At his house Powell was anxiously awaiting Dole. He didn’t want Dole to ask him anything, none of the questions about his future or whether he would run for president, questions that had been haunting Powell since his retirement. And if so, when. Or in which party. Or what he believed. Powell was pretty sure that Dole would know not to ask.
Because of electronic problems with the intercom and the doorbell in Powell’s house, he was kind of hovering in the foyer area expecting to notice the car arrive.
When Dole’s car pulled up, Dole got out and went up to the door and rang the doorbell. Nothing happened. No one came to the door. Nothing. Tried again. Nothing again. And again. ““God, he didn’t stand me up, did he?’’ Dole said to himself. He walked back to the car where he happened to have Powell’s phone number and called. Powell answered. Been having trouble with that doorbell for some time, the general said.
““You’ve got to get that fixed,’’ Dole said, thinking how close he had come to driving off, perhaps leaving Powell feeling stood up, insulted, mad at Bob Dole forever.
They sat by a fire in the fireplace. ““Well,’’ Dole finally said. ““I’d like to pick your brain from time to time. You know, I’m going to get into this thing. And I’m not asking you for any commitment, not asking for anything.’’ Sliding off, Dole said he just wanted to talk occasionally about foreign policy.
But that wasn’t what was on his mind. Dole felt he couldn’t just walk in and ask Powell if he was going to run for president.
““I’m thinking about serving only one term,’’ Dole said. It was just an idea he and his advisers were kicking around. If he won the presidency, he would consider pledging to step down after one term as president. Dole didn’t need to say that this situation could put his vice-president at the political helm.
Powell, who had already heard these ideas from Warren Rudman, didn’t offer a view on this.
Dole was back home about 3:00 p.m. The bottom line as he saw it was Powell probably wouldn’t run, but he could be a running mate.
Powell told his friends that it had been an unexpectedly pleasant meeting. Dole was laid back, relaxed, funny, good company, candid and not racing like many politicians. And most impor- tant, Dole had not really asked anything, especially if Powell wanted to be his running mate.
On Tuesday, May 30, 1995, Bob Dole was in his suite in a Chicago hotel weighing a draft of a speech he was supposed to give the next day in Los Angeles attacking Hollywood for the ““mainstreaming of deviancy’’ with loveless sex and mindless violence in movies and popular music.
Joining Dole was John A. Moran, a California oilman who headed Dole’s presidential finance committee, had read the speech draft and said he was very concerned. Though most well-known Hollywood figures were Demo- crats, there were plenty of Republican big givers in the entertainment industry. He opposed a confrontation with the money people. The speech was too harsh, too direct, Moran said. And that phrase ““sold your soul’’ was way too strong.
““Well, can we use the word, “rent’?’’ Dole proposed, laughing.
Dole never banged down the gavel and said the jury was dismissed, but rather just let the conversation wander on. Press secretary Nelson Warfield called Scott Reed, the Dole campaign manager, to report, ““This is not a sure thing.''
Maybe it was generational, Dole figured, but he was very uncomfortable with the Hollywood values speech. He considered not giving it.
The next day in Los Angeles, Bill Lacy, the deputy campaign manager, wanted to focus the debate on words, phrases, not on themes or the entire speech. It was a diversionary tactic so that Dole wouldn’t toss out the whole thing.
Lacy knew it might offend their finance people, but it would play well politically. During rehearsal, the line about ““selling’’ or ““renting’’ their souls came up. Dole said he wanted it dropped entirely.
Dole read the speech through several times and then everyone left but Lacy, who wondered if this was by design, since he was the designated babysitter. As they sat down together, Dole again expressed his concern. There was not much time.
Lacy had one case to make. What they were doing wasn’t something that two kids had concocted and brought in from the backyard. It had been very carefully thought through. It was a dramatic and sophisticated critique with a strong populist punch. The speech as a whole was coherent. Parts could not be thrown out at random and others substituted. There was a line of logic that had to be followed.
Of all the thousands of speeches that Dole had given in his career, he had often felt good before giving them. Other times he felt good after he had delivered them. And some he wondered why he had given them at all. On this speech he had many trepidations. Soon, however, he was standing before the audience glancing around and wondering if some would be so offended that they would get up and leave. People had paid money to hear him, and he was going to cut their legs off.
Momentum was often the final decision maker for Dole, and he was capable of giving a full extemporaneous speech. Neither Dole nor Lacy knew for sure what he would do.
““I accept the nomination,’’ he joked, drawing mild chuckles. ““Why not?’’ he added. Dole’s nervousness was palpable, and he began to ad-lib.
Lacy could hear him stalling.
““I’VE BEEN IN CALIFORNIA MANY, MANY TIMES,’’ DOLE CON- tinued off message, off text. ““Over the years, campaigning in good times and bad.’’ Pausing, his eyes darted quickly back and forth. ““I’ve met a lot of people here, made a lot of friends over the years and I come out here and I speak a lot and I talk about the party and I talk about what’s happening.''
There was nothing but the words on TelePrompTer screens to either side of his face. Dole exhaled deeply.
““But I want to talk about a specific matter tonight,’’ he said, licking his lips, taking one more quick look around the room and then, mercifully, going to the text. ““I may not win an Oscar, but I’ll talk about it anyway.''
““It’s good to be back in California,’’ he inserted, drifting, veering sharply. ““And John, I do thank you for that introduction,’’ Dole repeated, referring to Moran whom he had already thanked. ““And I do thank everyone for being here tonight.’’ Slipping, slipping.
But there on the TelePrompTer were the words and finally Dole plunged in. ““I want to talk to you tonight about the future of America – about issues of moral importance, matters of social consequence.’’ That was the point of no return. He probably couldn’t just make it up now. Dole looked worried, nervous but in control. Like the experienced doctor who has bad news for the patient but knows it must be told.
The entertainment industry was becoming ““coarse,’’ he said, sticking to the text. Then the punch in the face.
““A line has been crossed – not just of taste, but of human dignity and decency… About a culture business that makes money from “music’ extolling the pleasures of raping, torturing and mutilating women; from “songs’ about killing policemen.''
““We will name their names and shame them as they deserve to be shamed. And I would ask the executives of Time Warner a question: Is this what you intended to accomplish with your careers? Must you debase our nation and threaten our children for the sake of corporate profits?''
The line hit right at the self-image of a generation of well-educated people determined and insistent that their lives make a difference. Dole had told them that their work was rotten and they were rotten, that they were money grubbing and willing to sell out the children. His voice grew steady and stronger. But still, his head jerked between the TelePrompTers to his side. He glanced around to see if anyone was departing. No one was.
Afterwards Dole attended a private high-dollar fundraiser in the hotel restaurant. He was pumped up and actually repeated some of the lines from the speech. Later, crammed in a small plane to fly down to Orange County for the next day, Dole was animated, cracking jokes. Warfield had only seen him like that once before, after he had done a pace lap in a race car.
The advance team plopped the morning papers in front of Dole’s door the next morning. Yeah, front page in the Orange County paper. The New York Times played the story of Dole’s speech above the fold on the front page. It was giant news. The impact was way beyond anything in Dole’s entire political history. This was entirely new territory. Columns, debates, giant affection from Republicans and the rightwing, and even outspoken praise from many Democrats and liberals.
““Ah, went pretty well didn’t it,’’ Dole said to Reed the next day. Reed recognized that Dole was not fully comfortable with the speech, even though other senators, Dole friends, and the intense campaign watchers in the media seemed to get it. There had been no downside – an almost unheard of situation for a high-profile campaign move.
Dole told communications director Mari Will, who had written the speech, that he was struck by the power an idea could have and how it could tap into great feelings. Will emphasized that talking to those people about what they were actually doing with their lives highlighted the moral concept of individual respon- sibility. It gave them credit for having a moral conscience.
What was next? Dole wondered. Should they do more Hollywood? A lot of people were advising him to ride the wave, and hit hard again.
No, Will said, now’s not the time. Let it play out. The topic and idea were so hot. She believed that sometimes things got so hot they could explode in the hand that held them. They could come back to Hollywood when the issue was cooler.
Will said they should switch to another hot issue. The liberal academic elites have been pulling down pillars of the society – teaching in foreign languages and presenting American history by concentrating on the worst moments such as McCarthyism and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. The English language has been the great unifier of diverse races and religions in America, and it was under attack.
Hhhhmmmm, Dole said, Hhhhmmmmm.
ABOUT 6 P.M. ON THE EVE OF THE NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMAry, Dole and Elizabeth went out to one last event, a small rally. Riding back in a Dodge mini van, Dole, as always, sat in the front seat because he could get in and out easier with his weak arm. Elizabeth and Nelson Warfield were in the back. The miserable, cold rain continued, not even New Hampshire’s famous snow. Nelson Warfield, the press secretary, called to get the latest exit poll numbers. Buchanan was narrowly ahead with 26 percent. Dole was second with 25 percent, and Lamar Alexander third with 22 percent but moving up fast, crowding Dole. Warfield reported the numbers to Dole.
Silence. No Republican had ever lost New Hampshire and then gone on to win the party nomina- tion. Never.
Again from the back seat Warfield called on his cellular phone to get the most recent numbers. Buchanan still ahead and edging up a little. Dole second. Alex- ander third but moving up slightly, only some 900 votes behind Dole. He could overtake Dole.
““Looks like we could be third,’’ Warfield said.
““If we’re third, we’re finished,’’ Dole said.
The shadows from the streetlights played through the van windows on their faces as they passed through the wet streets in silence. Elizabeth was thinking hard, preparing.
About four blocks before they reached the hotel, Elizabeth leaned forward toward her husband.
““Bob,’’ she said gently, ““after all you’ve done for your party, and your lifetime of public service, if the voters want to turn their backs on you, it doesn’t matter.’’ She said she was very, very proud of him. It was awesome running the Senate and running for president. He had done so much, done enough. ““You’re head and shoulders above them all.''
Dole didn’t even turn around from the front seat.
Within a month, Dole had stabilized his campaign with a big victory in the South Carolina primary and sewed up the nomination with sweeps on ““Junior Tuesday’’ and ““Super Tuesday.’’ Now he turned his attention to Clinton.
On April 20, I mentioned in a discussion with Dole 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 re- covered. 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 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.
