Worldandnation: Gore's campaign chief Coelho quits

Gore's campaign chief Coelho quits

Facing criticism and investigations, Tony Coelho cites health reasons for his decision to resign as campaign manager.

By SARA FRITZ

WASHINGTON -- Al Gore's embattled campaign manager, Tony Coelho, resigned for health reasons Thursday amid intense controversy among Gore supporters over his stewardship of the Democrat's presidential campaign.

Coelho, a former California congressman, will be replaced by Commerce Secretary Bill Daley, a well-respected Democratic political strategist and son of the late Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley.

While on the campaign trail, Gore issued a statement describing Coelho as "a valuable friend and adviser" who would continue to be consulted by the campaign unofficially.

Coelho recently has come under heavy criticism from others in the campaign for his take-no-prisoners leadership style. At the same time, he was facing investigations of impropriety connected with earlier government jobs.

Thus his health problems were widely viewed within the Democratic Party as the perfect opportunity to make a graceful exit from the Gore campaign.

Coelho's departure marks another in a series of changes by Gore in his search for a formula to defeat Republican candidate George W. Bush. In recent weeks, Gore has shifted from an attack dog approach to a more soft-edged campaign style.

Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes expressed sympathy for Coelho, but added: "I wonder whether naming a new chairman involves yet another reinvention of the Gore campaign. Which Vice President Gore will campaign next week?"

Coelho indicated his resignation was unplanned and prompted solely by a medical emergency. His decision coincidentally comes on his 58th birthday, which also is the 11th anniversary of his dramatic resignation from Congress in 1989. Coelho quit in the face of a Justice Department investigation into a secret $100,000 junk bond investment he made with money supplied by Drexel Burnham Lambert.

Now the Justice Department is engaged in a new investigation of Coelho, this one involving alleged financial irregularities in his work as commissioner general of the U.S. pavilion at Expo '98 in Lisbon, Portugal. Some of Coelho's deputies in the Expo project have been notified that they soon will be called to testify before a federal grand jury.

In addition, the Securities & Exchange Commission is investigating charges of self-dealing by Coelho and his former partners in a company that owned two New Jersey horse tracks. And the General Accounting Office, the watchdog agency for Congress, has launched an inquiry into allegations that Coelho abused his prerogatives during a brief stint as chairman of the Census Monitoring Board, the job he left when he joined the Gore campaign in May 1999.

In a telephone interview with the Associated Press from his bed at a suburban Arlington, Va., hospital, Coelho said he was resigning on the advice of his physician after being diagnosed with diverticulitis, an inflammation in the intestines. He said the stress of his job also had caused him to suffer an unusual number of epileptic seizures, a condition that resulted from a blow to the head in childhood.

"I just hit a wall and my health comes first," he was quoted as saying.

In many ways, Coelho brought stunning improvements to a campaign that was seriously flagging when he arrived last May. But while he was successful in helping Gore win the Democratic nomination, Coelho's autocratic style also made many enemies among some of the top echelon of workers at campaign headquarters in Nashville, Tenn. His critics there have been agitating for a change of leadership for weeks.

Daley, 51, joined the Clinton cabinet in December 1996 as the president was gearing up for a second term. His arrival at the Commerce Department was welcomed by many employees as a respite from the controversy that surrounded his two predecessors, the late Ron Brown and Mickey Kantor. In fact, Daley was said to have been Gore's first choice for campaign manager last year, but Daley was reluctant to leave the administration.

Daley joined Gore on the campaign trail in Cincinnati after his appointment was announced. "I think the campaign is in very good shape. We have to implement the game plan laid out," he told reporters.

Daley's influence will be helpful in Illinois, an important battleground state for Gore and Bush. But his strong advocacy of free trade, most recently evidenced in his lobbying for permanent normal trade relations with China, does not sit well with organized labor, a traditional Democratic constituency.

Gore said he recruited Daley for the job during a telephone call Wednesday night. It was not until Thursday, however, that President Clinton was informed of the new vacancy in his cabinet, Gore said.

The timing of Coelho's resignation was not particularly helpful for Gore, who is in the midst of a three-week road trip designed to gain attention for some new policy proposals. On Thursday, while much of the media was distracted by the Coelho announcement, Gore was unveiling a new tax-cut proposal.

Mark Fabiani, a former White House official and a newly hired communications guru for the Gore campaign, said the poor timing of Coelho's resignation was evidence that it was not planned -- at least not by the vice president. "To plan something like this for this week would not have been very smart," he said.