Word: skinnerism
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When George Bush gathered 36 political advisers around a Camp David conference table last August to discuss the 1992 campaign, most of his guests jockeyed for choice seats near Bush or chief of staff John Sununu. Avoiding the fray, however, was Sam Skinner, who entered the room last and quietly took a seat along the back wall. While others injected unsolicited opinions and tried to score points with the boss, Skinner spoke only when Bush requested his opinion, which, according to one participant, happened frequently. "It was clear to everybody in the room that John Sununu was still Bush...
...insiders were surprised when Bush turned to Skinner to reverse his sagging political fortunes and end the disarray at the White House. In three years as Secretary of Transportation, Skinner has emerged as the Administration's top crisis manager, a loyalist whose tenacity and competence have earned him Bush's respect and admiration. Most important, the 53-year-old Illinois lawyer lacks both the ideological agenda and know-it-all arrogance that made Sununu an enemy of nearly everyone in Washington. "He wanted someone in the job as loyal as John," Skinner said last week in an interview with TIME...
...Skinner's people skills are not in doubt. Since coming to Washington, Skinner has surprised White House aides by volunteering to make telephone calls and give speeches on problems unrelated to transportation. He has gone to great lengths to woo members of Congress, in one instance personally delivering a birthday cake to Representative Glenn Anderson, then 76 and chairman of the Public Works Committee. Skinner became a regular golfing partner of Dan Quayle's, and was treated by Quayle to a $27,000 trip at taxpayer expense to the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia aboard Air Force Two earlier...
Unlike Sununu, the low-key Skinner is accustomed to playing the supporting role. A protege of former Illinois Governor Jim Thompson's, Skinner was reared in Illinois, received an accounting degree at the University of Illinois, served in the Army and then joined IBM as a sales representative. Though the | computer company named him Outstanding Salesman of 1967, Skinner attended law school at night and gave up his $50,000-a-year corporate job to be a $9,000-a- year prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's office. He rose to U.S. Attorney, earning the nickname "Sam the Hammer...
During the 1980s, Skinner practiced law at the prestigious Chicago firm of Sidley & Austin. He served as chairman of the city's enormous Regional Transit Authority. At Thompson's suggestion, he ran Bush's Illinois primary campaign in 1980 and his general election campaign in the state in 1988, when he was baptized "Velcro" by Bush's Washington staff for his uncanny ability to stay close to the candidate during visits to Illinois. When Bush won, Thompson championed Skinner for Transportation...