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Economic heavy-hitters lead campaign teams

John Kerry is surrounding himself with some of the top names in business to tout his message and drive home the shortcomings of President Bush's policies.

Formidable politicians, they are. Big business executives, they are not.

Backed with the money of rich family friends, George W. Bush once started and ran Texas oil exploration businesses with little success and plenty of losses for his investors.

John Kerry briefly operated a two-man law firm in Boston specializing in wrongful death cases and what Kerry has called "a string of relatively notorious hair implantation cases." He even started a cookie shop called Kilvert & Forbes (named after the maiden names of the co-founders' mothers). Kerry sold his interest, but not before the founder of the David's Cookies chain claimed Kerry stole the idea from him.

As tepid business entrepreneurs in the 1970s and 1980s, Bush and Kerry got a taste of the hard-knock ways of commerce before moving on to the world of politics. Now locked in a tight race for the White House, the two presidential candidates also learned some sound political lessons along the way.

First: To win big elections, smart economic policies count a lot.

Second: Winning the support of at least some of the business community helps in fundraising, but it is critical for a candidate's economic credibility.

Third: Achieving the goals of the first two lessons requires a crack team of economic advisers.

With U.S. businesses a traditional Republican ally, President Bush has the easier path. He also enjoys the advantage of making his case with the high-profile members of his Cabinet - from his treasury secretary to his labor secretary - who were recruited from corporate America's top echelons.

Fresh from the Democratic National Convention, Kerry faces a tougher sale. More than a few executives recall Kerry early this year labeling them Benedict Arnold CEOs for outsourcing U.S. jobs overseas. Kerry says that was said in the heat of the competitive primaries and was meant to reach workers, the core Democratic voters.

Kerry argues he is probusiness, or at least proeconomy and antideficit. That's the message Kerry's inner circle of economic advisers wants to convey to the U.S. business community.

That team consists mostly of former Clinton administration experts. One adviser, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who is now a Citigroup executive, sat next to Teresa Heinz Kerry as her husband accepted the party's nomination last week at the Democratic National Convention.

The most elusive commodity for Kerry - prominent CEOs - are starting to emerge as advisers and active supporters. Among the prominent: Berkshire Hathaway chief and billionaire Warren Buffett, Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs and former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca.

Recruiting is slow. Many business leaders initially were disappointed last month when Kerry named Sen. John Edwards, a trial lawyer who made millions suing corporations, as his running mate.

The task of rallying more CEOs to Kerry belongs to Wall Street financiers Roger Altman and Steve Rattner. So far they have attracted, among others, Bear Stearns president Warren Specter, Symantec Corp. chairman John Thompson and IAC/InterActiveCorp (which owns Home Shopping Network in St. Petersburg) CEO Barry Diller. Billionaires Bill Gates, George Soros and Donald Trump are also in Kerry's camp.

This month, the Kerry campaign is expected to announce more than 100 additional business supporters, including dozens of CEOs.

On the surface, Kerry's economic team looks a lot like the team that helped power Clinton to two terms in the White House and guided U.S. economic policy during the longest economic expansion in the modern era of the country. There's risk and reward in Kerry's choice. The candidate does not want to look like he is simply mimicking Clinton. But if this economic team was so successful then, why not give it a chance to make it happen again?

* Gene Sperling: Clinton's former "MVP" of economic advisers wants to be sure the Kerry-Edwards economic message stays centrist and away from any traditionally liberal spin that hints of "big spender." He's tops at finding weaknesses in Bush's policies: the huge fiscal deficit; a jobless recovery followed by new jobs that pay less; and a Republican disregard for the nation's outsourcing fears. He's even a contributing writer and consultant on the NBC TV drama The West Wing.

* Laura D'Andrea Tyson: Clinton's onetime chief economist and dean of the London School of Economics now helps Kerry tell the story of "Two Americas" - the rich and prosperous one, and the larger one made up of people who feel squeezed by flat wages and spiraling health care costs.

* Roger Altman: Clinton's former deputy treasury secretary resigned in 1994 after getting caught up in the Whitewater scandal. But the deficit hawk is back counseling Kerry as head of a Wall Street banking boutique called Evercore Partners. The firm has had some big merger deals, including Viacom's purchase of CBS and the General Mills acquisition of Pillsbury. If Kerry wins, he could become Treasury secretary.

* Steve Rattner: The onetime New York Times correspondent built a new career cutting big media company deals as a Wall Street financier. He now heads the Quadrangle Group investment firm, best known for media and telecommunications deals. Comcast tapped Rattner's expertise when it tried to purchase Walt Disney (the deal never happened). Rattner also helped Al Gore in 2000. Rattner's wife, Maureen White, is the finance chair of the Democratic National Committee.

* Warren Buffett: With $40-billion, the world's second richest man and a Democrat who advised Arnold Schwarzenegger in his campaign in California, says he does not like Bush's tax cuts that favor the wealthy.

* Lee Iacocca: The former Chrysler CEO tells his many Republican friends the world is changing. "We need a leader who will level with us about how we can adapt to that change," he told a crowd recently at San Jose State University. Kerry says Iacocca - who in 2000 appeared in TV ads for Bush - now backs him because he will fight to reduce the deficit.

Just how solid a rebound remains unclear, after the government reported Friday that economic growth in the spring has slowed considerably from the rapid pace of the past year, and consumer spending had dropped to the weakest rate since the slowdown of 2001.

Also Friday, the White House projected that this year's deficit will hit a record $445-billion, a figure bound to aggravate the campaign season debate over fiscal responsibility.

Still, the message from Bush's team remains focused. The tax cuts are starting to pay off. Business is picking up. So why, the team argues, change anything right now? Among Bush's key economic players:

* John Snow: He replaced Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, pushed out for disloyalty and speaking his independent mind. Snow is Bush's point man, known for "staying on message" and spreading good news about the economy. Snow joined the Bush administration from CSX Corp. The Jacksonville-based railroad giant last week said earnings fell 6 percent and has laid off about 900 workers.

* Don Evans: A longtime and loyal oil-and-gas friend to Bush, the Commerce secretary says tax cuts are pumping new life into the economy and offering a soft landing to the recession.

* Elaine Chao: A former board member of St. Petersburg's Raymond James Financial, the Labor secretary is busy trying to sell Bush's new overtime regulation as a plus for employees - and not a new tool to cut the paycheck of as many as 6-million workers.

* Stephen Friedman: After replacing Larry Lindsay - sacked for poor sales skills - at the White House as director of the National Economic Council, he's low-key and best at telling how Bush's tax cuts will help the economy.

* Greg Mankiw: The respected Harvard economist turned chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers succeeded Glenn Hubbard, who resigned in early 2003. With a $1.4-million advance, Mankiw authored a bestseller introductory college textbook, Principles of Economics, in which he wrote that an economist claiming tax cuts pay for themselves is like a "snake oil salesman who is trying to sell a miracle cure." Mankiw, who calls things as he sees them, landed on the hot seat in early 2004 by saying job outsourcing to cheap-labor countries eventually will benefit the United States. That may be true, but he is rumored to be heading back to Harvard next year.

For the Bush team, there's a curveball approaching. Pitching tax cuts was the message of Bush's first term. In a second term, Bush's economic message may carry a different tune because of the hefty federal deficit. And that, some economists suggest, means Bush may seek fresh economic faces to market new policies.

Just like top sports franchises, the players on elite economic teams are always subject to the whims of the owners.

Robert Trigaux can be reached at 727 893-8405 or trigaux@sptimes.com