Cheney Taps Into Grit of American West
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
When it comes to image-making for the presidential campaign, everyone wants to wear the mantle of brawny Americana.
President Bush chomped on a raw ear of corn during a campaign stop in Iowa. Senator Kerry – despite his calls for a “sensitive” war – donned an enormous black cowboy hat in Missouri, and then posed before the backdrop of the Grand Canyon.
But if the candidates really want to tap into the grit of the American West – and absorb the uber-manliness equated with it – they should look to Vice President Cheney.
While the images of Mr. Cheney with the most currency have a dark, sinister quality to them – he’s the Hollywood-style “big oil” capitalist or the Washington insider so crafty that he is the power behind the throne – his background is packed with amber waves of grain. He possesses the old-school brand of American masculinity that the rest of the men in this campaign are trying to capture.
The idea of Mr. Cheney as a slap-on-the back, solid guy has been put forward on the campaign trail lately because he is so frequently compared to his Democratic rival, Senator Edwards of North Carolina.
The Democrats – Messrs. Edwards and Kerry – have brought attention to their good looks and plentiful hair, giving Republicans the opportunity to emphasize Mr. Cheney’s substance-over-style approach.
“I appreciate my running mate,” Mr. Bush said in a speech in Springfield, Mo. “I tell you, he’s not the prettiest man in the race, but he’s got sound judgment and he’s got great experience in national security. He’s a steady man.”
Even Mr. Cheney makes the self-deprecating comparison. In his stump speech delivered in Yakima, Wash., he said: “People keep telling me that Senator Edwards got picked for his good looks, his charm, and his great hair. And I say, ‘How do you think I got the job?'”
Yet as Mr. Cheney pokes fun at himself for the qualities he lacks, he’s also reminding voters who he is: a tough, no-frills man who gets things done – a Beltway Clint Eastwood, sneering at terrorists.
Born in Lincoln, Neb., Mr. Cheney grew up in Casper, Wyo., where his father – a federal soil conservationist – was transferred during the Eisenhower administration.
As a boy, Mr. Cheney saw the West from his grandparents’ car on the Union Pacific railroad, for which his grandfather was a cook.
In high school, he was class president and captain of the football team. Though he was recruited to Yale, he was booted after three semesters for hitting the bars instead of the books.
Back in Wyoming, he got a blue-collar union job running a power line from Rock Spring to the Flaming Gorge Reservoir for the local electric company.
He married his high school sweetheart, Lynne, finished up his studies at the University of Wyoming, and turned his attention to politics, in which he enjoyed swift success.
Starting as an aide to Donald Rumsfeld, Mr. Cheney ascended quickly and wound up as chief of staff to President Ford; at 34, he was the youngest person to hold such a post.
In 1977, he was elected to Wyoming’s only House seat, and he represented the state for 10 years. From 1989 to 1993, he served as defense secretary under Bush pere.
Ambition in Washington is no shocker. What’s increasingly uncommon is Mr. Cheney’s approach: like a power lineman working mile-by-mile, he worked hard and gained ground. It was an old-fashioned outlook that put rolling up one’s sleeves over schmoozing at cocktail parties.
By contrast, Mr. Edwards, of the megawatt smile and smooth bearing, was tapped as the vice presidential candidate after not even one complete term in the Senate.
While looking at the surface of Mr. Edwards is easy on the eyes, looking for clues to Mr. Cheney’s character is like gazing into a negative-space drawing.
In his dress and style, Mr. Cheney rarely turns heads. “There is nothing that distracts you from the fact that he is a man of great judgment,” said Juleanna Glover Weiss, a former staffer.
Where he buys his suits and ties is another of his famous undisclosed locations. Such questions are summarily dismissed by those who know him. “It’s inconsequential to him and what he’s all about,” said the vice president’s former assistant for domestic policy, Cesar Conda. “He’s a very private man.”
For recreation, Mr. Cheney goes fly-fishing. But not because a focus group said it would look good or because the campaign needed outdoorsy images. It is his hobby. He likes to fish. According to one aide, he enjoys the solitude.
Those who’ve worked for him describe the vice president at work as thorough, patient, and quick with a funny story (often drawn from his varied experiences) with a lesson. He reads the briefing books his staff creates – as opposed to sheets of talking points.
Mr. Cheney’s communications director, Kevin Kellems, finds his boss uncommonly even-keeled: “He’s focused, rather than intense. He’s seen it all be fore, has thick skin and a sense of humor, and doesn’t get uptight.”
“He is exceptionally gracious with his staff. He’s almost indulgent because he himself was a consummate staffer,” Ms. Weiss said. “You respect him because there is no bluster.”
Except, notably, when provoked. In June, after Senator Leahy, a Democrat of Vermont, criticized Mr. Cheney’s connections to Halliburton, the vice president told the senator to “go (expletive) yourself.”
More in keeping with the controlled Cheney style was the exchange back in 2000, when the presidential candidate Bush called a reporter a “major-league (expletive)”and Mr. Cheney responded with that cutting, now-classic harrumph: “Oh yeah. Big time.”
Also in keeping with Mr. Cheney’s lack of flashiness are his rare appearances in public, at least until this campaign got under way.
“Unless you are a heavy media watcher, you don’t see him on the shows. He doesn’t exist for you,” said Brent Baker, vice president of the Media Research Center.
That doesn’t lend itself well to changing the Halliburton-and-cigars image. “Negative press has a greater impact because people don’t have a contrasting positive view of him,” Mr. Baker said.
With the campaign in full swing, however, Mr. Cheney’s interviews on radio and television – especially on the cable news networks – have increased dramatically, as have his public speeches. But the purpose of his appearances is typically to advance an administration point – not to associate himself with a world full of toddlers and sunshine. Instead, Mr. Cheney seems to emerge from a cloud of dust, like a lumbering Marlboro Man just willing enough to grind out a threat: “We are fighting the war on terror, and we will win the war on terror,” he told the crowd in Parma, Ohio.
And you just know they believed him.