In My Time - Dick Cheney [129]
Americans want safety from dangers at home and abroad, the opportunity to pursue a livelihood to support themselves and their families, and freedom from excessive governmental intrusion. The Alliance for American Leadership will help achieve those goals by supporting the election of highly qualified Republican candidates across the nation.
I kept the PAC simple. I was chairman of the board and two of my former staffers, Patty Howe and David Addington, were the members. I hired Addington away from his job as minority staff director and counsel of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to make sure the PAC was run in scrupulous compliance with the complex FEC rules. Through fund-raising events and direct mail, the PAC raised more than $1.3 million in less than a year—a significant sum in politics in those days, particularly for such a small operation—and disbursed it to advance the cause of Republican candidates. I personally did close to 160 campaign events in the 1994 election cycle, traveling the country from coast to coast.
In September 1994 Lynne and I gathered some close friends with experience in presidential campaigns and sought their advice: Stu Spencer had been political director in the 1976 Ford campaign; Bob Teeter was another close friend and our pollster; Terry O’Donnell had been Ford’s personal aide, general counsel of the Defense Department, and was my private attorney; and Red Cavaney had been lead advance man for the Ford White House. I knew all of them to be dependably discreet, but also willing to tell me exactly what they really thought. I knew that none of them would pull punches.
We met in Jackson, and during a couple of gorgeous fall days we talked about the 1996 campaign, the other prospective candidates, the pros and cons of a run for the presidency, the prospects for fund-raising, and what it would take to run and win. Although we didn’t come to any final conclusions, they gave me their best advice on what I could expect.
THE 1994 MIDTERM ELECTIONS were historic, with Republicans taking control of both houses of Congress for the first time in forty years. The last time we had had control in the Senate was 1986; in the House, 1954. Even the Democratic Speaker of the House, my friend Tom Foley, lost his seat and became the first Speaker defeated at the polls since the Civil War. It was a stunning result, a clear repudiation of Bill Clinton and his administration. But more than that it represented a revolution in the Congress, particularly in the House. No Republican member of the House then serving had ever served in the majority, chaired a committee or subcommittee, or presided over the House as Speaker. Nineteen ninety-four changed everything—who hired most of the staff, who had the most members on each committee, who controlled the Rules Committee, which set the terms of debate for each bill coming to the floor, and who was given offices in the Capitol. Under the Democrats only three members of the GOP had offices there.
During all those years we spent in the minority, Republicans could never be certain that what we did really mattered. Unless we were willing to sign on and support a Democratic proposal, we rarely had any impact on the floor debate. If we had a good idea, chances were we could advance it only with the approval or permission of some Democratic chairman. Now all of a sudden Republicans were going to be running the show.
Lynne and I hosted an election evening party for some of our close friends, and I don’t think I moved from in front of the television the whole night. As I watched the Republicans win control of the Congress, I couldn’t help but contemplate what might have been if I had stayed in the House leadership instead of going to the Defense Department. My friend, and successor as House Republican Whip, Newt Gingrich, was about to become Speaker of the House.
I wouldn’t have traded my years as secretary