WARNING: This site deals only with the corporate corruption of science, and makes no inference about the motives or activities of individuals involved.
    There are many reasons why individuals become embroiled in corporate corruption activities - from political zealotry to over-enthusiastic activism; from gullibility to greed.
    Please read the OVERVIEW carefully, and make up your own mind.

OPINION ONLY

Some key documents

• Democrat and former campaign manager for Gore. He was also on the board of Microsoft's foundation Americans for Technology Leadership, and later became a lobbyist for Microsoft over the attempts at judicial breakup.

1992: Campaign Director working on the Democrat Al Gore campaign team. He became Political Director at the White House after the Clinton-Gore win in November.

1996: Working on the Democrat Clinton campaign team -

1998 Dec 1: [AP report]

Vice president Al Gore has not formally announced his intention to run for president but he already is putting together his team for a 2000 bid.

    White House political director Craig Smith has agreed to be Gore's campaign manager, according to several Democratic officials close to Gore. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Smith will be in charge of the day-to-day operation of Gore's campaign if the vice president decides to run.

1999 Apr 1: /E Republican party report "Gore 2000" ["Gore 2000 is not accepting PAC funds, tobacco or sugar money"] on the progress of the Democrat's vs the Republican's Presidential campaigns. Re: the Republican campaign it says:

Campaign Manager Craig Smith officially came on board since March 1. His first task will be to develop how the national political structure will be organized and the timetable for execution. Additionally, he will work directly with Bob Squire on the strategy and media plan. While officially a pollster has not been hired, it is believed Mark Penn (Penn & Shoen, Clinton/Gore '96) will be involved.

1999 May 11: New York Times article: Gore Adds Former Whip To Campaign

Vice President Al Gore, seeking to add political firepower to his campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination, has enlisted former Representative Tony Coelho of California as a top strategist, several Gore advisers said today.

    Some of Mr. Gore's advisers said that they were not certain of Mr. Coelho's title, that it might not have been worked out, but that he would play a central strategic role in the campaign. It was not clear how that would affect Mr. Gore's campaign manager, Craig R. Smith, a former White House political director.

1999 Oct 7: New York Times:

Arriving in Tennessee to cut the ribbon on his headquarters, Vice President Al Gore continued to put a new face on his presidential campaign yesterday, naming a black woman to his inner circle and promising supporters a "rip-tootin' " candidacy.

    In introducing the "new" campaign, Gore announced that Donna Brazile, the deputy campaign manager and national political director, would be the campaign manager, replacing Craig Smith, whose duties were largely superseded when Tony Coelho became campaign chairman in May.

1999 Dec 6: Article in The American Prospect "Coelho and Company"

Gore's decision to hire former California congressman Tony Coelho as his campaign's general chairman was met at the time with a mix of relief, bewilderment, and disgust.

    Few doubted Coelho's organizational talents, but those talents came with undeniable baggage. Coelho made his name in the 1980s by pressing up against the outer frontiers of legality and propriety in his efforts to raise money for the Democratic Party, first as head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and then later as majority whip.

    And though Coelho was forced to resign from the House in 1989 in the face of a looming campaign finance-related ethics investigation, the influence of the work he did back in the 1980s has ramified powerfully into the present. Coelho's former finance director back at the DCCC, Terry McAuliffe, later resurfaced as one of President Clinton's most important fundraising wizards (as well as mortgage guarantor for the Clintons' new house in Chappaqua, New York). Coelho personifies the party's renewed reliance on big corporate money and the host of compromises that entails.

    Whatever one makes of Coelho's past, his effect on the vice president's campaign has been far broader than fundraising. Since taking over in May, he has cut a deep swath of firings and shake-ups. One of the first to depart was Ron Klain, Gore's chief of staff. Coelho then hired longtime Gore friend Carter Eskew to coordinate message for the campaign. This move displaced campaign media chief Bob Squier , another longtime associate of the vice president, who had been Eskew's business partner and mentor until a bitter falling-out in early 1992. Coelho neglected to tell Squier he was hiring Eskew until just before he announced it to the press.

Like Coelho, Eskew came with baggage. While the Clinton-Gore administration has made the fight against Big Tobacco one of its most consistent policy goals, Eskew masterminded Big Tobacco's ultimately successful $40 million ad campaign to fend off tough anti-tobacco legislation in the 105th Congress.

    For many older Democratic liberals, Coelho's fundraising practices at the DCCC amount to a permanent taint and signal that the vice president's campaign will continue the cautious, business-friendly politics of the Clinton administration. (Coelho has been one of the voices counseling caution on environmental policy, lest the vice president scare off business support.)

    But, for the younger generation of Democrats who are the foot soldiers of Gore's 2000 campaign, it's Eskew's transgression that cuts far deeper. As one Gore staffer, who says he's made his peace with Eskew's new role, recently told me, "Having done what he did, I don't know how he sleeps at night. I guess he's sleeping on a bed of cash."

    But by the time of the move to Nashville, Squier had left the campaign, leaving Eskew with undisputed control over campaign message; pollster Mark Penn had been sacked in favor of Harrison Hickman; campaign manager Craig Smith had been replaced by longtime Democratic organizer and strategist Donna Brazile; and a host of lesser-known figures had been eased out as well.

    But by the time of the move to Nashville, Squier had left the campaign, leaving Eskew with undisputed control over campaign message; pollster Mark Penn had been sacked in favor of Harrison Hickman; campaign manager Craig Smith had been replaced by longtime Democratic organizer and strategist Donna Brazile; and a host of lesser-known figures had been eased out as well.

Another revealing sign of just how institutionalized Clinton-Gore had become was Gore's choice of Craig Smith as his campaign manager. Smith had worked for Bill Clinton, in one fashion or another, since the late 1980s; he was the first staffer hired by Clinton's first presidential campaign, opening an office across the street from the governor's mansion on Clinton's instructions back in early 1991. Smith's ouster was likely due more to his rŽsumŽ than to any inherent personal failing. But like many others leaving the Gore campaign, for Smith, running a presidential campaign had become less a chance of a lifetime than a quadrennial exercise.

    Of course every political campaign is a bundle of egos and ambitions, momentarily yoked together to achieve a common goal, if sometimes for rather different reasons. But Gore's original staffers seemed inordinately focused on their own reputations and professionalism rather than Gore's electoral fate.

    The contrast between Smith and his successor Donna Brazile is emblematic, in another way, of the changing face of the vice president's campaign. Associates describe Brazile as savvy, brassy, aggressive, in your face —words that can sound admiring or less than charitable, depending on the tone with which they are delivered.

2003 Jan 31: Craig T Smith became the manager of Senator Joseph Lieberman's presidential campaign.

Campaign Director and Senior Advisor Craig T. Smith
Responsible for setting the overall strategy and direction of the campaign. (Announced Jan. 31, 2003)

• Senior Vice President at Capitol Management, a government and business relations firm;
• previously President of the public affairs firm Chief Advantages.

Smith is a native Arkansan and spent almost all of the 1990s working for Bill Clinton and Al Gore. He served as

• Finance Director of the Clinton for President Exploratory Committee;
• Field Director of the 1992 Clinton/Gore campaign;
• Political Director of the DNC;
• Deputy Director of White House Personnel;
• Deputy Director of White House Office of Political Affairs;
• Deputy Campaign Manager and Political Director of the 1996 Clinton/Gore reelection campaign;
• Co-Executive Director of 53rd Presidential Inaugural Committee;
• White House Political Director;
• Campaign Manager for Gore 2000 from January 1999 until it moved to Nashville.

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