Despite the victory for his economic package in the house last week, Clinton remains hamstrung by managerial problems. Disorganization, inexperience and internal rivalries often make it unclear who’s in charge: the official team of aides or Clinton’s informal “shadow” staff of close friends and political advisers. The disarray has touched both the substance and nuance of his message, from policymaking to the cosmetics of his personal appearance. Late last week he shuffled his senior staff to bring on a Republican with extensive White House experience, Washington pundit David Gergen.
The genesis of the shake-up was a visit last week from two of the president’s most trusted advisers. Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Washington attorney Vernon Jordan told Clinton that the problem began with him. They urged him to delegate some of his decision making to a stronger central figure so that he can bring his full attention to major policy questions. They warned that to continue the organizational status quo would be to guarantee fresh blunders like the firing of the travel office and the tarmac haircut. “Somebody’s got to be the central core,” says an adviser.
After the meeting, the White House floated a short-list of nationally prominent Democrats who could bring some badly needed savvy. It included John Sasso, who managed Michael Dukakis’s 1988 presidential campaign; New York investment banker and former House Democratic whip Tony Coelho, and attorney Harold Ickes, a longtime FOB who managed Clinton’s New York primary campaign. But by the weekend, Clinton sources told NEWSWEEK that the president had selected Gergen for the post of communications director and counselor to the president. Current Communications Director George Stephanopoulos would be moved out of his role handling the daily press briefings-where his relationship with reporters had deteriorated into a mutual loathing-back to what many consider his strong suit: staying at Clinton’s side as a political adviser.
Gergen, 51, editor at large at U.S. News & World Report and a commentator on PBS’s “MacNeil/LehrerNewsHour,” would bring the Clintonites broad new experience in the craft of presidential image making. He has served in three Republican White Houses, most recently as communications director for Ronald Reagan, where he helped shape the message that sold the first-term “revolution” of deep tax cuts and stepped-up military spending. For Clinton, Gergen could help gain bipartisan political support for another massive change in economic policy. “He’s someone who went through successfully what we are trying to do now.” said one aide. He also offers the administration a set of well-tuned political antennae. Last year he was one of the first Washington talking heads to take Ross Perot’s presidential candidacy seriously.
While younger Clintonites may regard a Reagan-era spin doctor as something of a stranger in their midst, Gergen stranger to Clinton. A fellow Southerner (North Carolina), he is a pioneering participant in the annual Renaissance Weekend for super networking Yuppies, which the Clintons have attended for the last decade. At last year’s gathering over the New Year holiday, Clinton and Gergen spent considerable time together.
At the weekend, it wasn’t clear whether Gergen would be joined by other new faces. But it’s difficult to believe that he is the sole answer to the systemic problems in the Clinton White House. The administration’s precocious twenty-and thirtysome-thing junior staffers have been the easiest targets for blame. Yet the more dubious track record belongs to the over-40 crowd. Chief of staff Mack McLarty and White House counsel Bernie Nussbaum are involved in the bungled firings and rehirings in the White House Travel Office. Despite the narrow victory in the House last week, Howard Paster is regarded as a weak congressional liaison by many Hill staffers. Zoe Baird’s in-house champion was Christopher. The string of blunders has led to intergenerational sniping, with many of the younger Clintonites interrupting their all-nighters and switching off their CD players to take their elders to task. “The kids are left to clean up all the s— from the adults,” says one young insider.
Any newcomers would bolster-if not eventually supplant-McLarty, an Arkansas utility executive and Clinton’s boyhood friend whose nice-guy demeanor (“Mack the Nice” is his nickname) and lack of familiarity with Washington ways is now considered a political liability. McLarty says the staffing problems are far from critical and can be easily fixed." Yes, I think we can do better," he told NEWSWEEK. “And we’re in the process of doing that.”
Powerful coterie:One key challenge will be to bring Clinton’s own disheveled managerial style under control. All roads lead to the president: more than a dozen aides have direct access to the Oval Office. That does not include the powerful coterie of untitled FOBs (including attorney Susan Thomases, Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason), many of them connected to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who give advice on such matters as personnel and town meetings. Nor does it take in the handful of political advisers (James Carville, Mandy Grunwald, Paul Begala and Stan Greenberg) who carry out high-level assignments. The result is an endless seminar on politics and public policy. It nurtures Clinton’s love of detail and obsessive inability to make final decisions.
Last week provided more evidence that Clinton needed immediate help. Cosmetic embarrassments continued: the White House was forced to apologize after a New Hampshire anchorwoman was asked to apply makeup to Clinton’s face before an interview (an aide explained that no one was along on the trip to do it). And now Hillary Clinton has joined her husband in hair hell. The New York Times reported that two magazines paid a total of $2,750 to bring the Beverly Hills hairstylist Cristophe and a makeup artist to Washington recently to prepare her for cover shoots. While the administration fought for its political life in the House, it sank deeper into Travelgate, now the subject of multiple investigations. The White House rehired five of the seven office staffers dismissed last month and acknowledged that it asked an FBI official to redraft a public statement on the matter to say that further “criminal investigation” was warranted.
Clinton’s vaunted cadre of political consultants is also losing some of its luster. Former campaign manager Carville is working on races in three states, writing his political memoirs with girlfriend Mary Matalin and delivering speeches for lucrative fees. Although he was back at the White House for meetings last week, he sometimes seems invisible during a crisis. Begala, responsible for a communications plan to sell the economic plan that barely survived the House, is occupied with the Senate race in Texas. It was Greenberg’s numbers that led the White House to underestimate the congressional mood for deficit reduction. Some staffers are bitter that they have managed to evade accountability. “They’re advisers,” one says sarcastically. “That’s the beauty of it. They don’t have to get involved.”
Clinton’s staff problems may have their roots in the crisis culture of his presidential campaign. In February 1992, Clinton had been left for dead in New Hampshire. Gennifer Flowers and the draft were generating a furor in the press. Surviving that collective nightmare remains the defining experience for many Clintonites. It left them embittered and deeply suspicious of anyone who wasn’t standing shoulder to shoulder with their candidate in his dark hours. That went especially for reporters and insiders from competing campaigns. At times, it seemed that the Clinton campaign drew its only real energy from I desperation. Despite the revisionist reputation it enjoys as a juggernaut, the reality is that it lurched along listlessly for months at a time, galvanized only when facing the precipice.
That same angry insularity and addiction to crisis has been brought to Clinton White House. So virtually no staffers from other Democratic camps have moved into senior positions. The closed ranks have spawned an inattention to political symbolism and nuance. The hair and travel debacles are the end result. Still, it’s easy in the recent turbulence to lose sight of the administration’s accomplishments-and what it stands to accomplish should it succeed. “The American people won’t care if Bill Clinton cuts his hair in a Mohawk and dyes it purple if he delivers on the economy and health care,” says Begala. But if Clinton can’t get his house in order, then those two aspirations are surely at risk.
George Stephanopoulos Dee Dee Chief spokesman wil Myers move aside Laid-back for veteran Californian communica- press secre- tor David tary wins Gergen. points for He’ll be de- sense of tailed to humor. But keeping Bill not as well connected as on track. Stephanopoulos. Thomas (Mack) McLartyBernie “Mack the Nice” may Nussbaumnot have the First met edge to im- Hillary pose disci- when both pline. Is worked on the former House Wa- natural-gas tergate com- exec up to mittee. Now the chief of W.H. counsel mixed up staff job? in Travelgate.
Susan Harold Ickes Thomases Liberal New York pol is New York prized for his corporate practical po- lawyer and litical ad- Hillary pal is vice. Will much feared. keep low pro- Official port- file for now. folio: any- thing she wants. HarryMarianThomasonWright Sitcom pro- Edelman ducer blun- Hillary mentor and dered when confidant from their he liiked days togeth- into W.H. er at the travel busi- Children’s ness for air- Defense charter Fund. Hus- friends. Added to dam- band works age with manic TV blitz. at Health and Human Services.
