Bursting the ‘Bubble’ : Richard Ben Cramer Took to the Campaign Trail in 1988 for an Inside Look at the Media and the Men Who Wanted to Be President

Like a pol pumping hands at a fund-raiser, Richard Ben Cramer has the gig down cold: Say hello (“Good to meeetcha!”), sign the book (“Glad you liiiked it!”) and move on to the next customer (“Hey, howyadooin?”).

Never mind that he’s 30 minutes late to his own party. Or that he burst into a Capitol Hill bookstore with sweat pouring off him. The bedraggled author has an excuse . . . just like any candidate running behind.

“I couldn’t find a cab,” Cramer says breathlessly. Then he scratches his beard and serves up a morning sound bite: “You know, this book-promotion stuff is like a political campaign. You work your butt off, and at the end of the day, you can’t tell if it’s made a damned bit of difference.”

Cramer should know. For years, he labored to produce an epic book about the 1988 presidential race, and the result, “What It Takes: The Way to the White House,” says as much about his persistence and grit as it does about six men who dared to think they could win the world’s most powerful job.

It’s an extraordinary book, an in-depth, psychological look at candidates that will surprise readers who think they’ve heard everything about President Bush, former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, former Sen. Gary Hart and other characters. Unlike standard election texts, “What It Takes” ignores the world of slick handlers and gets inside the heads of the candidates themselves.

There are 1,047 pages of choice anecdotes: Bush passing out drunk on a lawn in Texas, on Christmas Eve, 1948; Kitty Dukakis waking up her husband at midnight, saying she doesn’t know if she wants him to win; Rep. Richard A. Gephardt sobbing in Jesse Jackson’s arms, as the Missouri congressman’s campaign falls apart.

Forget the image of Gary Hart as a skirt-chaser and national joke. Cramer portrays a thoughtful, intensely private man who wanted to run on the issues but was destroyed by the press. If voters think of Kansas Sen. Bob Dole as a nasty, brooding presence, they’ll discover a decent, generous man whose presidential campaign was shipwrecked by his free-spending advisers.

At a time of mounting hostility toward Washington, some may wonder if readers are ready for a book that celebrates, rather than eviscerates, politicians, let alone a bunch who ran four years ago. Cramer says the public never got to see them as human beings and thus missed out on the real drama of the 1988 race.

“The press and the political process demeaned all of these guys four years ago by turning them into empty suits on our television screens,” he says. “And so I wanted to go beyond that. I’m just an old storyteller, and I always wanted to know, what the hell were these candidates really like? “

The question is no less relevant in 1992. Asked if the press has improved its performance, Cramer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, says it’s gone from bad to worse.

“We’re still in the ditch,” he claims, “and the Gennifer Flowers story about Bill Clinton says it all. A tabloid fired several bullets into the air, and the rest of the herd began to stampede.”

Meanwhile, Cramer says Ross Perot’s decision not to run illustrates the book’s key argument: Seeking the White House can destroy a candidate, and some folks ought to think twice before tossing their hats in the ring. Better they should stay home and watch the national gong show on TV with the rest of us.

For those who insist on running, there is The Bubble--a claustrophobic world of media handlers and pundits who control a politician’s every move. There’s no privacy and little time for family. Life becomes a photo opportunity and a constant battle with reporters who are out of control, Cramer says.

“I used to think that the image of the press in the 1940s--a bunch of guys in hats screaming on the courthouse steps--was all baloney,” he notes. “I used to say, ‘I know reporters. We’re not like that.’ But we are .”

To frame a different vision of the 1988 race, Cramer plunged into the personal worlds of the candidates, visiting friends and relatives, spending months in their hometowns and cultivating relationships that most journalists don’t have time to develop. It was hard, demanding work. But now, as that struggle ends, another begins: “What It Takes” has sparked criticism from some Washington insiders, who debunk its premise and resent its conclusions.

In her review of Cramer’s book in the Washington Monthly, for example, New York Times White House correspondent Maureen Dowd writes: “It’s not possible to really know what’s in anyone’s head, no matter how close you are to him, how much he tells you or how much research you do.” She adds that Cramer should “curb his sneering tone toward reporters” who work hard for a living.

As he signs books, Cramer, 42, concedes his work was bound to make waves.

“I haven’t read Maureen’s piece, but I hear it was vicious in a classically Maureen kind of way, and that’s what they pay her to do,” he snaps. Then he smiles and shakes another reader’s hand: “All the political writers are coming after me. But I guess I kinda wet their legs first.”

It’s the kind of crack you come to expect from Cramer. Easygoing, low-key and polite, he speaks in a neo-Cajun drawl that’s odd for someone who grew up in Rochester, N.Y. Before this book, he was a reporter at the Baltimore Sun and Philadelphia Inquirer, winning a Pulitzer in 1979 for Middle East coverage. He earned acclaim--but not much money--for magazine profiles in Rolling Stone and other publications after returning to the United States in 1983.

When he pitched the idea of doing the campaign book, Random House rewarded him with a reported $500,000 advance. It was a tremendous sum for a first book, and Cramer spent years perfecting the final draft in his Cambridge, Md., home. He lives with his wife, journalist Carolyn White, and their 2-year-old daughter, Ruby.

This month, Cramer will finish a grueling national tour for the book, and he’s been a good soldier, greeting reporters, political flunkies and other strangers with genuine interest. It’s a skill he perfected during six years of work on the book. Two years before the 1988 election, Cramer began meeting the people close to Bush and Dole. He made himself welcome in the homes of Dukakis and Delaware Sen. Joseph L. Biden and told folks he had no ax to grind. Just a desire to know what it’s like to run for the presidency.

Most people were used to reporters who dashed into town, gathered a handful of facts on deadline and left several days later. To learn about Dole, Cramer moved for several months to the senator’s hometown of Russell, Kan. He talked with Dole’s family, spent hours with his high school coaches and took the friends of Dole’s first wife to lunch. He did this over and over, until people began to trust him. Then he shared his insights with the senator.

Breaking a cardinal rule of journalism, Cramer showed his work in progress to each candidate, for the sake of accuracy. And he soon came to realize that the title of his book had a double meaning: Candidates need ambition to win, certainly, but the process also takes away much of their personal identity.

Some are willing to pay the price. George Bush has devoted his life to the concept of service, the author says, and he’s done it largely by making friends. Thousands of them. A man who sends out 30,000 Christmas cards might be accused of insincerity, but Cramer insists that Bush is 100% genuine.

“I’ve seen the real George Bush in action,” he says. “I’ve been to the (vice presidential) residence and had burgers and Bloodies in the back yard with Bar. For those who don’t know, that’s the quintessential George Bush experience. He’s a social animal and a very, very congenial host.”

At one point in the book, Cramer wonders whether Bush’s public life has rattled him. Can a man who travels everywhere with hundreds of aides and Secret Service agents find privacy? The answer seems to be: No big deal.

During the then-vice president’s first motorcade, in January, 1980, Cramer writes: “As George Bush left the church . . . he was guided through a gauntlet of men to the limousine waiting in a 10-car train, as the agents closed him in behind bulletproof steel and glass. . . . Soon he could only see the backs of the agents and the streak of two-wheelers past his shaded window. Then, George Bush drew one deep breath . . . and he said to friends in the car: ‘God! . . . Isn’t it great? D’ya ever see so many cops?’ ”

The American people elected Bush as President in part because he wanted it more than Dukakis did, Cramer suggests. Indeed, the author is tougher on the former Massachusetts governor than any other candidate because he believes Dukakis lacked the fire in the belly that separates political winners from losers.

“Dukakis had the job he wanted in 1986, he was married to the only woman he had ever loved, and he lived in the house and town of his dreams, in Brookline,” says Cramer. “Then somebody gave him a memo saying he should be President, and bang! Two years later, he had to give up his job, his wife was in and out of rehab and he was teaching for a living down in Florida.”

The greatest irony is in the Gary Hart story. Cramer portrays the former Colorado senator as a man whose complexities were never understood by the press. In one passage, he urges readers to imagine that the encounter between Hart and model Donna Rice was not sexual, but a bittersweet rendezvous between a man in midlife crisis and a woman who naively thought she could help him.

“We were demanding a life for Gary Hart that we would not live ourselves,” Cramer says. “We ask that all of these candidates do nothing interesting their whole lives. If they go on a river rafting trip and love the danger of white water, we say, ‘Hmmm, I don’t know if I want that guy.’ If they had an affair, we say, ‘Jeez, I don’t know if that’s what I want, either.’ And if they had a joint in college, we say, ‘I don’t know if that’s OK.’

“But who lives like that? Anybody who’s worth a damn has done something in their life that they can’t explain to 2,000 reporters in 30 seconds.”

It’s not the kind of talk that’s guaranteed to win Cramer friends among the press, feminists or voters who were turned off by the whole Hart incident. But somehow that’s beside the point. After years of reporting, Cramer says he’s tired of standard journalism and wants a change. Maybe he’ll move overseas or just live off his bank account until it dips below $200, he jokes. Anything to help him savor the book and put aside the criticisms that have come his way.

“People should lighten up and realize that this book is not a political science text,” he says. “It’s just a look at how it feels out there. People are tired of the press telling them what to think. They want a fresh look.”

Meanwhile, there’s the 1992 election to ponder. Cramer’s not making any bets, but he says the Democrats’ current euphoria is premature. Bush may be wounded now, but wait until the fall, when he hits his campaign stride.

“George is a tough old geezer,” Cramer says. “He’s going to come on like an alley fighter, using every broken bottle he can find. That’s because he wants this one badly. He really does. And that’s what it takes.”