Clinton Loyalist Named White House Political Director
Craig Smith, one of the president’s longest-serving and most-trusted aides, was named White House political director Friday. Smith, 38, the first employee on Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, formerly served in the White House personnel department and as political director of the 1996 campaign.
In other appointments, Clinton named:
* Kathryn “Kitty” Higgins to be deputy Labor secretary. Thurgood Marshall Jr., son of the late Supreme Court justice, will replace her as director of Cabinet affairs at the White House. Marshall is a top aide to Vice President Al Gore.
* Maria Echaveste, administrator of the Wage and Hour Division at the Labor Department, to replace Alexis Herman as director of White House public liaison. Herman is the nominee for secretary of Labor.
* Karen Skelton, Gore’s political director, as a deputy to Smith.
* Minyon Moore, political director at the Democratic National Committee, as another Smith deputy.
Smith, an Arkansas native, is an obvious favorite of Clinton’s. The appointments of Skelton and Marshall follow a pattern of Gore’s sprinkling the White House roster with loyalists in advance of his 2000 presidential bid.
Echaveste, an also-ran for the Labor secretary nomination, helps Clinton appease Latino interests who had wanted more clout in the Cabinet.
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