In My Time - Dick Cheney [223]
I wasn’t on the road in 2004 as much as in 2000, since now I had a fulltime job, but when I did campaign, it was a family affair. Lynne traveled with me, and our daughter Mary, who was in charge of my campaign, was almost always with us. Liz, who had her fourth child and our first grandson, Philip, in July, didn’t do much traveling during the summer, but managed my preparation for the vice presidential candidates’ debate.
With my first grandson, Philip, at the vice president’s residence in the spring of 2006. (Official White House Photo/David Bohrer)
We frequently took our three granddaughters on the road. Kate, who was ten, threw out the first baseball for the Altoona Curve, a minor-league baseball team in Pennsylvania; Grace, four, rode at the front of the bus on bus tours and shouted “Four more years!” into a microphone; and Elizabeth, seven, dressed up as the Grim Reaper for Halloween.
In my West Wing office, with granddaughter, Grace Perry in her Nationals cheerleading uniform, getting ready for Opening Day, 2007. (Official White House Photo/David Bohrer)
Giving grandson Sam a ride on the vice presidential helicopter, Marine II, with Mary and Heather. (Official White House Photo/David Bohrer)
At our campaign stops that day, we introduced her as John Kerry’s health plan.
One place I spoke was at Cabela’s, a large sporting goods store, in East Grand Forks, Minnesota. We held a town hall meeting in front of a large array of stuffed mountain sheep, and, best of all, I got to do some shopping afterward. I later found out that great as the event was, we were in the wrong location. The Bush-Cheney campaign higher-ups had wanted us to hit the Fargo media market, which covers northwest Minnesota, but a snafu in logistics sent us to the Grand Forks media market—and Cabela’s—instead. But I thoroughly enjoyed the stop, and I’m not sure anyone at campaign headquarters ever figured out that we’d done the event eighty miles away from where we were supposed to—or if they did, they never said anything to me about it.
As I got ready to debate the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, I got my old debate prep team back together, with then Congressman Rob Portman of Ohio again serving as my sparring partner.
With Rob Portman, who played Joe Lieberman and John Edwards in my vice presidential debate preparation sessions in 2000 and 2004, watching video of John Edwards at our house in Wyoming, summer 2004. (Official White House Photo/David Bohrer)
All the buildup around Edwards and his skill as a trial lawyer led me to expect a formidable opponent when we met on October 5, 2004, at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. I came away from our session that evening feeling he hadn’t done much to prepare for the most important event either of us would participate in during the 2004 campaign.
There was one subject on which he had clearly done some planning. A little over halfway through the debate, moderator Gwen Ifill asked us about the president’s proposal for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages. Edwards opened his answer this way: “Let me say first that I think the vice president and his wife love their daughter. I think they love her very much. And you can’t have anything but respect for the fact that they’re willing to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter, the fact that they embrace her. It’s a wonderful thing. And there are millions of parents like that who love their children.” I was furious with his response. What gave him the right to make pronouncements about my family? But you never want to let the other guy get under your skin, so I kept my anger in check. When Ifill asked me if I’d like to respond, I said, “Well, Gwen, let me simply thank the senator for the kind words he said about my family and our daughter. I appreciate that very much.