Dick Cheney was a Westerner. He grew up in Wyoming. He was a college dropout at one point, seemed a little at loose ends. Then he married Lynne Cheney, his wife, who set him straight. She was a very disciplined person from then, at that point and forever. He went to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin seeking a Ph.D. never got the Ph.D. He got an internship in Washington, and there he found his path working first as a congressional aide and then as the youngest White House chief of staff ever working for President Ford.