Carter's Professional Politician

Tim Kraft goes all out for his boss--and wins some friends

"You could get a hearing, sure," says Minnesota Democratic Chairman Rick Scott, describing the White House during Jimmy Carter's first 15 months in office. "But the guy supposedly listening was always tapping a pencil on the table. Now it's different. They listen."

This transformation was wrought by Tim Kraft, the Hoosier with a Pancho Villa mustache who two months ago became the President's chief coordinator on political liaison and patronage. Kraft's job is to improve Carter's relations with Demo cratic Party officials and contributors, to help get the President's programs through Congress and to help get him re-elected in 1980. Although Kraft is one of the Pres ident's top staffers, he has re mained almost invisible. White House Correspondent Laurence I. Barrett reports on Kraft at work:

His close friend and mentor, chief Presidential Aide Hamilton Jordan, calls him "Crafty," a wordplay on his name, not his style. Timothy Earl Kraft, 37, has a reputation for directness and reliability as well as a dis arming aw-shucks mien and slow, quiet drawl. Says a White House staffer: "He's more of a good ole boy than the Georgians."

Kraft also has more of a taste and talent for political detail work than the Georgians, in cluding Carter, whose disdain for party regulars was an asset during the campaign but has been a weakness in office. "Some things were falling between the cracks," acknowledges Jordan, who recommended that Kraft's $56,000-a-year fence-mending post be created.

To court state party leaders, Kraft has started a series of White House breakfasts where they get a chance for candid exchanges with Cabinet officials--and a chance to see the President. Most of the guests come away impressed. "Sure, it's an ego massage," says Scott. "But it pays off. It builds a relationship." Kraft and his staff of four also try to spot opportunities outside of the White House for Carter to make allies. "We're not out to politicize the White House," Kraft says, "but we've got to use the political resources we have better than before."

Thus, when Carter last week went to Texas for a $ 1,000-a-couple Democratic fund-raising dinner in Houston, Kraft added speeches in the districts of two in fluential House members, James Wright and Jack Brooks, to Carter's schedule.

Kraft also made certain that the Presi dent would have a bouquet of good news for his hosts, ensuring a welcome in a state where his popularity has been falling fast. Carter announced that Ellington Air Force Base, which was scheduled to be closed, will be taken over instead by NASA --thereby saving about 1,000 jobs in the Houston area. In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency will grant $6.4 million to expand a sewage treatment plant in Fort Worth.

Working closely with Democratic National Chairman John C. White, Kraft also plays the quiet troubleshooter in a variety of delicate situations. For instance, in Puerto Rico, rival factions for two years have been contending for control of the party apparatus. One of the issues is whether the island will have a presidential primary in 1980 or continue to select convention delegates by caucus. Kraft, who speaks Spanish well and has built a strong bond with the group backing primaries, helped to coax a "compromise" through the Democratic National Committee that favors the pro-Carter faction and im proves the prospects for a primary. Should Carter face a challenge from another Democrat in 1980, he would benefit from an early contest in a friendly setting.

Kraft is an old hand at local politics. Among his earliest memories as a child in Republican Noblesville, Ind., are the thumping defeats suffered by his Democratic relatives in campaigns for local of fice. After majoring in government at Dartmouth ('63) and spending two years in the Peace Corps building latrines and wells for Guatemalan villagers, Kraft became a kind of political nomad: to Washington for a time as a Peace Corps recruiter, to Mexico with the 1968 Olympics committee, to California for a bit part in Jesse Unruh's unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign, back to Indiana to manage a losing congressional race, off to the West as a roving Democratic fund raiser. Between jobs, he escaped for travel in South America or Europe, or for backpacking and skiing in the U.S. In 1974, while serving as executive director of the Democratic Party in New Mexico, he met Jimmy Carter. "I was impressed," Kraft says, "though I thought he didn't have a chance to get the nomination." But Kraft joined the Carter campaign anyway, first as manager of Carter's crucial caucus victory in Iowa, later as director of Carter's climactic primary win in Pennsylvania.

The first White House job Kraft held was that of appointments secretary--the keeper of the presidential door and time clock. He has always had a comfortable relationship with his boss, though he has never been as close to Carter as Jordan or Jody Powell. Carter seems to welcome Kraft's puckish sense of humor.

Once, after Carter dressed him down for letting a day's schedule get too crowded, Kraft sent him a bogus schedule for the following Saturday--a day normally kept light. It was heavy with names of people Carter preferred not to see any day of the week.

Like Carter's other top assistants, Kraft is a total loyalist. "You have career people who are dedicated to the presidency and I admire that," Kraft says.

"But there must be some people who are dedicated solely to the President, people who go flat out for this particular President. For me the criterion is, 'What's best for Jimmy Carter?' "

Following that standard, Kraft drives his battered 1969 Ford to the White House by 8 a.m. every day, stays past 8 p.m. and puts in some weekend hours as well. There are job lists to consider, a sea of memorandums from the Cabinet departments, political invitations for presidential visits. Gone is the time for backpacking trips or even the occasional poker game that he once enjoyed. He counts himself lucky to spend a little time on Sundays at the pool in the backyard of the Georgetown house he shares with Jordan and Presidential Pollster Pat Caddell (Kraft's marriage broke up recently after just ten months).

It has been quite a change for the political vagabond who never held one job very long. "I don't mind," he says. "The work is stimulating. The people are great. And after all, it's a finite commitment. Just eight years."

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