Clinton Announces More Second-Term Appointments - Dec. 13, 1996

Chicago Prepares To Welcome Democrats - July 31, 1996

U.S. Department of Commerce: Office of the Secretary

Clinton Follows A Tradition With Daley's Appointment

Daley Will Serve As The President's 'Politico-In-Chief'

By Bill Schneider/CNN

WASHINGTON (Dec. 17) -- When President Bill Clinton named William Daley to the Cabinet last week, the president was carrying on a great political tradition. Now formally, he nominated Daley to be secretary of commerce. What exactly does a commerce secretary do? That's easy: he's the politico-in-chief.

The job used to go to a different Cabinet officer -- the postmaster general.

Why the postmaster general? It's simple. He controlled patronage -- thousands and thousands of post office jobs in cities and towns all over the country. Patronage jobs rewarded the party faithful and oiled the party machine.

President Teddy Roosevelt established the tradition of rewarding the national party chairman of a successful presidential campaign with the job of postmaster general. The most renowned postmaster general was James Farley, Franklin Roosevelt's chief political operative and former chairman of the New York state and national Democratic parties.

Harry Truman continued the tradition by picking Democratic national chairman Robert Hannegan, who had played a key role in getting Truman named to the ticket in 1944, to be his postmaster general. President Dwight Eisenhower's politico-in-chief was Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield, ex-GOP national chairman and a legendary fund-raiser and organizer.

Lyndon's Johnson's postmaster general was Larry O'Brien, who managed the 1960 and 1964 presidential campaigns. The tradition ended under Richard Nixon in 1971, when the Post Office department was removed from the Cabinet and made a semi-independent agency, the U.S. Postal Service.

That's all well and good for the mail, but who would be the president's politico-in-chief? Nixon solved that problem by naming his chief fund-raiser, Maurice Stans, to the Cabinet job of commerce secretary. After all, patronage no longer mattered so much.

What mattered to the party now was money to buy TV ads. The biggest source of political money is business. And what does a commerce secretary do? He promotes American business. He does favors for business. He finds markets in other countries for U.S. business. And in return, he helps the party rake in contributions from business.

Stans got into a little trouble over Watergate, but the tradition of appointing a politico to the job of commerce secretary was established. Gerald Ford's commerce secretary was Rogers Morton, the Republican Party chairman. George Bush's was Robert Mosbacher, the finance chairman of the 1988 Bush campaign. Bill Clinton's first commerce secretary was Ron Brown, a former Democratic national chairman and operative for Ted Kennedy and Jesse Jackson. Brown's death was a treated by Democrats as a loss to the family.

"He led his party to the presidency," Clinton said of Brown. "He led the Commerce Department with imagination and distinction. He led American business to new global opportunities."

Brown was succeeded by Mickey Kantor, the U.S. trade representative and former national chairman of the Clinton-Gore 1992 campaign. Kantor knows where the money comes from and where it goes.

"If he does as well at Commerce as he did at the trade office, we are in very good hands indeed," Clinton said when he appointed him.

And now Clinton's choice is Bill Daley, a master politico. Daley was the 1996 Democratic convention coordinator. He also was chief advisor to his brother's campaign for mayor of Chicago, former Illinois chairman of the Clinton-Gore campaign and the man who got NAFTA approved.

"He embodies the values of hard work and fair play, faith and family that will serve him in very good stead as the secretary of commerce," Clinton said.

What does the name Daley mean in Chicago? It means clout. After all, isn't that what you want in a politico-in-chief?

As the late Speaker Jess Unruh of California once said, "Money is the mother's milk of politics." Jobs used to play that role. But patronage gave way to fund-raising, and the Cabinet position with political clout shifted from postmaster general to commerce secretary.

So if you want to get the president's attention, Secretary Daley will be the man to see. But remember what they used to say in his dad's Chicago political machine: "Don't send me nobody nobody sent."

This story originally appeared on CNN's "Inside Politics."