Timothy E. Kraft (born April 10, 1941) is a retired Democratic political consultant, best known as the campaign manager for the unsuccessful reelection bid of U.S. President Jimmy Carter. In September 1980, only weeks before the general election, he stepped down amid an uncorroborated charge, later resolved, that he had previously used cocaine.
Background
The son of a pediatrician, Kraft was born into a staunchly Democratic family in Noblesville, Indiana. He was raised in the then-Republican stronghold of Muncie, Indiana. In 1963, he graduated with a degree in government from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire; from 1963 to 1965, he served in the Peace Corps in Guatemala. He worked part-time on the staff of U.S. Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana, a Carter primary opponent in 1976. In 1966 and 1967, Kraft engaged in graduate work in Latin American studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Thereafter, he was something of a political wanderer during the era of the Vietnam War.
Political campaigns
Kraft first worked in a political campaign in 1970 on behalf of Jesse Unruh, the former Democratic Speaker of the California State Assembly, who failed to prevent the reelection of Ronald W. Reagan as governor of California, but later served as the California state treasurer. Kraft subsequently settled in New Mexico, where in the capital city of Santa Fe he became the executive director of the state Democratic Party. Though a paid position, he had to engage in the necessary fundraising to guarantee that he was indeed compensated. In 1974, Kraft worked to elect the liberal Jerry Apodaca as governor. Apodaca was running in a close contest against the conservative Republican Joe Skeen, later a long-term member of the United States House of Representatives. As the party executive director, Kraft met Carter, still the governor of Georgia, who came to New Mexico on Apodaca's behalf.
In 1975, he connected once again with Carter in the early stages of 1976 presidential campaign, of which he was the national field director and then the national field coordinator. He was regional coordinator for the 1975 Democratic national telethon. Kraft also worked to solicit campaign contributions from ten western states so that Carter could qualify for federal matching funds under the amended 1974 Federal Election Campaign Act. He was sent to organize the Iowa caucuses; though Carter finished second to "None of the Above", he was proclaimed by the national media as the winner in Iowa and went forward to key primary victories thereafter in New Hampshire, Florida, and Pennsylvania, where Kraft also played a leading role in assembling the Carter partisans to eliminate the challenge of U.S. Senator Henry M. Jackson of Washington state.
Kraft offered Bill Clinton, then the unopposed Democratic nominee for Arkansas attorney general, two years before his first election as governor of his native state, the management of the Texas campaign for Carter and running-mate Walter F. Mondale of Minnesota, but Clinton instead worked within Arkansas for Carter, who easily won Arkansas. Hillary Clinton became a deputy field director for Carter-Mondale.