Richard Ben Cramer QUOTES

1 " It's like a drug, the feeling you could make a difference.... "

2 " Kennebunkport, all the “cottages,” and Walker’s Point in particular, had to do with America’s substitute for class—that is, money and power. The stern gentlemen in their wing collars and boater hats who built these oceanfront mansions were not the idle rich of their day. They were men of big works and large affairs ... they’d catch the State o’ Maine sleeper Friday night from New York and, forty-eight hours later, they’d kiss their children goodbye again for the overnight trip back to Wall Street or midtown. Kennebunkport was their creation, for lives of the most rapacious striving. "

― Richard Ben Cramer , What It Takes: The Way to the White House

3 " The white men on the Brinkley set were trying not to grin, like cheap lawyers at a ten-car pileup: Uh, did that mean Senator Dole didn’t think all the facts were out? Didn’t he believe the White House, that North and Poindexter were the only ones who knew? The Bobster dropped an eyebrow and rasped: “Aghh, don’t think Ripley’d believe that. "

― Richard Ben Cramer , What It Takes: The Way to the White House

4 " Anyway, the job didn’t call for deep thinking: if you thought too much, brought your insight and intellect to bear on the problems of the nation, you’d get out front of the President, or worse still, off to the side. That’s the surest way down the trash chute in the White House. There’s only one question that the Vice President needs to ask: “What’s the President saying on this?” Anything else is begging for trouble, and George Bush had brains enough to figure that out. "

― Richard Ben Cramer , What It Takes: The Way to the White House

5 " (Wide open! Some of these North Dakota towns made Russell, Kansas, look urban.) "

― Richard Ben Cramer , What It Takes: The Way to the White House

6 " If Steve Symms lost, it would turn the country over to liberals, to TEDDY KENNEDY! "

― Richard Ben Cramer , What It Takes: The Way to the White House

7 " Reagan kept saying the deficit was Public Enemy Number One. But then he sent up a budget that would have pumped red ink up over the window sills. "

― Richard Ben Cramer , What It Takes: The Way to the White House

8 " And he got to this woman, came up from behind ... (“So, folks, look me over. If you like what you see ...”) and gently, but decidedly, he put his hands on her. In Council Bluffs, Iowa! He got both hands onto her shoulders, while he talked to the crowd over her head, like it was her and him, through thick and thin. "

― Richard Ben Cramer , What It Takes: The Way to the White House

9 " with loyalty oaths waving as weapons in the hands of the know-nothing right, the values of liberal education seemed to hang in the balance in 1952. "

― Richard Ben Cramer , What It Takes: The Way to the White House

10 " They called in medics, but two got killed trying to get to Dole. "

― Richard Ben Cramer , What It Takes: The Way to the White House

11 " In the bad old seventies, when Mondale was Veep, and the government still worried about things like fuel and noise, the Vice President flew on small, efficient DC-9S. "

― Richard Ben Cramer , What It Takes: The Way to the White House

12 " But now, in the age of Reagan, Bush mostly flew a big old 707, the Stratoliner, a Cadillac-with-tailfins kind of plane, so heavy, noisy, and greedy for fuel that no commercial airline would be permitted to land one at an American airport. "

― Richard Ben Cramer , What It Takes: The Way to the White House

13 " Then he dipped his finger into Dole’s shredded jacket, and with Dole’s blood traced an “M” on his forehead. That’d let the medics know he’d had a shot—another would kill him, overdose ... if a medic ever got there ... if McBryar could spot one "

― Richard Ben Cramer , What It Takes: The Way to the White House

14 " A Governor could make all the difference in a state: KEAN: BUSH VISIT MEANS N.J. HAS A FRIEND IN WHITE HOUSE That would be the headline from Trenton, if the Governor, like Tom Kean, was a friend who’d billboard Bush’s day in the Garden State—his visit to that toxic-waste cleanup site, all the help he’d offered on that Superfund. ... Of course, if the Governor wasn’t a friend, then his appointed State Police Chief might find time to take a couple of press calls. ... That would be a different headline: BUSH VISIT WILL COST $200,000 IN OVERTIME "

― Richard Ben Cramer , What It Takes: The Way to the White House

15 " They’d show up overdressed, with black shoes and shirts that were meant to bear ties, and after a day, their noses would be burnt red, or their eyes would peer out from pale raccoon-masks, where their new sunglasses kept the skin Washington-white. They’d sit on the couches with their knees together, and they wouldn’t interrupt. They’d scowl at their agendas, or their notes—pages of typed stuff that could take days to get through ... plans on who would carry the ball on which portions of the discussion ... the Top Ten matters they had to take up with the Veep. They’d be lucky if they got to Two. "

― Richard Ben Cramer , What It Takes: The Way to the White House

16 " That’s what made it worse, in the end ... when he found out. Nixon had lied to him, personally. "

― Richard Ben Cramer , What It Takes: The Way to the White House

17 " Even a year later, Bush remarked to a friend, with uncharacteristic bluntness: “I wouldn’t care if I never see Richard Nixon again. "

― Richard Ben Cramer , What It Takes: The Way to the White House

18 " Yeah, they told me, just be yourself ... so I did. Maybe that was the problem. "

― Richard Ben Cramer , What It Takes: The Way to the White House

19 " Anyway, there were no bigger fans in town than Chet and Bub Dawson. (Chet was a diehard K-State fan. He’d claim: “If KU was playin’ Russia, I’d root for Russia.”) "

― Richard Ben Cramer , What It Takes: The Way to the White House

20 " In fact, Reagan couldn’t remember his grandchildren’s names, and he had no friends, only the husbands of Nancy’s friends. "

― Richard Ben Cramer , What It Takes: The Way to the White House

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