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Kantor's detractors are worried that he and Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, another lawyer-lobbyist and political operator, are using trade and industrial policy to buy business and labor support for Clinton's re-election. His admirers, however, say that Kantor's political skills are essential to win approval for Clinton's complex trade policy in Congress. Those skills, they say, were proved when Kantor took charge as chairman of Clinton's campaign during the Gennifer Flowers scandal and helped steady and revive both the candidate and his youthful staff. Kantor's role was diminished during the general election, though he was credited with negotiating a presidential- debate format favorable to Clinton.
Kantor, 53, was born in Nashville, Tennessee, where his family ran a furniture store near one of the sites of the Grand Ole Opry. He became a star shortstop on the baseball squad at Vanderbilt, and served four years in the Navy before studying law at Georgetown. While at the Los Angeles law firm of Manatt, Phelps, he helped elect politicians in the city and state and then represented clients -- including Occidental Petroleum and Lockheed -- in their dealings with government. He has usually supported liberal Democrats with strong ties to corporate interests: Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, former Vice President Walter Mondale, former California Governor Jerry Brown, Senator Alan Cranston and Clinton.
Kantor has known considerable personal tragedy; he lost his wife in a passenger-jet crash in 1978, and a 17-year-old son in a fiery auto accident 10 years later. He has two grown children, and a nine-year-old daughter by his second wife, former NBC reporter Heidi Schulman. An early riser, Kantor runs about five miles each morning and is at his office, in a small building a block from the White House, by 7.
For all his intensity as an advocate and negotiator, Kantor has a shambling charm that can be disarming. He was, for example, spotted making an early departure from a book party in Washington last week, absent the usual coterie of handlers and instead lugging his briefcase and dry-cleaning into the soggy night like any other commuter. He uses self-deprecating humor, sometimes muttering about his mistakes -- "Kantor muffs another one!" -- as if he were a play-by-play announcer. But Kantor still has the sharp reflexes that served him well as a shortstop, and he's determined that nothing is going to get past him in his new position.