The Dick Cheney I Knew

In July, 2000, I was in Philadelphia with the Bush campaign for the Republican National Convention. For months, Mark McKinnon and I had been working on the convention film to be shown before then Governor Bush’s acceptance speech.

There’s never much for regular campaign staff to do at conventions and I was mainly focused on finding a stagehand I could bribe to kill all the lights in the arena during the film, so that television cameras couldn’t cut away to the unusual collection of oddball delegates who were likely to be ignoring the film.

That was not exactly a full-time job. And when I got a call asking if I could drop by to talk to some folks about debate prep for the recently announced V.P. candidate Dick Cheney, I was glad to do it. I had been part of a small group helping with Governor Bush’s debate prep, so it didn’t come as a surprise.

I walked into a hotel conference room where Cheney was sitting at a table with his wife and two daughters, surrounded by a very serious-looking group of mostly men. I didn’t know a soul but assumed they must all be former CIA spooks or retired military. It felt more like what I imagined the Situation Room to be then the typically informal debate prep sessions we had at Governor Bush’s ranch in Crawford. I had expected a meeting with Cheney staffers — not the V.P. Nominee. I’d just finished a run through the very hot streets of Philly and was wearing shorts and a sweaty Ole Miss T-shirt. I stopped, taking the room in, wondering how I had been such an idiot not to ask more about the meeting and at least taken a shower and changed.

Cheney motioned me over and got up to shake hands saying, “I’m the guy who was in charge of helping Governor Bush pick his runningmate.” He flashed a lopsided grin I’d come to know well and asked, “How’d I do?” There was something about his bemused smile and open manner that put me at ease.

“Well, sir,” I answered, “I guess we’ll have to see how debate prep goes.” He laughed and Liz, his oldest daughter whom I’d learn was running debate prep, said emphatically, “Not so great so far.”

And that’s how I entered the very surprising Dick Cheney bubble.

Working in campaigns, I’ve been around my share of famous politicians, but I’ve never known anyone whose public image was more different than the private Dick Cheney I experienced. It was only in the later years of his life when Cheney spoke out about Donald Trump did the public persona begin to line up with the man I knew...