Known and Unknown_ A Memoir - Donald Rumsfeld [142]
I soon became concerned about running a campaign deficit. I had read about Democratic Senator John Glenn’s debt-ridden 1984 presidential campaign, and it raised concerns in my mind.21 Knowing Glenn from his days as an astronaut, I called him and asked about his campaign experience. He told me he had given the maximum a candidate was legally able to contribute to his own campaign, so to pay off his debts he had to try to raise additional funds. But few new donors were reaching for their wallets to contribute to a campaign that had already ended in a loss, and many of those who had contributed to his campaign already had given the maximum the law allowed or they could afford. The result was that members of Glenn’s campaign staff and a number of vendors were stiffed. It was a tough situation for an honorable man like Glenn, particularly since he had the financial capability to pay the debts personally. But many did not know the new campaign law prevented Glenn from doing so.22
If my campaign went on through the primary and we were not able to raise enough money, I knew I would be in the same position. As a conservative concerned about debt, the hypocrisy of running a campaign on a deficit was not appealing, particularly when I knew it would not be legal for me to personally pay it off. I concluded that I should not go forward, and announced my decision in April 1987, eight months before the first primary vote was scheduled.
From the sidelines, I watched the campaign unfold. In the Iowa caucuses, Dole from neighboring Kansas won, but Pat Robertson was a surprising second. Bush ran third. Then came the New Hampshire primary, where Bush had his longstanding New England roots and connections, his family name, and the money that came easily to an incumbent vice president and front-runner, allowing him to flood the airwaves and pull out a win, in part by attacking Dole as a secret tax raiser. Dole’s campaign began to falter.
At that point, I faced a decision. I could endorse no one, or I could endorse Bush, the likely winner, or I could endorse Bob Dole. I thought Dole would be a better president, so I endorsed him. So did Al Haig, another candidate who dropped out of the race about when I did. Bush went on to win the nomination and easily defeated his lackluster Democrat opponent, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis.
For me, the bright spot in the new Bush administration was the secretary of defense. I had not spent much time with Dick Cheney since I left Washington in 1977. He had since been elected to Congress from Wyoming while I was working in Chicago. Contrary to what people might have expected, considering our relationship, I don’t recall having any conversations with Cheney about the Defense Department during his four years in the Pentagon running it. He may have been sensitive to President George H. W. Bush’s attitude toward me and kept his distance. In any event, Cheney and I were each busy with our respective careers, his in Washington, D.C., and mine in business ventures from New York to Silicon Valley.
CHAPTER 20
Our Rural Period, Interrupted
In 1988, fourteen years after my dad died, my mother, Jeannette, was in the passenger seat in a car accident. The doctors thought she would recover, but bedridden, her inactivity led to pneumonia. Mom died at the age of eighty-four. She was a wise, wonderful, supportive figure throughout my life. She had been healthy before the accident, and my sister Joan and I weren’t ready to lose her. Still, I was grateful that each of our children had had an opportunity to know her well. At age fifty-six, both of my parents were now gone, which left me with a deep sense of loss.
In 1990, I became the chief executive officer of General Instrument Corporation (GI), a