She’ll get no argument there. Much has been made of Dick Cheney’s conservative voting record. But it is Lynne Cheney who has been the true right-wing warrior in the family. After a stormy tenure leading the National Endowment for the Humanities, she waged a campaign to have both the NEH and its larger cousin, the National Endowment for the Arts, abolished–a stand too extreme even for Charlton Heston, who opposed her. As a TV pundit, she argued forcefully for school prayer and against mandatory gun locks. All of which is probably great for Bush-Cheney; having Lynne around should reassure social conservatives. But she could get into trouble if she speaks her mind, and of course she will. “Nobody has ever suggested otherwise to me,” Cheney says. “It’s pretty hard to change your stripes when you’re almost 59.”
Lynne Vincent and Dick Cheney were sweethearts in the kind of ’50s high school that had a malt shop next door. She was homecoming queen; he starred in football. She earned a Ph.D. in literature at a time when it wasn’t all that common for women. Taking over the NEH in 1986, as political correctness was reaching its zenith, Cheney was determined to stop scholars from rewriting history to suit the new campus culture. Objective truth, she argued, was giving way to a culture of apology where every group had to be portrayed as a victim. She provoked an emotional controversy when she refused to fund a television series on the anniversary of Columbus’s voyage because it pronounced him guilty of genocide. Critics said Cheney stacked the agency with conservatives who had no scholarly credentials, and her enemies detested her style. “She behaved as if she were divinely appointed and it was inappropriate to criticize her,” says Stanley Katz, a Princeton professor. Says Cheney, “People get disgruntled when they don’t get the grants they think they deserve.”
Cheney has since settled into a less contentious life with her husband in Dallas. She has written or co-written four books–including a novel in which the vice president dies while having an affair–and is at work on a prescription to save K-6 education. Lynne’s passion lately has been playing hopscotch and jump-rope with her three granddaughters. “She’s my best friend,” says Cheney’s 34-year-old daughter, Liz.
The Cheneys have kept much of that family world private. Even close friends say Lynne has never discussed with them the revelation that her other daughter, Mary, is openly gay. Cheney says it’s off-limits. “I have just decided that the thing to do when the subject of either of my daughters comes up is to say, ‘They are wonderful women’,” she says; " ‘I’m not going to talk about their personal lives, no matter how you phrase the question’." There will be other questions; Gore aides are already prodding reporters about Lynne Cheney’s ultraconservative ties. Cheney may prove a difficult target, however. She has plenty of experience on the national stage, and her Western twang and easy laugh can be disarming. Just as long as you don’t call her combative.
