Vice (7 page)

To James Cannon, Cheney was in over his head. "Too bad Rumsfeld did not stay for the campaign, Ford might have won a second term," he says from his home in Georgetown. "Cheney was not as good an organizer and he was not as astute politically."

The future vice president clearly learned a number of lessons from the campaigns of '76 beyond the importance of locking up the conservative base. That spring, having won seven primaries, Ford had been in a position to put away Reagan. Then came
North Carolina
. Cheney would later admit that they made a tactical error in not committing more resources to the state. Rather than finish off Reagan, as
George W. Bush
would do to
John McCain
in 2000 in
South Carolina
, Cheney's inaction allowed the California governor to pull out a victory. Reagan's win in the state invigorated his campaign, and he went on to take a majority of the Arizona delegates and to rout Ford in Texas. Cheney would blame Kissinger for Ford's loss in the Lone Star State, because prior to the primary, the secretary of state had traveled to
Africa
to speak out against
apartheid
.

Reagan's decisive victory in Texas meant that the nomination would be decided at the national convention in Kansas City. It also made the platform committee an essential part of the process to win the nomination. Cheney would say a year later, "that platform contained in it the seeds of our demise and our loss of the nomination if it wasn't very well managed." He persuaded Ford to take positions contrary to his administration's policies, yet necessary to win conservative delegates, arguing that what was in the platform didn't really matter in the long run. In particular, at Cheney's urging, a reluctant Ford and Kissinger accepted a "Morality in Foreign Policy Plank." Proposed by Reagan supporters, its ambition was sweeping: ". . . we shall go forward as a united people to forge a lasting peace in the world based upon our deep belief in the rights of man, the rule of law and guidance by the hand of God." It was a harbinger of the neoconservativism and
right-wing Christianity
that George W. Bush would embrace decades later.

Cheney ran an ultimately successful operation to woo the uncommitted delegates who would select the nominee. Leading up to the convention and throughout the campaign, Cheney pushed a "Rose Garden strategy" of constant official announcements on the White House lawn that were designed to use the power of the presidency whenever possible to enhance Ford's stature, win supporters, and take advantage of earned media. He also had a secret weapon. Ford's convention delegate counter and all-around troubleshooter was
James Baker III
, later a Bush family handyman who ran the 2000 recount for the GOP. Baker would eventually take over as Ford's campaign manager for the final stretch.

After Ford clinched the nomination, the campaign made up some ground against Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter. Cheney loved the nonstop action, commenting to Nessen before one final campaign swing, "If you like politics, there is not anything comparable to the experience you are about to have. It's going to be a ten-day orgasm."

Then, in the second debate with Carter, Ford made a terrible gaffe that he initially refused to acknowledge, despite Cheney's urging. The president seemed to argue that the Soviets didn't dominate Eastern Europe. But as serious as the debate blunder was the reemergence of a Watergate special prosecutor investigating Ford's alleged misuse of congressional campaign funds. "Given the Nixon experience just two years before, we had no choice but just to sit back and take it," remembered Cheney. "For ten days we were dead in the water until that was finally resolved and the report [exonerating Ford] was ultimately issued."

The night of the election, Ford went to bed with the vote too close to call. The next morning Cheney chaired a meeting of the campaign staff to determine whether to ask for a recount. They decided that Carter had too much of a lead. Ford, who was hoarse and depressed, had Cheney deliver the concession message to the new president-elect.

The day after Jimmy Carter took the presidential oath of office, Dick Cheney left the country. For the first time in years, he and Lynne and their two daughters went on an extended vacation. Before departing for the Bahamas he told the
Casper Star-Tribune
that he was going to "lay in the sun for ten days and think about what to do next." Those who knew Cheney knew what he would do next: move back to Wyoming and run for public office. While the family enjoyed the beach and celebrated Dick's thirty-sixth birthday, Cheney was planning his next career move.

A return to his Bradley Woods sinecure would be a lucrative way station while his plan fell into place. But a steady paycheck wasn't enough. Cheney needed campaign cash. His Nixon and Ford White House connections provided him easy access to the party's fundraising A-list. What he didn't have was a clean shot at public office. Republican senator
Clifford Hansen
was not going to run for a third term, but his Senate seat had already been claimed by one of Cheney's political mentors,
Alan Simpson
. That left challenging the state's sole congressman, Democrat
Teno Roncalio
, but taking on a popular incumbent would not be easy. Then in October 1977, after more than a decade in the House, Roncalio announced his retirement from politics. Two months later, on December 15, Cheney declared himself a candidate. His support would be local, but most of his campaign contributions would come from out of state—as did George W. Bush's money in a Texas congressional race he lost to a Democrat that same year.

"He had already been running the country," Wyoming native
John Perry Barlow
says in an interview. "Chances were that he knew how to hit the buttons and pull the levers." Barlow was the Sublette County Republican Party chairman. He knew Cheney wasn't quite running the country. But he also knew that no other candidate running for Congress had worked in two presidential administrations.

In 1978, Barlow ran the Bar Cross Land and Livestock Company in Cora. In his spare time, he wrote songs with
Bob Weir
, a boarding school chum from San Francisco. Weir played rhythm guitar and had helped found a band called the
Grateful Dead
; Barlow would become one of the band's lyricists. The antiauthoritarian streak Barlow shared with the Dead also led him to the libertarian wing of Wyoming's Republican Party. A polymath with an active life outside the Dead, Barlow would later become a fellow at Harvard University's Institute of Politics and Harvard Law School. Cheney, he says, "seemed like an incredibly smart guy."

The big issue in the state at the time was
federal land use policy
, says Barlow, who was also on the
Wyoming Outdoor Council
, a statewide environmental group. Cheney embraced a Western environmental ethic that was simultaneously preservationist and antiregulation. "It's hard to believe now that he was a conservationist," says Barlow. "He had a natural resonance toward biology. The only time I ever saw him thoroughly happy and not exercising power was fishing in my river."

Cheney spent the first half of 1978 introducing himself to a Wyoming he had left more than ten years earlier. He faced two Republican challengers in the September primary. In the general election awaited Democrat
Bill Bagley
, a Wyoming-born lawyer and Congressman Roncalio's former legislative assistant. Unlike most first-time congressional candidates, Cheney had the services of a national pollster, through his friendship with
Bob Teeter
, who had worked for the Ford campaign. Teeter's polls showed that while Cheney held a narrow lead against Bagley, he wasn't well known around the state. By mid-June 1978, Cheney had put ten thousand miles on his car, crisscrossing Wyoming in an attempt to rectify that.

Then a family history of heart disease kicked him in the chest.

On June 18, at the end of a hectic weeklong campaign swing through Cheyenne and eastern Laramie County, Cheney awoke in the middle of the night complaining of pain in his arms and back. At 4 A.M. he was admitted to Pershing Memorial Hospital in Cheyenne. The thirty-seven-year-old candidate for Congress had just had his first heart attack.

Doctors transferred him out of the intensive care unit after three days, but kept him in the hospital for another week for observation. On June 29, Cheney returned to Casper, where his campaign aide
Mike Patchen
told reporters that the candidate would announce his intentions after the July 4 weekend. It was a defining moment for Cheney.

Cheney scheduled a July 12 press conference to announce that the campaign would continue. "The
heart attack is not a problem
," he reassured reporters. "I look upon it basically, somewhat philosophically, as a warning. I suppose the Dick Cheney of today is a little wiser." Rather than a setback, for Cheney heart disease proved to be a boon. "It didn't look like weakness at all," remembers Barlow. "People felt like it wasn't as significant as it probably was."

Cheney's resilience appealed to the state's sense of identity. "They liked that he was a fighter," says Barlow. "Wyoming is a tough place. If you get thrown off the horse and kicked in the face you're expected to get back on the horse."

The campaign created a fictitious grassroots organization, "Cardiacs for Cheney," to extol the virtues of bouncing back and to address public concerns about the candidate's health. For a month, Cheney took it relatively easy while Lynne, once a state champion baton twirler, campaigned as her husband's surrogate. News coverage of Cheney's heart attack increased his name recognition. To address voter concerns, Cheney sent every registered Republican voter in the state an introspective two-page letter explaining that the heart attack had focused his mind on the importance of public service—and that he had quit smoking.

In 1978 in Wyoming, it was almost possible to meet every voter. In the final months of the primary campaign, the Cheneys set out to do just that. They traveled the state in a Winnebago driven by Cheney's dad, also named Dick. Everybody campaigned, including twelve-year-old Liz and nine-year-old Mary. Wearing a sandwich board that read "Honk if you're for Cheney," Mary would stand in front of the campaign headquarters in Casper.

That September, Cheney trounced his two Republican rivals, neither of whom could compete with his fundraising. He outspent one opponent by a factor of seven. Although Bagley had been campaigning for months, Cheney announced that polls had him leading the Democrat by twenty points. Yet he left nothing to chance. On October 25, former president Ford came to Wyoming to extol his former chief of staff. Ford spoke at a breakfast fundraiser for Cheney at the Petroleum Club in Casper, where he brought in $2,200. Afterward, Cheney and Ford appeared together at a campaign rally.

Large checks from business associations across the nation poured in: the American Dental
Political Action Committee
, the
Amoco Political Action Committee
, the
Commodity Futures Political Action Fund
, and the
Weyerhaeuser Special Political Action Committee
, to name a few big donors who began Cheney's lifetime relationship with K Street. By the end of October, Cheney had outspent Bagley by more than $30,000—the rough equivalent of a $1 million advantage by today's standards.

In an attempt to recapture some ground, Bagley went negative. At a press conference in Casper, he claimed that Cheney's salary from Bradley Woods and Co. didn't seem to correspond to work performed, which might make it an illegal campaign contribution. Bagley noted that 69 percent of his opponent's campaign contributions came from out of state, where Cheney had spent the last ten years. The Democrat questioned whose interests Cheney would represent in Washington.

Cheney was aggrieved. "I have campaigned on the issues, on my qualifications and attributes, on my hopes and aspirations for our state," he told the
Casper Star-Tribune.
"But a man's patience can only be stretched so far, and I think it's time Mr. Bagley stops talking about me and started talking about himself."

He was on leave from Bradley Woods, Cheney said. As a full-time campaigner, he and his family were living off his savings. And as to the charge that he was a carpetbagger, "If we're going to function solely on the basis that the individual we elect ought to have spent more time in Wyoming than anybody else, we ought to go find a 104-year-old who never left the state," he said.

On November 7, Wyoming elected Dick Cheney to Congress.

"Dick wasn't like any other freshman," says a colleague who served with him and asked to remain anonymous, because his lobbying practice could be jeopardized by discussing the vice president with a journalist. "Just like [former professional quarterback]
Jack Kemp
arrived as a
celebrity
, so did Dick Cheney." Unlike Kemp's, Cheney's celebrity came from a mastery of politics. "He had worked in both the Nixon and Ford administrations," the lobbyist says. "He was someone with a lot of stature. He knew how the institution worked, and he knew what he wanted to achieve."

Cheney also had a good understanding of the workings of the House. Because he had been a legislative fellow in 1968, Cheney was better positioned than most of his colleagues, in particular because he had been assigned to Bill Steiger while Steiger was a bipartisan dealmaker on the
Ways and Means Committee
. Cheney could also take his cues from Donald Rumsfeld, who had brought him into the Ford administration. Rumsfeld had served four productive terms
in Congress
and had directed Gerald Ford's campaign for minority leader.

The
House of Representatives
—with 43 5 members, twenty-one standing committees and a multiplicity of subcommittees, and, when Cheney arrived, more than a dozen fully staffed party committees and caucuses—can bewilder a freshman. Like Lyndon Johnson before him, and Tom DeLay after, Cheney was one of those members who began an immediate ascent to power. Legislative committee chairmanships, or, for the minority party, "ranking" positions on committees, require seniority and therefore take time to achieve. Often, the shortest path to power is election as chair of one of the party committees or caucuses. By the time his second term began, Cheney had worked the
Republican Conference
to leverage his celebrity and understanding of the House into the chairmanship of the
Republican Policy Committee
. With twenty-eight members, including minority leader
Bob Michel
, the policy committee connected Cheney to the entire Republican Conference.

"Because we were in the minority, we had no specific leadership team. We were more like five among equals," said
Mickey Edwards
, who represented an
Oklahoma
district while Cheney was in the House. Edwards chaired the
House Research Committee
, at a time when party caucuses, committees, and study groups had real power. (After the Republicans took control of the House in 1994,
Newt Gingrich
cut funding for many party caucuses and reduced the number of committee staffers in order to strengthen the leadership and eliminate competition.) "The relative power depended upon the chair and how the chair used that power," says Edwards. Cheney used his position as chair of the Policy Committee effectively. So effectively that he quickly eclipsed
Trent Lott
, the odds-on favorite to succeed minority leader Michel until Cheney started working the House. Cheney's rise to power was so rapid that Lott, minority whip and heir apparent, understood that he had lost his lock on the leadership position. He left the House to run for
John Stennis
's vacant Senate seat. "It influenced Trent's decision to run for the Senate," says Edwards, a professor at Princeton. Pushed out of the leadership race by Cheney, Lott couldn't resist one parting shot. As he left the House, Lott openly complained that he didn't believe Cheney would be a good choice to replace Michel.

The chairmanship of the House Policy Committee provided another advantage: Cheney attended regular leadership meetings. "Cheney immediately became a core part of the establishment," says
congressional
scholar Norman Ornstein. "He was a leader. He came to Congress without trying to impress anyone. He never stepped out of line."

Yet Cheney was a leader in a minority conference that had almost no influence on legislation passed by the House. The Republicans had been out of power for twenty-five years and the Democrats had an overwhelming (276-159) governing majority. "There's always been this talk about how we treated them fairly," says a
Democratic
staffer who served in the House while Cheney did. "But we treated them like shit. They didn't matter." Republicans in the House were legislative supplicants. Cheney's entire tenure in Congress occurred while the Democrats, through the "old bull" system of committee
chairmen
—the omnipotent, institutional Democratic chairs who treated their committees like personal fiefdoms— controlled the content and flow of legislation. Not only was Cheney a member of a disaffected minority party, he was a minority member of a Democratic Congress that had reasserted its power by ending the career of Richard Nixon and imposing limits on the authority of Gerald Ford— the two presidents for whom Cheney had worked.

The freshman from Wyoming was calculating rather than reactive. Despite his conservative ideology and his frustration with minority status, he was never openly associated with the partisan activists who immediately fell in behind Newt Gingrich. "What you saw was someone who was a natural leader," says Ornstein. "He was clearly on the leadership path. But it came to him." A political consultant who worked in the first Bush administration agreed. "Power came to him, he didn't go looking for power," he says.

"Newt arrived with a fully developed strategy for winning the House," says Ornstein. "Cheney felt the frustration of being in the minority. He understood where Newt came from." Yet while Gingrich would recruit and lead a small cabal of radical conservative partisans who mounted a legislative guerrilla campaign against the Democrats, Cheney maintained generally cordial relationships with the majority. Within his own conference, he served as a bridge between the Gingrich faction and the more cautious members led by minority leader Bob Michel.