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Call it the Monica effect. For a year, the Lewinsky imbroglio has frozen the Democratic Party in place, making it impossible for any would-be candidate to position himself for the presidential campaign. "You can't pursue your long-term goals," says a Gephardt associate, "when you're smack in the middle of a 24-hour-a-day effort to keep the President and the party from going down the toilet." Never was Gephardt needed so badly as on Clinton's worst day, when the House debated the articles of impeachment and the Democratic leader implored his colleagues to "step back from the abyss." Only five Democrats defected. Later, at the White House, Gore stood up to say what many lawmakers thought: "I don't believe I have heard a finer speech on the floor of the House."
By then, their rivalry was turning into a partnership. They followed up their January 1998 dinner with private lunches in the Vice President's office. The meetings were kept so far below radar that one day last summer, Clinton's chief of staff Erskine Bowles sent out an urgent page to the President's senior advisers: Why is Gephardt at the White House? Where their staffs once fed the rivalry, the principals have begun to rely upon--and even trust--some of the same allies, notably Democratic uber-fund raiser Terry McAuliffe and current White House chief of staff John Podesta. It helped their new rapport that both had so much to lose in last November's midterm election. In late August, Gephardt conspicuously declared his support for Gore against renewed questions involving the Vice President's 1996 fund-raising activities. At a joint campaign event in St. Louis last October, the two heaped praise on each other--and Gore's senior aides were so solicitous that they carried the luggage for Gephardt's top people.
It was hard to miss the significance of Gore's constant declarations on the stump: "No one wants Dick Gephardt to be Speaker more than I do." And no one--with the possible exception of Gephardt--had logged more miles, raised more money or delivered more speeches than Gore. Though Gore was never particularly popular with his colleagues when he served on Capitol Hill, he now enjoys a substantial reservoir of goodwill and gratitude. And for the first time, when Clinton saluted Gore's "visionary leadership" during last month's State of the Union speech, Democrats actually cheered.
Today Gore finds himself with an almost insurmountable lead at a time when being front runner is more important than ever. With California moving its primary to early March, New York expected to do the same, and a host of Southern and Western states scheduling theirs in the weeks that follow, both parties are likely to have chosen their nominees by mid-March. That means that by the Iowa caucuses in February, any credible candidate will probably need to be running field operations in 25 states and television ads in eight or 10.
Gore and Gephardt, of course, are not the only people with an interest in their mutual success. Bill and Hillary Clinton believe Gore's election is crucial to validating Clinton's presidency, especially if they also get the House back--thus undoing the humiliating G.O.P. sweep of 1994. Clinton, an adviser says, "wants to be Gore's campaign manager, and he may have to fight Hillary for the job."