stage.
President Clinton spoke at a memorial service for the bombing victims at the Embassy of Israel that evening, and came back to the White House to learn that Dole was winning 8 to 0 and on the verge of being anointed.
“We’re not ready for that,” Clinton said, surprised and troubled. Two weeks ago, he noted, the conventional wisdom seemed to be that this race was going all the way through to California in three weeks, with bitter fighting and the Republicans torn asunder. If Dole was a lock, that would force a general election dynamic he didn’t yet want. Clinton said he believed Gingrich wanted to have some achievements to put on the scoreboard before his House majority went running for reelection in the fall. Perhaps some welfare reform bill, a limited health care bill.
The next morning Clinton went over the prospects with Panetta.
“Did Dole have this locked up?” Clinton asked. What did it mean? He conveyed a lot of anxiety. Who knows? they finally agreed. How could they understand the Republicans? Republicans themselves didn’t understand Republicans. Clinton pressed. What does this mean? How are we going to deal with this environment? What will the equation be? Clinton had thought that the next four to six weeks would be the optimum moment in 1996 to get some things done that he could point to in November. He hoped that the House Republicans would say, Screw the presidential campaign, we’ve got to save our own skins first, we need something we can take to the people. “We’ve got to think through how we handle all the issues,” the president said.
Clinton had so many questions that Panetta was late to his own senior staff meeting.
The next day, Wednesday, March 6, Lamar Alexander, biting his lip, dropped out of the race. In a gracious exit, the 55-year-old former governor said he was endorsing Dole. “What the people in the Republican primaries have said is that they look to his experience not as a liability, but as an asset. They look at his maturity not as a liability, but as an asset.” He ruled out the vice-presidency, adding, “I’m ready to take a nap rather than think about our future.”
Senator Richard G. Lugar, the high-road candidate, also dropped out, praising and endorsing Dole. “I look forward to his presidency,” Lugar said.
Following Gingrich’s half-meeting with Dole the day before, Scott Reed knew some things needed to be clarified with the Speaker.
Reed first went back to Gaylord. Dole appreciated that Gingrich was willing to roll up his sleeves to help, Reed said. “This is great. We’re not a bunch of insecure people. We’re going to take advantage if the Speaker wants to.” Gingrich’s input would be invaluable, Reed added. “The first secret is, you don’t get in front of Dole. If there’s a perception created that Gingrich is running Dole’s life, it won’t work.” The psychology was pretty simple, given Dole’s experience over the last months, having to stand at Gingrich’s side in all the budget machinations. They could not, and would not, name Gingrich to be chairman of anything or give him any title. Just in case Gaylord did not fully understand, Reed added, “He’s not running the campaign, and he’s not going to run the campaign, and the minute it looks like he is running the campaign, it’s going to end.”
Gaylord agreed. He later reported that Gingrich had received the message. Gingrich said to Reed, “Let’s go to work. I’ll act as your super-consultant.”
George W. Bush, the Texas governor and son of former President Bush, planned to endorse Dole. But first he wanted Dole’s assurance that Texas would get some help on Medicaid, the expensive federal-state health program for the poor. California and New York had been allowed to fund the program at lower levels, but in an earlier legislative move apparently aimed at Texas Senator Phil Gramm, Texas had not been allowed to do the same. That had cost the state about $1 billion. Bush finally made his pitch for the savings directly to Dole.
Dole said that the other Texas senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison, was on top of the situation, and Bush should talk to her. It was a “write-your-congressman” response that made Bush furious.
The story of Bush’s intention to endorse Dole had leaked to the media, so Bush now had maximum leverage. If he were to pull back it would generate a big story, especially given the longtime rivalry between his father and Dole. The governor let it be known that he was reconsidering his support.
On March 5, Dole faxed a “Dear George” letter to the governor’s office. Dole said that Sheila Burke, his chief of staff, had just “brought me up to speed on your request regarding Medicaid. Be assured, I am committed to working with you…. You can be certain of my support during any consideration on the Senate floor.” It was an unusual assurance, it was almost a quid pro quo. The next day, March 6, Bush endorsed Dole in a large public ceremony at the governor’s mansion in Austin, Texas, six days before the state’s primary.
That same day just before the New York primary, Jack Kemp finally made his endorsement decision. He came out for Forbes, not Dole. Forbes declared that Kemp would be his “guru-in-chief.” Scott Reed was furious. Dole joked about the fuel they had wasted keeping planes on the runway to bring Kemp for an endorsement that had never come. Yet he felt sorry for his campaign manager after so much wasted effort. The next day, Reed wrote a public letter to Kemp urging him to use his powerful influence as the new Forbes “guru-in-chief” to stop the negative television advertising against Dole.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me,” Kemp said in a phone call to Reed in the afternoon. He could not stand by and let Dole supporters attack the flat tax.
“Now that you’re the guru-in-chief,” Reed said to his former boss.
“Fuck you,” Kemp replied, “don’t call me the guru-in-chief.”
“Jack, you’ve blown this,” Reed said, adding that the early exit polls were coming in showing Dole way ahead.
“I’m not in this for politics,” Kemp replied. “I’m in this for policy.”
“Your guy’s ruining the flat tax. He’s an absolute wrong messenger. Jack, everybody’s shaking their head at you. Why did you do this?”
“This was the most difficult decision I made,” Kemp insisted. “Newt Gingrich told me I was done with the party. I’m done.”
Dole won the New York primary, taking all 93 delegates, in spite of Forbes’s massive advertising.
A reporter asked Dole if he was ready to smile now.
“I smile,” Dole replied, “but I’m not ready to declare anything.” He didn’t want to look like he was overconfident. He was thinking, “Now don’t get out there too far and look like you’re arrogant or something.”
On March 12, Dole won all seven Super Tuesday states, putting him within striking distance of a lock on the nomination. Still Dole wasn’t publicly claiming the nomination.
The next day, Mari Will went to see Dole. She said she wanted to make sure he was nominated, but she had decided at age 42 to devote most of her time to being a wife and mother.
Dole apologized to her for being so rough on the speech she had drafted for the New Hampshire legislature. “I didn’t mean that,” he said.
She accepted the apology.
“We’re not through the woods yet,” Dole said. He asked her to stay on as a senior consultant, and she agreed.
Will had some ideas on the vice-presidency. Dole needed to choose a running mate who would help him the most to become president, she said, but that calculation had to be made much later down the road. He should wait as long as possible.
Dole said he was insulted by the suggestion circulating that he was such a weak candidate that he had to pick a vice president right now.
Yes, Will agreed. It was pack journalism—the same flowering of thought that had held it was going to be such a hard nomination fight. Well, he was sweeping the field faster than Bush had in 1988. Go back to the Senate, confront Clinton there, be on your home turf, she advised. Then in the summer, when everything settles down, pick your running mate.
They discussed Colin Powell. Dole said he would love to have Powell on the ticket.
“If that’s what it takes to win, then that’s what you need to do,” Will said. But a Powell selection would risk something with the party, particularly to talk about it right now with Buchanan still out there. He shouldn’t do that now, she said. “Be very cold-eyed about the whole thing,” she recommended, “and just hold off. Don’t spend the nickel now. Spend it when it’s time. Get the bounce when you need the bounce, and make sure you have exactly what it takes to win.”
Steve Forbes told his campaign manager, Bill Dal Col, “Put together a scenario, don’t worry about money, how do we win something?” Four big primaries were coming up in the Midwest. “Finishing second ain’t going to cut it. Is there any realistic way in the remaining short period of time to open it up?”
The answer was no. Forbes could spend millions advertising in one of the states such as Michigan. He would have to be very negative. Dole would respond, and the media would portray it as a last desperate act for Forbes.
Forbes prided himself as a realistic businessman, and he saw now that he had a product, himself, that would not sell. His feelings were a combination of sadness and disappointment. “I genuinely thought I was going to do it,” he said. But he had to focus on the logistics of dropping out. He planned to announce his withdrawal Thursday, March 14, in Washington. He made the calls, and gathered his family and key supporters in a Washington hotel. Kemp joined Forbes for the announcement. Forbes’s daughters were in tears, and Kemp gathered the family together for a prayer. Good God, Forbes thought, everyone was going to break up before they got to the podium.
In his announcement, Forbes said, “We made our best effort, and it didn’t work.” He said he was “wholeheartedly” endorsing Dole, but defended his criticism of Dole during the primaries.
Later, he was asked on television about what was widely seen as a tepid endorsement. Forbes was shocked. He felt as if he were at his own funeral, and he just had “wholeheartedly” endorsed the guy who had turned him into a corpse, and they called that “tepid”?
Dole called Forbes later in the afternoon. Forbes was the one who had really gotten under his skin. Dole joked to himself that Forbes could have bought his skin for the $35 million. It would have been enough for a skin transplant.
“Congratulations, Senator,” Forbes said in the phone call.
Dole thanked him for the endorsement, and asked for his help.
“If you feel that my campaigning for you would help, I’d be willing to do it,” Forbes said. “If you feel that my not doing anything for you would help you, I’ll do nothing.”
Dole chuckled. He said that he didn’t agree with Forbes on all the details about the flat tax, but some genuine tax reform was needed. He also added that he knew what it was like on Forbes’s end, recalling 1988 when he lost to Bush.
Several days later, I spoke with Forbes at length. He said the presidential race had lifted the scales from his eyes about the Washington journalistic and political reporting community. It was a closed system, he said, that looked at itself as the personnel department—a screening and interviewing and background-checking operation for the presidency. If the chief political reporters didn’t know a candidate, they were aghast at the candidate, not at themselves. When he had come within striking distance and had won some primaries in Delaware and Arizona, Forbes said, “I think they were genuinely, every cell in their body was outraged that this could be happening. And it wasn’t put on. It came from the soul.”
On March 19, Dole won the four midwestern primaries. By most counts made by the newspapers and networks, that gave him more than the required 996 delegates to ensure the nomination—over half the total of 1,990 delegates who would be going to the Republican Convention. Dole still made no declarations, saying it was on to California for the last key primary in a week. He brought along Dennis Shea, a policy expert from his Senate staff.
At one speech in California, Dole had to hold a microphone in his good left hand. The podium was slanted so his other atrophied hand could not keep the paper with his notes in place. So the notes were no use, and he had to ad-lib. Afterwards he didn’t feel he had done very well. On the plane, he was testy and he went to Shea and said, “I don’t like the way the podium was. You get ahold of Scott Reed and tell him I want the podium right!”
Jim Hooley, the chief of advance, who was in charge of making sure the podium was correct, said it was his fault. “I’ll fix that, Senator.”
“You told me you’d fix it last time!” Dole said. It was both an unprecedented outburst and as direct as he ever got.
On March 21, 1996, when Jean Houston visited the White House, she thought that Hillary seemed a little down. In her role as spirit lifter, Houston told some jokes and stories.
Maggie Williams, chief of staff to the First Lady, said later, “Oh, Hillary’s ticking. She’s had her ‘Jean fix.’”
As Williams saw it, Hillary found Houston very smart and colorful, a vivid personality with a great gift for language. In these toughest of times, Hillary had 10 to 11 confidants, including Houston and Hillary’s own mother. But Houston was the most dramatic.
That night the president and Hillary attended the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, where the crude radio personality Don Imus made jokes about Clinton’s infidelity and Whitewater while the First Couple sat on the stage only a few feet away. It was a tasteless performance.
When the president and Hillary returned to the White House they went up to the solarium, where Houston was waiting. Clinton voiced disgust that things had gotten so out of hand, that Imus would feel free to make such jokes in front of them. He asked Houston if she wanted to see a replay of the Imus performance that was going to run on television.
“Nope,” Houston said, “nor do you.”
She and Hillary sat with Clinton while he watched his beloved University of Arkansas Razorbacks basketball team lose to the University of Massachusetts 79 to 63 in the NCAA Tournament. Clinton was not happy at the loss.
Houston was amazed at the change in the president over the 16 months she had known him. In their first meeting in December 1994, he was wounded and almost lost. But he was one of the fastest and deepest learners that she had ever encountered. He had been retrained by circumstance. He was no longer the Dauphin. “This is the king,” Houston said. He had gone from bitterness to accommodation, and he was getting close to transcendence. He had fully become the president, she believed.
Houston thought she had partially helped Clinton undertake perhaps the most difficult task of his presidency. That was to put himself, his critics and his opponents in historical context—to see the woundings, the road of trials and his adversaries clearly. He had to absorb all of this to move to the next stage. When he understood the context, she found Clinton deepened and fortified. He was fast becoming wise. “He is the elder in the younger,” she said.
Houston and Bateson asked to hold deeper reflective sessions with the president, but he never responded. Houston sensed his nervousness around her, and she was not sure the president liked her. So she asked Hillary whether he did.
“Oh, yes, yeah,” Hillary replied.
“Sometimes he’s uneasy,” Houston said.
“Well, he’s basically a very conservative man,” Hillary said.
Houston wondered what might happen if her role as adviser arid friend to the first couple became public.
“If I ever get caught,” Houston asked Hillary, “what should I say?”
“Just tell the truth,” Hillary replied, “just tell them you’re my friend.”
Elizabeth didn’t think her husband was selling himself enough. She was out there selling the heck out of him, pulling out all the stops. He was too modest, she felt.
“Don’t say we,” she said, “say I, you know, about what you’ve done.” She had been on him about this for years. His modesty was getting in the way of the necessary sale. He would acknowledge his habit, but then lapse into “we,” or refer to himself in the now-famous third person, “Bob Dole.” Elizabeth kept after him. He didn’t change.
Dole later told me why he used “Bob Dole” instead of “I” or “me.” “We were taught in our little family you don’t go around saying, ‘I did this.’ And my mother felt very strongly about that, you don’t run around bragging about yourself. People don’t like it. And that’s where you”—he said, not using “I”—“get into this third person all the time.”
Elizabeth asked him about a scheduled stop in Russell, Kansas, the day before the California primary that was expected to give him way more than enough delegates by any count.
“You’re going to Russell just before you go over the top,” she said. The plan was for a big hometown celebration. “That’s going to be interesting. Have you won or haven’t you?”
“Everybody else says we’ve won, and I think we have won, but you know we are trying to have a little suspense for California,” he said. He was still keeping his counsel.
Why not wait until after California to visit Russell for the celebration because then it would be certain?
“We’ve got to be practical,” Dole told her, then provided an unusual list: “(a) We’re on our way home from California and it makes a lot of sense to stop there now than have to go all the way back; (b) we’re going to win California; and (c) everybody, except Bob Dole, says he’s the nominee anyway.” He thought it was pretty safe. “There’s so much going on in the Senate I need to be back in the Senate.”
On the plane heading into Russell, population 4,800, on March 25, someone on the staff asked Elizabeth if she would introduce the man who was to offer a special surprise for Bob. After Dole spoke, a baritone was going to sing her husband’s favorite song, “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” at the end of the program.
“No,” Elizabeth said. “If you have him stand there the whole time the man’s singing that song, he is going to cry. It’s going to bring the emotion. And that’s not the way to end the program, to have three or four minutes of standing there listening to that song.” And her husband would be stuck there, crying for all that time. “Look, don’t do it that way.” She arranged for the two of them to go out and greet people in the crowd as the song was being sung at the end.
Dole appeared before a crowd of about 3,000 in the Russell High School gym. A 20-minute speech had been prepared and the text handed out to reporters.
“At this moment,” Dole said, “I wanted to be home, to come to this place.” His voice broke, tears came to his eyes, and he put his hand to his mouth. After a few seconds he recovered, gave a thumb-up. “And see all my friends.” The crowd broke into applause. “Some debts can never be repaid, but I have come to Russell to acknowledge mine.” He spoke of war, crisis, deceased friends, teachers, memories and voices from the past.
Elizabeth liked it. The emotion showed that he was human, that he felt his past, that he was genuine, and it revealed the man’s heart. She felt a great deal of warmth and love for him, just hoping that he would be able to go on. He made it through, and together they plunged into the crowd.
The baritone sang: “When you walk through a storm, Hold your head up high, And don’t be afraid of the dark.”
That evening before they left for Washington, Dole visited the graves of his parents.
The next day, March 26, he won California 66 percent to Buchanan’s 19 percent. In the winner-take-all primary, Dole received all 165 delegates. Dole declared himself the Republican nominee.
That week, Colin Powell had spoken to the International Republican Institute in Washington, D.C. He hadn’t mentioned Dole’s name once, the nominee of Powell’s new party. The next morning Reed had been flooded with calls from a number of Republicans wondering what was going on. Reed called Ken Duberstein, who said it was an oversight. Then several days later Duberstein called Reed back to say that Powell wanted to call Dole.
“What’s the topic?” Reed asked.
“He’s going to congratulate him for winning the nomination,” Duberstein said.
Reed wondered if that might be the spark. He had talked with Dole several times about Powell as a potential running mate. Dole was obviously enchanted with the possibility.
“If this is something you want to do,” Reed advised Dole, “it’s going to be done by you. It’s not going to be done by me to Duberstein or somebody to Armitage or these other guys. I mean, it’s you to him. You’ve got to be thinking about developing a relationship.” Reed knew that Powell had built his entire life and career on personal relationships—him to the boss, or him to his subordinates, or him to special journalist friends —no intermediaries or press officers. Powell handled the important business in his life himself. Dole needed to do the same.
After several days, Powell finally reached Dole.
“I want to congratulate you,” Powell said. “I knew the Bob Dole I know would pull through.”
“I really appreciate it,” Dole said. “I’m proud that you’re a Republican, and I’d like to sit down and talk to you about maybe what you could do to help the effort. And also on defense and foreign policy matters.”
Any time, Powell said.
Dole felt that Powell didn’t want to be asked anything more. Not that Powell said he had to go, but it was something Dole could sense on the phone with people sometimes.
Clinton’s weekly campaign meetings in the residence continued to focus on the advertising, which was still going unanswered since neither Dole nor the Republican National Committee were on the air in any significant way. Mark Penn, the pollster, had a sophisticated computer program that helped them make the decisions about which media markets to target. Some seven variables were included in the program: previous voting history in the market, cost of the advertising time, the estimated number of undecided or persuadable voters, the cumulative previous pro-Clinton advertising that had run over a given time period, the likely impact on congressional races, Senate races and the presidential electoral college. For instance, the program could calculate the most efficient way to use an additional $500,000 in their advertising budget, determining the “cost per persuadable voter” in each market.
In early March, the Clinton-Gore committee had advertised heavily in the most populous regions of Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan (excluding Detroit), much of Ohio, northern Florida, Oregon and the non-coastal areas of California.
Morris talked of getting Clinton’s support up so high in key states that they would have what he called a “condominium,” or ruled territory, in those states. He believed that if they could use advertising to drive Clinton’s approval rating high enough, Clinton couldn’t lose it later. As Morris saw it, they would need 61 percent approval nationally in 1996 for a “condominium.” Then the president would essentially own the election.
Clinton and most of the others disagreed, arguing that it was a nice goal, but presidential elections were incredibly volatile, and they often turned around suddenly. But in the spring confidence built as Clinton maintained a double-digit lead in the polls. Morris was almost obsessed with putting it away early. The others reminded him that there was only one day they had to win: November 5, 1996. There was a real danger in trying to win the election early.
Leon Panetta spent most days that spring in a series of meetings, whether around the conference table in his large West Wing office, in the Roosevelt Room down the hall or in the Oval Office. His team was quick in responding to the daily tactical skirmishes with Dole. Clinton and the White House seemed to be winning the war for the best daily sound bite.
Panetta had reached an uneasy equilibrium with Dick Morris. Morris’s ability to undermine the chief of staff’s chain of command—Panetta called it “free floating” or “backdooring”—had been minimized, and Morris seemed to have acquiesced, aware that the White House was now working to Clinton’s benefit. Nonetheless Panetta thought too much attention was being paid to campaign polling, and he was baffled by the talk of “cost per persuadable voter” and a “condominium” to win the election early. It was very different from the world of politics he had known as a California congressman. Often in meetings he found himself wincing and at times wondering how previous presidents had been able to survive without the modern campaign consulting machinery. “My God,” he thought once, “how did Abraham Lincoln possibly govern?”
The good news was that Clinton was less volatile and tended to explode less. The president more often rolled with screwups or criticism that would have set off a temper tantrum in the first two years of his presidency. Panetta found Clinton more comfortable with himself and his job. And oddly, the president’s greatest strength had emerged from having the Republican Congress go haywire before his eyes.
One thing about Clinton hadn’t changed. He continued to conduct a personal quest for information and ideas. “This guy is like a hungry lion who searches for every morsel of information he can get,” Panetta said. Clinton was not going to be deprived of advice because some members of his staff didn’t like or get along with the others such as Morris and Ickes, or Morris and Stephanopoulos. Panetta might be able to manage the government, but he knew now there was no way he could manage and control the information flow to Clinton, or the people the president spoke with or saw. No one was going to limit Clinton’s exposure to a wide range of viewpoints, people or ideas. Clinton’s personal outreach program, the late-night visitors and phone calls were going to continue. Clinton would determine what advice was bad.
As the president once put it to his chief of staff, “I’ll make the decision whether somebody’s an asshole.”
By April, Clinton, Morris and the others had developed the beginning of their strategy to beat Dole. First, they would try to make Dole into what they called “Washington–Congress–status quo.” Dole’s campaign was trying to make Dole into this perfect embodiment of Russell, Kansas, and midwestern values, who went to war, risked his life and emerged full blown as the Republican presidential nominee. His 35 years as a Washington politician were being wiped away.
The Clinton-Gore plan was to fill in Dole’s 35 years in Congress, show the inconsistencies in his voting record and behavior and his occasional extremism. Dole would be cast as a creature of Washington. Every effort would be made to suggest he was not a man for the future, and indirectly to remind voters of his age. In contrast, Clinton would be shown as the non-partisan presidential leader, speaking on larger national themes, acting tough on crime and fiscal matters, making government leaner and more efficient but not meaner. They wanted to show Dole as the legislator caught in the procedural morass of the Senate while Clinton acted presidential. Clinton wanted it to be an election between the head of Congress and the head of the nation.
Morris was in charge of the big picture, the thematic speeches and bully pulpit and the presidential schedule. Stephanopoulos was going to run the daily response and attack on Dole.
The Clinton strategy contained one more critical element. They would attempt to cast Gingrich as Dole’s vice president until Dole selected his own. They were all taken with the idea of sticking Dole with Gingrich. “He doesn’t get somebody else as vice president until he picks’em,” one of Clinton’s team said.
As Clinton’s strategists tried to figure every angle, every possible bump in the road, every possible downside in the upcoming campaign, a number of them quietly discussed the possible mirror image of Dole’s problem with Gingrich. It was the First Lady. If for some reason the Dole campaign was able to suggest that Hillary was vice president or co-president or had some hidden hand in the Clinton presidency, they could be in significant trouble. Fortunately, Hillary seemed to recognize this herself, and she was fading more and more into the background.
Gore had his own analysis of one of their greatest vulnerabilities—the Whitewater scandal. In substance, he found it small and unfair. But the threat was not so much from what already had been revealed or even what might be in the future. Gore believed in the political axiom that whoever controls the agenda will control the outcome. He was astounded that the Republicans and the scandal machinery in Washington had been able to batter Clinton on Whitewater for three years already. He was worried that these people might be able to keep Whitewater front and center with a constant pounding, new revelations or seemingly new revelations. They could weaken the president. The attacks went to the very foundation of trust on which the presidency rested.
Privately, Gore had taken to delivering a withering attack on Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr as the latest example of unfettered investigation, cynicism and character assassination. He cited Starr’s partisan background, and Starr’s decision to maintain his million-dollar-a-year private law practice while investigating the sitting president. Many of Starr’s private clients were well-financed opponents of the president, including two tobacco companies and several private conservative foundations. At one point before being appointed independent counsel, Starr had assisted in legal research on Paula Corbin Jones’s sexual harassment suit against Clinton. Gore said it was a blatant, unfair, outrageous and even intolerable conflict.
Gore was worried, but he did not attack Starr publicly.
The Dole campaign strategy was, not surprisingly, to focus on Clinton and make the 1996 decision a referendum on the incumbent. Scott Reed wanted to make Clinton accountable for what he had not done and emphasize the broken promises. In 1992, Clinton had promised to cut middle-class taxes. Instead, he had raised the gas tax 4.3 cents a gallon for everyone. He had pledged to end welfare as the nation knew it, and then he blocked welfare reform. He had finally agreed to balance the federal budget in seven years, and then had vetoed the Republican plan and cleverly stiffed them on any compromise. Reed wanted to keep it simple, and the bumper sticker was going to essentially say, “Do we want Bill Clinton for four more years?” It didn’t need to be cute, saying, “Bill and Hillary.” It just had to say, “Bill Clinton.” Clinton was not trusted. In Clinton’s best days, still 40 percent or more of the public said in polls that they disapproved of his handling of the presidency.
Reed wanted to present Dole as the candidate of sensible, conservative reform—less government, less spending, less taxes, real change. The plan was to turn Clinton’s obvious speaking mastery against him with the theme that Clinton was a talker, Dole was a doer. But the centerpiece of the Dole strategy was even simpler: Dole’s a conservative, Clinton’s a liberal.
As super-consultant, Gingrich was helping Reed to formulate a strategy. “It’s election day,” Gingrich said, starting one meeting with Reed. “What do we want the people to be walking into the booth thinking? And then let’s work backwards.”
Answering his own question, Gingrich said, “We are the reform party.” Much of the campaign would have to be built around that message. He also insisted they address what could screw it up for Dole and cause him to lose. The Speaker wanted to get those things right out on the table. They were age, inarticulateness and lack of a clear direction.
Reed also was planning their strategy around the nuts and bolts of winning the necessary 270 electoral votes. Since the South would probably remain solid-Republican, Dole could count on 73 electoral votes from those 12 states. Another dozen states with 165 electoral votes had gone Republican in all but one of the last seven presidential contests. That could give Dole a total of 238 electoral votes. The election would then turn on the battleground states. Reed initially identified eight: New Jersey, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, California, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Florida. Those were the states where Dole would be camping out. All eight had Republican governors who would be mobilized like never before, Reed hoped.
For Dole personally, it was even simpler. “Once Clinton’s perceived as a liberal, the election’s over,” he said. But Dole’s problem was that Clinton had staked out firm, centrist ground. “He’s not perceived as liberal,” Dole said in an interview April 20, “and he’s been on kind of a roll. He’s had a six-month sabbatical.”
He added, “Bob Dole needs to have an agenda. It’s got to resonate. It’s got to make sense. It’s got to be credible. It’s got to be real. You’ve got to be able to touch it, and feel it, and apply it to your kids or your family, your business or your farm. And that’s what I’ve got to do.”
On April 3, Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown and 32 others traveling with him during a trade mission were killed when their plane crashed into a mountain in Croatia. Clinton spent days consoling the families and the nation, speaking at funerals and memorial services. In death Brown was hailed and praised endlessly for his personal and political skills. He had, however, been under investigation by an independent counsel for various financial dealings in a protracted inquiry very much like the Whitewater investigation that was still haunting the Clintons.
Back at the White House, after all the Brown ceremonies, Clinton was physically a wreck and emotionally drained. He let loose his anger at the media. “How they vilified him, tried to destroy him, and now they write all these glorified things about him now that he’s dead,” Clinton said, alternating between rage and resignation. “Why didn’t they write any of that while he was alive? They’re going to just kick the shit out of you until you pass from the scene and then they’ll write nice stories about you.” Brown had been “under a cloud,” in the newspaper parlance. “What was the cloud that he was under?” Clinton asked. “What really was it? How significant was it, and how do you put it into some historical context?”
“You just get brutalized,” he finally said poignantly, “and you might as well just understand that’s part of the deal.”
On Sunday, April 14, Clinton watched some of the Masters Golf Tournament on television. An avid golfer, Clinton loved to tune in, especially for the last holes of the last day, the height of golf drama. The 1996 Masters was like no other. Greg Norman, the Australian “Shark,” rated the best golfer in the world, had started the fourth and final 18-hole round with a six-stroke lead, making him virtually unbeatable. No one in the history of the famous tournament had ever been defeated with such a lead, and going back to 1910 when records were first kept, no one had ever squandered such a big lead in any major golf tournament. In the final round, Norman came apart, playing more like a Sunday hacker on a number of the last holes, putting two balls in the water on shots that any pro should have been able to play safely. He lost by five strokes to Nick Faldo.
Clinton was leaving for a trip to Korea, Japan and Russia that night. When Mike McCurry came on Air Force One, he immediately asked Clinton, “Did you get a chance to watch any of the Masters today?”
“Yes,” Clinton said, snapping his fingers. He lit into McCurry. “That’s going to be our new theme for the campaign, that we’re not going to allow ourselves to be Greg Normanized.”
“You think we’re going to blow a six-stroke lead?” McCurry said, laughing. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“Yes,” Clinton said. “I’m going to make a tape of those four holes and make it mandatory viewing for every campaign worker.” He laughed but then turned serious again. He meant it. He absolutely hated it when anyone was quoted about how far they had come since 1994. He wanted people to be very hungry and focused. Overconfidence could kill them. He knew about the volatility of the game—both golf and politics.
On Friday, April 19, Dole asked his closest friend, Bob Ellsworth, to come to his office. Ellsworth, only three years younger than Dole, had first been elected to Congress from another Kansas district in 1960, the same year as Dole. A tall, congenial, people-smart political operator, Ellsworth had been a strategist in Nixon’s successful 1968 election, later served as Deputy Secretary of Defense, and had been the best man at Bob and Elizabeth’s wedding. Dole trusted Ellsworth more than anyone. Ellsworth had acted as a personal political adviser to Dole for 36 years. He had been among a handful of men involved in Nixon’s selection of his running mate, Maryland Governor Spiro T. Agnew, in 1968.
Dole told Ellsworth that he was about to begin the search for his own running mate, and he wanted Ellsworth to act as his overall coordinator. “I don’t want anybody else to know,” Dole said. It was an advantage to have four months before the August convention when he expected to announce his decision. He wanted Ellsworth to come up with a list of possible vice presidents, and then to sit down privately with Scott Reed. They would have to find some lawyers to do exhaustive background checks, look at the candidates’ FBI files, then make an evaluation and recommendation.
Dole said that he did not want a public spectacle in the process. He did not want possible candidates dragged in for public tryouts. “I’m looking for somebody that I really know,” Dole said, carefully adding, “or that I would know by convention time.” He wanted a running-mate relationship that would be marked by total candor, someone he could sit with, that both could let their hair down. Something along the model of what appeared to be the Clinton-Gore relationship, he said. His goal was not to please any interest group. On a scale of 1 to 10, he wanted the best. “I’m going to find a 10,” he said. “This is a big one, would change everything.”
As Ellsworth got up to leave, Dole said, “What I want is that when this is announced, most everyone who thinks about these things is going to know that we’ve really thought about it and it’s somebody who can do it. Won’t be any doubt.”
Afterwards, Dole spoke with Reed. “This is going to be my decision,” Dole said. “This is the most important decision I’ll make in this campaign. It should be mine, and I don’t want a big committee flopping around with a different story in the paper every week about candidate A, B or C.”
In the next to last of my Saturday discussions with Dole, April 20, I mentioned that Clinton harbored two lingering resentments against him. Dole leaned forward, eager to know what they were.
First, I said, Clinton had not forgotten that in early 1993 Dole had wasted no time telling the new president that he would not get a single Republican vote for his first economic plan if it included tax increases.
Dole voiced amazement that Clinton could have been so naive. “He beat Bush because of taxes partly, and he should have understood the last thing you could expect from Bob Dole or anybody else was to go out and say, you know, we just got beat because somebody broke their no-tax pledge, so we’re going to try to square all that by voting for a $265 billion tax increase.”
“What’s the other area?” Dole asked.
I said it was Dole’s aggressive call for a Whitewater independent counsel back in early 1994, the day Clinton’s mother had died.
Dole said that Clinton had never raised the issue with him. He looked troubled. “I remember talking to him about his mother,” Dole recalled. “I told him it was tough to lose your mother. I told him I still find myself trying to call my mother on the telephone.” Dole’s mother Bina had died 13 years earlier.
As Dole sat in his chair, he stiffened, and continued, “I want to pick up the receiver and dial 483-4274.” At the recollection of his mother’s phone number, he broke down. Tears came to his eyes. He put his hand to his mouth briefly.
In a second or two, he recovered. He was sure he hadn’t attacked Clinton on such a vulnerable day. “That’s not something Bob Dole would do,” he said. He squinted his eyes. He was thinking hard. “I just wouldn’t do that,” he said. “I’m very sensitive to that.” Later Dole said, “Maybe I owe him an apology.”
All weekend, Dole was haunted by what he might have done. He had an aide dig out the transcripts of his television appearances in January 1994. They reviewed them, and they found that Bob Dole had used cruel words.
On Monday, April 22, Dole dispatched a personal letter to Clinton.
“Dear Mr. President:
“This letter is written not as a Senator or as a presidential candidate, but as an individual whose parents instilled in him a sense of common courtesy.” He cited the events and transcripts. “In hindsight, I can see that, after learning of your mother’s passing, it might have been the better part of valor to have cancelled the interviews or refused to answer certain questions.” He recounted how he had once publicly praised Clinton’s mother for her perseverance after Clinton’s father had died. “Those words were true then, and they are true now. I look forward to the campaign ahead, and only wish that Bina Dole and Virginia Kelley were here to experience it with us.”
Later that week, Dole was at the White House for an anti-terrorism bill signing ceremony. Clinton took him aside into a corridor so they could speak alone. The president thanked him for the letter. He said he had read it twice. He was touched and appreciated it very much.
“Mothers are important,” Dole said.
Emotion rose up in both men. They looked at each other for an instant, then moved back to business. Soon they agreed on a budget for the rest of the year. It was not the comprehensive seven-year deal both had envisioned and worked on for months. But it was a start.