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Inside Chrysler, not surprisingly, the Iacocca legend has held sway for some time. He is adored by the 3,984 dealers, high-torque salespeople more temperamentally akin to Iacocca than many of his executive-suite colleagues. "Dealer meetings are particularly difficult," says Chrysler Public Affairs Vice President James Tolley. "We have to have security people to keep the dealers off him." Among Chrysler blue-collar employees, the admiration often seems more like a kind of fealty than mere employee loyalty. "I owe it all to Iacocca," says Sarah Haynes, a Chrysler assembly-line worker now back at work after a five-year layoff. "If the workers are saying he's great, it ain't no jive." One morning last November, 2,000 employees gathered at Chrysler's Sterling Heights, Mich., assembly plant for the ceremonial roll-out of Chrysler's new sports sedans. The workers chatted. They smoked cigarettes and fidgeted. Then, when their boss strode out, they got excited. A chant rose up: "Lee! Lee! Lee! Lee!"
Where his friend Iacocca is concerned, former United Auto Workers President Douglas Fraser is no longer surprised by such heretical outbursts of labor affection for management. "I get asked by people all the time to have Lee autograph copies of his book," says Fraser, whom Iacocca put on Chrysler's board five years ago. "Even at Solidarity House." Solidarity House is U.A.W. headquarters.
But beyond Detroit, beyond Michigan and the auto industry, the breadth of popularity is truly remarkable. "He went out and did exactly what he said he was going to do," says Gordon North of Rochester, Minn. "He's probably the most honest man in America." Even the left-leaning Nation magazine permits kind thoughts for this particular captain of industry. "Iacocca is one of those rare adults who is capable of changing his mind," wrote Economist Robert Lekachman. Above all, Lekachman declared, "the juices of humanity course through his veins."
Why are people saying that a fleshy, overbearing auto executive should be President of the U.S.? What accounts for the rampant Iacoccamania? There are many reasons, if no pat explanation. He is powerful, a VIP, yet his bullish candor reminds people of a pal at the local tavern who calls 'em as he sees 'em. He is feisty and anti-Establishment, but his patriotism makes that posture seem safe and red-blooded. Partly, his popularity is a function of the times: two-fisted capitalism is in vogue. After a long period of feeling cranky and skeptical, the country seems in the mood to have a hero or two. Moreover, his life embodies just the kind of happy ending that Americans like to celebrate: he had reverses, he fought back, he came out on top.