In My Time - Dick Cheney [135]
A few weeks later, Governor Bush came to me with a different request. He wanted to know if I would head his search for a vice presidential running mate. At last it was easy to say yes. I wanted to do whatever I could to help his campaign, and this would be a part-time commitment, something I could do—and accomplish—in a matter of months. When I thought about it, I realized I’d been observing or participating in the vice presidential selection process for nearly a quarter century, so I felt that I had a good sense of how an effective search should work.
In Washington a few days later, I began putting together a small team to run the vice president selection process for me. Liz was home on maternity leave from her law firm, and I asked if she would assist. When she said yes, I’m not sure that she realized her home office would become the nerve center of the operation. I also asked Dave Addington to help out by reviewing the material submitted by each prospective candidate and preparing summaries that I shared with Governor Bush. My son-in-law, Phil Perry, and some other lawyers from his firm worked with Dave to produce the questionnaire we asked each candidate to complete. Dave Gribbin also assisted, particularly with reviewing voting records and public speeches of the candidates. And Jan Baran, a terrific election lawyer, helped us review tax returns and answer questions about election laws in individual states.
It’s harder to find a good vice presidential candidate than you might think. You might start off with the idea that it is a very prominent job that thousands of politicians would be dying to have and that a lot would be well qualified for. But when you start looking, you find that everyone has negatives. Everyone has some kind of baggage—whether it’s a voting record, a financial problem, or something in his or her personal life.
We started with a list of everyone who should be considered and then began narrowing it down to the truly viable candidates. Sometimes the media refers to the “long” list and the “short” list, but it’s really more like the list for public consumption and the real list of possible choices. There are lots of reasons why someone might be put on the list for public consumption. Perhaps you’re trying to placate a certain wing of the party, or maybe you want to attract those who supported your opponent in the primaries. And so you mention certain people, although there’s not a chance they will be chosen.
I began placing calls to each of the people on the real list and asking if they would agree to be considered. Some, like Senator Connie Mack of Florida, said no way. Connie actually said he’d never speak to me again if I put him on the list. For those who agreed, I explained that we would be sending a questionnaire similar to the paperwork federal employees fill out for employment or for security clearances and warned that it had some intrusive questions on it. I said that I would also be setting up one-on-one interviews. These would be low-profile—with no media attention—and I would have to ask some personal questions. Most candidates who end up on the short list are seasoned enough to know that if they are picked as the nominee, nothing about them will be off-limits and nothing can be counted on to stay secret. The press will start digging, and the other side will unleash opposition researchers. Your whole life will be an open book. Most people understood this and realized how important it was to give us a heads-up about anything that could possibly cause trouble or embarrassment or worse.
We also asked each potential candidate to submit ten years of tax returns; copies of speeches, books, and articles; and videotape of recent TV appearances. We thought long and hard about the best place to receive and store this very sensitive information. We couldn’t use