DISCUSSION: Chapters Seventy Nine to Ninety

Discussion

So much of this section is about who and what Bob Dole is. It's something of a familiar pattern in What It Takes: we see a person struggle to control his public image, fail, and then wallow in the popular perception before he washes out. Some go out with a bang (Hart, Biden). Others, a whimper.

Bob Dole is from Russell, the Dust Bowl town that nurtured Bob after birth and near-death. When he becomes the vice presidential nominee, he and Ford go to Russell, where Bina is overwhelmed and Bob gets choked up. He fights for Gerald Ford, with the responsibility of winning 130,000 votes a day. And in the end, had less than 10,000 votes in Ohio and Hawaii been different, they would have done it. Though not according to Barbara Walters, who had the nerve to ask Bob, sick and worn with exhaustion, didn't he think that he had lost the election for Jerry Ford?

This cigar box . . .

So Bob went back to work, and twelve years later, Bub Dawson opened the 1988 Dole campaign with a story of how Russell brought Bob back from the war. "There was a cigar box on the counter with Bob Dole's name on it." The citizens pitched in to help Bob get back on his feet. Now, the cigar box was back, and the citizens of Russell had packed it once more, this time with $135,000 for Bob's campaign.

It was a different Bob Dole by '88. In 1974, he'd been in a fight for his life -- his first Senate re-election, his first campaign since his divorce from Phyllis, and with Watergate hanging over his head (metaphorically and literally: he lived there!) It was a vicious campaign, and Bob proved to be the most vicious. And when he returns too the Senate and works with George McGovern(!) on feeding the hungry(!) . . .  people went looking for why Bob Dole was Nice.

"Whah, yes!"

They found the answer in the Southern spark plug from Salisbury, Elizabeth. Washington loved a neat explanation. She was the "Nice coach" teaching Bob "how to Be Nice!" (The mystery woman who Bob's Kansas friends watched, wide-eyed, as she packed away the chicken noodle butterball and cherry pie and still kept her figure.) Elizabeth was a force of nature who scared most Capitol Hill men to death. But not Bob Dole. They were going places together.

George Bush was always going places. That's why Bar liked China so much: George had nothing to do at night, few appointments in the afternoon. They had lived so many places, but at the consulate, they actually lived together.

George's career of public service had taken on a pattern -- a holding pattern. George waited patiently for his turn as he was passed over or screwed by three successive presidents. Nixon considered him for VP, then took his trust, sullied his standing. Ford took him as CIA director and ruled him out for the '76 ticket. Carter wouldn't keep Bush on as "Head Spook" to make an agency-above-politics statement. (That burned George up.) Then it was seven years with Reagan's consolation prize, and by the time Bush announced in '87, the writing was on the wall: "WIMP." George Bush was -- as George Bush might say -- a 'weenie.' Newsweek had screwed him on the day of his announcement with that cover.

And so he put his foot down and made a speech that said, "I Am A Man." Albeit, "I am a man who . . ." but a man nonetheless. It was a message Bush carried all the way to his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention.

As the Democrats go, Duke was running sans message. Michael deserved to be president, he believed, by the content of his gubernatorial conduct and not the color of his personality. He was running for "National Governor." And when Susan Estrich came in and saw how Michael and Sasso had done things, well, she had thoughts. "I don't understand how you ran this thing for six months without a fucking thing to say!"

Dick Gephardt now had too much to say: so much attack in him that his killers were worried he was too aggressive. Dick had to knock off Paul Simon ("Bambi" in Joe Trippi's estimation) Bruce Babbitt ("Son of Bambi"), and Al Gore. Gephardt sparred with $2,000-an-hour-worth of Washington lawyers to practice. And then he killed too hard. Shrum and the others were taken aback. "They wanted him to kill, but be himself, but show some balls, but Presidential . . . and there were no answers." This was the most expensive advice a guy could buy.

How wonderful to be running for president. 

The Best of The Bobster's Burns

Bob yukking, 1971

Before he learned to "Be Nice," Bob Dole had a rep as the toughest campaign hatchet man there was. Here's a sample of his zingers (some were doozies) from this section.

"Go home and ask your parents if they know how many abortions Bill Roy has performed."

"I used to call him southern-fried McGovern . . . but I have a lot of respect for Senator McGovern."

"I figured up, the other day: if we added up the killed and wounded in the Democrat wars, in this century, it would be about 1.6 million Americans . . . enough to fill the city of Detroit!"

"Carter's got three positions on everything. That's why he wants three debates."

"I thought I was very friendly. I called him 'Fritz' a couple of times. He called me 'hatchet man.'"

DISCUSSION: Chapters Sixty Four to Seventy Eight

From Josh Benson, co-editor of Capital

 

Joe Biden needs context. All politicians do, but as the ongoing "chains" controversy indicates, the need in Biden's case is particularly acute.

He talks a lot, and with a supreme confidence in his ability to do so extemporaneously. And contrary to the crazy-uncle caricature of him as vice president, that confidence is usually justified. He's an ambitious speaker, and good on his feet, and he can give a speech, in plain English.

Out of context, it's Biden's moments of rhetorical excess—the ones so outrageously at odds with approved campaign language that they go viral the moment the words are out of his mouth;that define him as a public figure. He becomes the sum of his gaffes.

The re-elect

Never has Biden been as sympathetically, and brilliantly, contextualized as he was in What It Takes. The end of Biden's campaign in 1988, after his most famous blunder ever, is the culmination one of the book's two great tragic narratives (the other being the end of Gary Hart's campaign).

The Biden portions of What It Takes say much about him, and about how presidential campaigns work, that is perfectly relevant today, as the Obama campaign once again finds itself answering viewership-boosting questions about whether they might not swap him out for Hillary Clinton. Biden will never be a boring speaker, or a disciplined one; the first draft of history will always be less kind to him than the ones that are written later, when the author has had time to determine what's important and what isn't.

Discussion

It's the end of the line for Joe Biden, chased out of the race -- "blackmailed" in the press, some would feel -- by accusations of plagiarism in a mysterious "attack tape" and similar misconduct in law school. They were doing what Biden abhorred, labeling him "a cheat." Initially, Joe decides to make a stand, hold a press conference to talk this problem down. And he holds forth, as we see a page-and-a-half of Biden verbatim, totally in his element, explaining who and what he was and is.

And . . . it all gets digested into a three-word headline: "BIDEN ADMITS PLAGIARISM." In hindsight, these were things that could have been manageable were Biden not chairing the hearings to defeat President Reagan's Supreme Court nominee, Robert Bork. That was more important than anything to him -- "twenty years." So Joe had to do the right thing and quell the spectacle around him. Perhaps they were just not that "ruthless," as Jill Biden would put it. Joe seemed to agree: they were not as ruthless as Michael and Kitty Dukakis.

But Joe is surprisingly calm and collected about the whole thing. And because he had gone down so nobly, the press feels bad. All of a sudden, they were full of indignation: who could have done this to Joe Biden? (Never mind that they were sniffing around Jimmy Biden's bankruptcy, and Joe couldn't tell his anxious congressional backers how many other shoes would drop -- it all depended on what the press considered a 'shoe.')

Gephardt finds out what losing feels like

The press settles on Gephardt as the culprit, and they go at him hard. CBS News makes the link -- Gephardt was dirty! Lesley Stahl! Dan Rather! At Dick's throat! Gephardt got in the race thinking he couldn't lose. Even if he didn't win, he was still young and would come away with national exposure. Yet here he was, losing. His campaign an embarrassment, completely stuck in the mud. And now he was being pegged as the guy who did Biden dirty?

"This just shows . . . you can do nothin' wrong . . . and they'll STILL . . . FUCK . . . YOU . . . TO DEATH!" he told a stunned senior staff meeting. Dick's becoming one of the killers, and he likes it. Too bad he has to throw over guys who'd been with him for eighteen years for killer-approved hacks.

Speaking of replacing people, Dukakis is dismayed at having to -- simply having to -- fire John Sasso for making the "attack tape." Everything was going so well for Michael. He was raising money, building stature, talking to world leaders, coming off like a real president. And he was doing it the right way, meeting his lifelong need to be more righteous than humanly possible, to be, as Cramer repeats over and over, "correct."

Sasso, always slightly offstage, where Michael needed him

What Sasso had done was not "correct," and Sasso felt no need to explain why. This was how it was with them -- the "Don't tell Michael" ethos. Out of sight, like Billy Bulger traipsing the balcony of the statehouse past Michael into John's office all those years! What did Michael think he was up to? And now it was a question of loyalty. Well, that wasn't why they were in politics. Michael had been telling friends about the "common weal" thing ever since they got into power. He wouldn't even do the smallest of favors for people. No jobs. No low-number license plates that cost nothing. Michael would have a dinner for them, a small group. But no caterer. That'd be too rich. The governor himself would make turkey tetrazzini for twenty five. So John had to go.

"... this was hate."

And the would-be first ladies shone a lot of light in this section. Jane Gephardt tells Dick that he doesn't know what his killers are up to, that he no longer has control. Kitty Dukakis struggles to console Michael as the "attack tape" is pinned on him. And Jill Biden truly shines here. We see her enter the world of Joe, Beau, Hunter, Val, Jimmy and Mom-Mom. (Two dates, and Joe is ready to settle down!) Jill learns how the Bidens are, and shares in the plans, shares in Joe's dream. And so when it crashes down, she feels it worse than Joe does. As Cramer writes:

"She stared straight ahead at a wall of cameras, the pack . . .  but she met no one's eyes. She hated them. First time in her life . . . but it was true: this was hate. They were destroying what Joe worked for, twenty years. It was just another story for them."

What It Bakes: Turkey tetrazzini for twenty-five

Chef Michael Du-cook-is

In case you are one day elected Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and need to thank your closest supporters while on a budget and suffering from sanctimonious self-delusion, you're going to need to know how to make turkey tetrazzini for twenty five like the Duke.

Ingredients

• 3 (16 ounce) packages uncooked spaghetti
• 1-1/2 cups and 1 tablespoon butter 
• 1-1/2 cups and 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour 
• 9-1/3 cups chicken broth
• 6-1/4 cups milk
• 5-1/4 cups grated Parmesan cheese
• 12-1/2 cups chopped cooked turkey

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a very, very big baking dish.
2. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add spaghetti, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente. Drain, and place in the prepared baking dish.
3. Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in flour. Mix in chicken broth and milk. Cook and stir until the mixture comes to a boil. Stir in about 5 1/4 cups Parmesan cheese, and remove from heat.
4. Mix chicken broth mixture and turkey with spaghetti. Top with remaining cheese. Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until surface is lightly browned.