Word: hoffa
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That's an adjective not usually applied to the younger Hoffa. "He's an empty suit with a famous name," says Ken Paff, chief organizer for Teamsters for a Democratic Union, Carey's main base of political support within the union. But Hoffa is wired for a fight this time. He has spent the past two months traveling the U.S., rallying the rank and file and invoking theories of conspiracy. "The government doesn't want me to run," he snaps. "They want to control the Teamsters. When we take over, we will reinvigorate this union and change its course forever...
...James Hoffa has spent his life in a kind of dress rehearsal for this moment. He once told an interviewer that his favorite movie is The Lion King because it mirrors his struggle. Reared on Detroit's West Side, Hoffa was an honors student and a local football hero. In 1967, a year after he graduated from the University of Michigan Law School, his father was forced from office and jailed after a federal-court conviction for jury tampering. In July 1975, Hoffa mysteriously disappeared from the parking lot of a suburban Detroit restaurant. No one has ever been charged...
...many of those years, young Hoffa labored in a modest law practice. Then, four years ago, he went to work full time as executive assistant to Larry Brennan, the president of Teamsters Joint Council 43 in Detroit. He parlayed that role into alliances with local Teamsters officials around the U.S., including some who were later purged during Carey's tenure because of corruption. And Hoffa's support "wasn't confined to the union's old guard," says Harley Shaiken, professor and labor-relations specialist at the University of California, Berkeley. It also reflected the Teamsters' unhappiness with its own place...
...Hoffa contends that it was only the old allegations of scandal that caused his 1996 loss to Carey by a 16,000-vote margin. So his recent stump speeches hammer on the accusation that Carey knew of a plan to launder union funds through third parties and into his campaign coffers. "Either Ron Carey is a fool or a crook or maybe just a crooked fool," sniffs Hoffa. "One thing is certain--he has set the Teamsters back 20 years...
...Hoffa carries some baggage of his own. His candidacy in a rerun will surely trigger new scrutiny over ties to his father's old allies. According to the book Mob Lawyer by Frank Ragano and Selwyn Raab, James and his wife received thousands of dollars in cash as a wedding gift from Mob-connected associates of his father--a charge Hoffa has denied. And there's also the likelihood that the Independent Review Board that monitors the union will closely scrutinize Hoffa's campaign finances. He raised $3.6 million for the '96 race, including more than $2 million from untraced...