Longtime Top Aide to Gore Steps Down

Vice President Al Gore’s longtime chief of staff resigned Monday to join a Los Angeles-based law firm, a move sure to increase Democratic uneasiness about tension within Gore’s inner circle.

Ronald A. Klain, 37, who has headed Gore’s vice presidential office for four years, announced he would leave the post to become a partner in the Washington office of O’Melveny & Myers, a prominent Los Angeles firm that includes Warren M. Christopher, President Clinton’s first secretary of State.

Sources close to both Klain and the Gore campaign said the chief of staff made his decision voluntarily. Earlier this year, Tony Coelho, the former Democratic congressman from central California now serving as Gore’s campaign chairman, appeared to undercut Klain’s authority through some of his public comments, generating widespread rumors of conflict between the two men. But the sources said both Coelho and Gore tried to persuade Klain to remain in his job.

Though all involved portrayed Klain’s departure as amicable, his decision comes amid concerns that internal conflict among his advisors may be hindering Gore’s presidential campaign.

Earlier this summer, Coelho precipitated an internal struggle by hiring Carter Eskew as the campaign’s top message guru. Eskew is a Democratic consultant who’s been engaged in a long feud with Bob Squier, Gore’s chief media advisor.

Klain had been plainly frustrated as power shifted toward Coelho and the Gore campaign operation, and his departure had been widely expected inside the Washington political community.

“He clearly could have stayed,” said one Democratic source familiar with the discussions. “But [given] that the center of the universe has moved to the campaign, as it should, and recognizing his options in the private sector, he decided to move in this direction.”

Gore appointed Charles Burson, a former Tennessee attorney general now serving as the vice president’s legal counsel, to succeed Klain.

In a meeting with colleagues Monday, Klain suggested that chiefs of staff, like milk cartons, have a natural expiration date, sources said. Klain noted he had served as Gore’s top aide longer than any other White House or vice presidential chief of staff during the Clinton presidency. Klain earlier served as an associate White House counsel, chief of staff to Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and top advisor to Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).

Klain said he would continue to serve as an unpaid “senior strategist” in Gore’s campaign, participating in strategy sessions and handling unspecified special projects.

At O’Melveny--which Klain chose over three other national firms--the former vice presidential aide will focus on appeals court litigation and “strategic counseling” for companies lobbying the government. Under ethics rules, he is prohibited from personally lobbying White House officials for five years.