Moving quickly to heal a rift with a core constituency, Commerce Secretary William Daley, newly minted chairman of Al Gore’s presidential campaign, reached out to leaders of organized labor Friday to assuage their concerns about his role in shepherding international trade agreements the unions had vigorously opposed.
In a wide-ranging interview in his office, Daley tried to downplay any conflict between himself and leaders of organized labor. Unions differed with Daley over his spearheading of Clinton administration efforts to win congressional approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement and permanent normalized trade relations with China. Labor saw those pacts as exporting U.S. jobs.
“They have a problem about the [trade] issue,” Daley said. “I don’t think they’ve got a problem with me personally.”
“That’s exactly the case,” said Deborah Dion, an AFL-CIO spokeswoman. “We think he’s definitely got a proven ability to lead a great campaign.”
Vice President Gore met Friday with John Sweeney, AFL-CIO president, and Daley called Sweeney to arrange a meeting, Dion said.
Pulling together vital constituencies such as organized labor is one of the many challenges for Daley as he takes over as chairman of Gore’s campaign.
But his greatest challenge may be voters’ perception of his candidate. Daley acknowledged that Gore hasn’t yet clicked with many Americans whose votes he will need if he hopes to succeed President Clinton, the most popular Democratic president since the 1940s.
Gore must improve the way he projects his personal and leadership qualities in the five months remaining before the November election, Daley said, though he didn’t have an immediate prescription.
Daley blamed some of Gore’s current problems on voters’ lack of interest. Though Gore has been campaigning nearly non-stop for a year and served as vice president for 7 years, Daley insisted that voters haven’t paid much attention to the presidential election and that Gore can still shape his image.
The vice president’s task is “to come through as a person and as a leader,” Daley said. He then alluded to the historical challenge facing his party. “It’s tough for Democrats to win presidential elections. Don’t forget that,” he said.
Clinton’s role is still uncertain, Daley said.
“Um . . . I don’t know yet,” he said. “That’s a tough position because Democrats haven’t been in it since 1968,” Daley added, referring to the last time a Democratic vice president ran in the final year of an incumbent president’s term.
He said Gore must capitalize on key moments like the Democratic National Convention and presidential debates, when voters will be paying the most attention.
“I think they focus the American people on the race,” Daley said. “I firmly believe that the bulk of the American people are reacting viscerally [now]. They aren’t following this stuff. I think those events force them to follow this.”
Now, Daley said, voters are thinking “about their kids getting out of school, where to go on vacation and the high price of gasoline.”
For its part, the campaign of Republican presidential hopeful Texas Gov. George W. Bush mocked the idea that Gore was still a candidate defining himself to voters. It sent out a news release quoting similar assertions offered a year ago when Gore’s campaign was perceived to be struggling.
Barely 24 hours after he had received a post-midnight phone call from Gore asking him to take over as chairman, Daley was quickly emerging as a key public face for the campaign in a cluster of media interviews. Daley replaces former California congressman Tony Coelho, who resigned Thursday as chairman, citing health concerns.
Daley assumes the helm of Gore’s campaign at an important time. Gore has trailed in every recent national poll, and voters so far have shown a profound lack of interest in the campaign.
Sitting in a high-backed leather chair with a framed photo of his father, Mayor Richard J. Daley, prominent on one wall, Daley said Gore should continue to emphasize the strong economic record of the Clinton administration.
“To a degree, I guess Al Gore suffers because everybody takes this good economy for granted,” Daley said. “This is something we’ve got to keep working at.”
Daley said polls showing Gore trailing Bush, the presumed Republican nominee, didn’t worry him. A Los Angeles Times poll published Friday showed Bush with a 10 percentage-point lead. Daley cited 1992, when then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton was in third place, behind President George Bush and Texas billionaire Ross Perot.
In 1992, however, the country was emerging from a recession and Clinton successfully attacked Bush’s stewardship of the economy. Gore, on the other hand, has the benefit of running during a time of almost unparalleled prosperity.
Daley also said Gore is still emerging from Clinton’s shadow.
“I don’t think the real Al Gore is coming through,” Daley said. “People say he is really stiff. Well, he is really formal at times. But he does have a good sense of humor.”
What’s more, he said, the office of vice president doesn’t afford many opportunities to demonstrate leadership.
“A vice president isn’t a leader,” Daley said. “A vice president is in second place. It is his job to follow the president. That is what he has done. You can’t convince anyone you are a leader when you are the vice president, or the president is going to throw you out.”
While Gore is often criticized for seeming to reinvent his campaign, Daley countered that the media haven’t vigorously challenged Bush for his move back to the political center after a bruising primary campaign in which he rallied the GOP’s more conservative base.
“Nobody criticizes George Bush,” Daley said. “What is it? Can he be all things to all folks, which is basically what he is saying?”
Now, part of the job of criticizing Bush will fall to Daley, though he indicated he doesn’t relish that role. “My nature is not to be an attack person.” He also downplayed the role of all surrogates sent out to speak on behalf of the candidates.
“The chairman is to some degree a spokesperson, a public face,” Daley said. “But it gets down to the candidates. These people are on all these goofy talk shows. Nobody pays attention to them.”
Regarding the Republican candidate, Daley cited Bush’s lack of national experience as a vulnerability. And he suggested that Gore emphasize the state of the economy during the last Republican administration when the Texas governor’s father was president.
Daley, who has played a dutiful but decidedly secondary role in Clinton’s campaigns, now finds himself running an operation in the ultimate political pressure cooker.
Asked what lessons he learned from his father to apply today, he paused, then responded.
“Don’t answer your phone after midnight.”
