Clinton Team Is Reflective of Its Boss : Unlike Bush’s hierarchical, corporate structure, the Democratic nominee runs an amorphous, though highly flexible, organization.

Campaigns reflect the candidates they serve, and as voters begin to focus on what sort of White House Bill Clinton might run if he were to win on Nov. 3, some of the best clues can be seen in the structure of the campaign he has put together.

Some of the campaign’s top officials have made clear they would not take part in a Clinton Administration. “I wouldn’t want to live in a country that would have me in its government,” says Clinton’s top strategist, James Carville. “My world ends Nov. 3.”

Others, however, such as communications director George Stephanopoulos, speech writer and strategist Paul Begala and longtime friend and counselor Bruce Lindsey are widely expected to move into senior White House posts should Clinton win.

More important than the names of individuals, however, is the structure of the campaign.

In sharp contrast to the hierarchical, corporate structure of Bush’s campaigns, Clinton’s has an amorphous, sometimes frustrating, organization. At its worst it absorbs endless hours in meetings, but at its best has proved highly flexible in handling the many unexpected contingencies of a presidential race.

That informal structure has served Clinton well during most of his campaign--reflecting his desire to diffuse power among several aides rather than concentrate authority in one chief deputy. But even within his staff, many wonder if the same free-flowing, slightly anarchic, structure would work in a Clinton White House.

Clinton has proved adept at shuffling his aides from post to post, shifting the balance of power within the campaign as different needs arose. He has kept together a team whose often deep differences over ideology--they range from committed liberals to the moderate conservatives associated with the Democratic Leadership Council--had convinced many outside observers that an explosion was only a matter of time.

Moreover, he has done so with a group many of whose members have known him for only a few months--a sharp contrast with the pattern of most presidential candidates who surround themselves with longtime aides from their native states--from Jimmy Carter’s “Georgia Mafia” to Ronald Reagan’s California coterie.

The Clinton teams’ operating style could be seen in the coffee shop of the candidate’s hotel in Williamsburg, Va., the morning of the second presidential debate as Clinton’s campaign brains trust gathered for breakfast.

Carville sat admiring the latest in a series of adulatory profiles of him that have appeared in the nation’s press. Stephanopoulos scanned the morning papers, checking to see whether the campaign had succeeded in selling its previous day’s spin. Pollster Stanley B. Greenberg chatted with a reporter.

Not a tie was in sight--only Greenberg wore a jacket, a somewhat beaten tweed befitting his status as a former Yale professor.

As the three ate, the campaign’s advertising director, Mandy Grunwald, strode in. “We’ve got some decisions to make,” she said, her tone leaving no doubt that she meant “now.”

As a visiting reporter left, the four got down to work. A few minutes later, decisions had been made to buy several million dollars of television time in targeted markets around the nation, making way for two new Clinton advertisements that would be released later that day.

Informal and spur-of-the-moment, such meetings typify the Clinton campaign’s top staff.

Five months ago, as Clinton struggled to be heard over the roar of Ross Perot’s cresting campaign, the same group that sat at the breakfast table hatched the strategy that launched Clinton on the last, and most successful, comeback of an improbable political year.

The strategy combined substance--the release in June of a detailed economic plan--with appeals to popular culture in the form of frequent appearances on talk shows, interview programs and other non-traditional forums. And, as Clinton has ever since, the strategy focused tightly on a single topic--”the economy, stupid,” as a sign proclaims in the “war room” that serves as the nerve center of Clinton’s Little Rock operation. Now, Clinton’s eclectic group of aides by all indications stand on the brink of completing the most successful Democratic presidential effort in a generation.

Carville, Stephanopoulos, Greenberg, Grunwald and Paul Begala--Carville’s partner who serves as Clinton’s chief speech writer and on-scene campaign strategist--serve as the core of the campaign’s message team, determining both the campaign’s day-to-day tactics and its overall strategy.

All are young. Stephanopoulos, the youngest, is 31, while the oldest, Carville, is only 48. None have previous experience in a senior position of a presidential campaign. Of the group, only Greenberg had worked for Clinton before, having conducted polls for his last gubernatorial race along with Grunwald’s partner, Frank Greer, who continues to serve as a media adviser to Clinton.

All five share a belief in the primacy of “the message” as the driving force in a presidential campaign, downplaying the importance of such traditional political tools as precinct organizations, registration drives and Election Day turnout efforts. “Democrats for years have said we lost because we didn’t have turnout,” Carville says. “We didn’t. We lost because we didn’t have reasons” for people to vote for a Democrat.

Each of them also came to the campaign accepting the idea that the key to reviving Democratic fortunes was to fashion an appeal to the middle- and working-class voters--most of them white--who had abandoned the party for the Republicans in recent elections.

Before the Democratic Convention, Clinton’s strategic planning was often chaotic, with dozens of consultants taking part in massive conference calls and longtime Clinton friends--dubbed FOBs, for Friends of Bill--calling the candidate or his wife to critique the work of the Little Rock staff.

At the convention, however, Clinton agreed to a new structure that made Carville the campaign’s clear strategic boss and Stephanopoulos the undisputed executive of the message side of the campaign.

Within the world of politics, the once little-known Clinton team has become celebrities.

Not long ago, Democratic contributors paid $5,000 each to sit near Carville at a Red Sox game in Boston. Grunwald’s often stern visage and cutting repartee have become familiar to viewers of television programs from “Nightline” to “Entertainment Tonight.”

And Stephanopoulos just got a profile in People magazine--a source of considerable mirth around the campaign for its emphasis on his boyish good looks.

“You’re just a heartthrob away from the presidency,” Clinton told Stephanopoulos recently. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about Georgie,” Clinton later joked with reporters. “That sort of angelic funk look,” he said, referring to the magazine’s movie-star-style photograph of his slightly raffish looking aide. “He’s going to be insufferable.”

While that group handles the communications side of the campaign--everything from advertising to speeches to deciding where Clinton should travel--Clinton’s campaign manager, David Wilhelm, runs the organizational side. The 35-year-old Wilhelm, a Chicago political operative who ran the reelection campaign of Mayor Richard M. Daley, has built the 50 state campaigns aimed at executing the campaign’s strategies on the ground.

Four longtime FOBs round out the top levels of the campaign. Eli Segal, a Massachusetts businessman and Democratic activist who played a key role in George S. McGovern’s 1972 presidential bid, serves as Clinton’s chief of staff, charged with overseeing the campaign’s budget and operations.

Mickey Kantor, the prominent Los Angeles attorney who is Clinton’s campaign chairman, served as his chief negotiator over the presidential debates. He has become increasingly involved in overseeing the campaign’s transition planning.

Susan Thomases, a blunt-spoken New Yorker and friend of Hillary Clinton in July took over the post as the campaign’s chief scheduler, a bruising job that requires its occupant to say “no” to most requests, a task many people shy away from but which Thomases appears to relish.

Finally, Lindsey, a friend of Clinton’s since the mid-1960s when both worked for Sen. J. William Fulbright (D-Ark.), serves as the candidate’s constant traveling companion and sounding board. Although Lindsey receives far less publicity than other members of Clinton’s team, he has been involved in most key decisions, from the crafting of the campaign’s original strategy for winning the nomination to the picking of a running mate.

Lindsey is the only Arkansan in the campaign’s senior level. Betsey Wright, Clinton’s former gubernatorial chief of staff, has custody of his personal and gubernatorial records--an important role that has her often consulted by reporters for stories about Clinton’s past or his record. But Wright has had little role in shaping either Clinton’s campaign policy stands or his political strategy.

The large number of people who wield authority as senior campaign aides points out one of the chief hallmarks of Clinton’s style--a desire to spread out authority or, seen another way, a reluctance to allow others to exercise too much power in his name. In part, friends say, that style reflects the experience of the middle years of his gubernatorial tenure, a period during which he allowed Wright to assume unchallenged power as his staff chief and then came to feel she had taken on too much authority.

A key question for a Clinton White House would be whether he tries a similarly decentralized and diffuse structure as chief executive. Some aides believe he will and argue that the model can work--pointing to Franklin D. Roosevelt as the prime example of a successful President who kept aides guessing about who was really in charge.

Others, however, believe the lack of a strong chief deputy would cause Clinton to fritter away his time resolving second-level disputes and bog down his Administration in endless meetings. “I can survive this for a few months,” one top aide said in late summer of the campaign’s sometimes frustrating format. “But there’s no way you could do this for four years.”