For Clinton, there are more reasons than ever to “talk to Al.” In the transition to a second term, the vice president has become Clinton’s most important adviser, sounding board and troubleshooter. The result will be a Clinton-Gore administration in more than name: Gore’s allies will play an increasingly pivotal role. It’s the Gore White House in chrysalis–if he can navigate the tricky course from here to the year 2000. At some point, the interests of Clinton and Gore may diverge politically, or even legally. But for now, their fates are linked as never before.

At first glance, it’s hard to tell how important Gore has become. Standing stiffly in a row of nominees at last week’s Clinton press conference, Gore looked like just another faceless aide. But he had done much to produce the scene. Clinton, for example, had needed to gingerly sound out Chicago lawyer Bill Daley about whether he would take a post other than transportation secretary. Gore did the diplomatic work–and Daley accepted the top Commerce job. When women’s groups complained that Clinton was slighting female candidates, Gore was the conduit for their complaints. Gore is the one who breaks Oval Office gridlock about appointments. “He’s the closer,” says a top White House adviser. “He works the final innings.”

Gore has always had a “closer” role, but now he is free to play it more forcefully. Four years ago he had to contend with a cadre of aides who had risen in Congress with a bitter rival, Rep. Dick Gephardt. Men such as George Stephanopoulos regarded the new vice president as a pompous, self-righteous phony with a tin ear for politics. Others thought that Gore had not done enough to defend Clinton in the 1992 campaign. Now most of those aides are gone. With political guru Dick Morris in disgrace and savvy chief of staff Leon Panetta departing, Gore’s role as First Adviser is secure. “You used to have a variety of people around the table,” said a top aide, representing “different power centers.” Now, most days, there is one: Gore.

Clinton and Gore have worked diligently to cement their relationship. Their weekly lunch is “sacrosanct,” says a top aide. Gore doesn’t finalize his daily schedule until he knows Clinton’s. That way he can be available for ad hoc meetings. The two have tried to learn from each other’s strengths, although progress is slow. Gore has studied Clinton’s emotive style. When he leaves a speech now, a top Gore adviser crows, “he always says hello to the kitchen workers.” Gore, for his part, has labored to interest Clinton in cyberspace, plying him with books on the Information Age, but Clinton is still an e-mail newbie.

Meanwhile, the administration is filling up with Gore allies (chart). One of the most important is Franklin Raines, a Harvard chum who has the crucial job of budget director. Another is Rep. Bill Richardson, whom Clinton nominated to be U.N. ambassador. Other Gore pals are likely to move up in the administration’s ranks.

It’s not easy for a sitting vice president to win the White House. George Bush, in 1988, was the first to do so since Martin Van Buren in 1836. Clinton is doing what he can to help. By bringing Daley into the administration, for example, Clinton helped ensure that crucial Democratic power brokers–the Daley family of Chicago–won’t be free to dabble in a challenger’s campaign. The president has given Gore high-profile foreign assignments, such as supervising ongoing “bilateral” relations with key leaders in Russia, Egypt and South Africa. And Gore will remain in charge of efforts to downsize and “reinvent” the bureaucracy.

For now, Clinton and Gore share the same goals: to avoid the “liberal” tag, balance the budget and get Gore elected. They are reading from the same page on welfare reform. Both want to preserve the essence of the bill enacted last year while finding money to care for those truly unable to work. Clinton seems to have decided that balancing the budget is his Man on the Moon: a Kennedyesque mission to reach a distant goal. Gore is less interested in history than practicality. He’d like a neat ledger if he wins the White House.

Just as Clinton campaign aides studied Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign for strategic lessons, Gore’s aides are studying Bush’s successful 1988 effort. Like Bush, Gore will be “relentlessly vice presidential,” in the words of one aide. But unlike Bush, Gore isn’t serving with a president who is deeply popular with the grass roots of his party. There may come a time when Gore will need to distance himself from Clinton. Aides say the contrast is less likely to be on policy than on character. Gore will present himself as the man to carry on the search for the “vital center,” but without the personal baggage.

Gore’s high profile has risks. One is that he–and not just Clinton–has to pacify competing Democratic Party interest groups. Union leaders were upset last week at news that Gore was backing White House aide Alexis Herman, an African-American, for the job of labor secretary. The unions favor Harris Wofford, the former senator from Pennsylvania who now heads AmeriCorps. Gore was caught in the middle, and his aides were hoping that a third name would emerge. Late last week, NEWSWEEK has learned, one did: former Missouri representative Alan Wheat. He’s black, has good ties to labor–and was a Clinton-Gore campaign aide.

Gore’s role as a party fund raiser is a mixed blessing. He gained big-money contacts he will need for his own campaign. But questions have arisen about one event he attended, a fund-raiser earlier this year at a Buddhist temple in Los Angeles. The event has attracted the notice of investigators because several of the temple’s nuns and monks were listed as hefty contributors. Republicans now charge that the event was designed to launder illegal foreign contributions.

Gore has some explaining to do. Through aides, he said that he didn’t know that the event was a fund-raiser. But The Wall Street Journal reported last week that, in 1989, Gore visited the leaders of the Buddhist group in Taiwan–and that he was accompanied by John Huang, the controversial Democratic Party fund raiser who set up the L.A. event. And one of Huang’s close associates, Little Rock attorney Mark Grobmeyer, has Gore ties as well. Grobmeyer served on a steering committee for Gore’s 1988 presidential campaign, and has repeatedly, though unsuccessfully, sought the vice president’s help in promoting business ventures. The GOP is sure to hold hearings on Democratic fund raising–and Gore’s role. Reno’s Justice Department has launched its own probe. If the subject came up in Clinton’s “interview” with Reno, the president wasn’t telling anyone–except, perhaps, Al Gore.

Al Gore operates in a powerful, interconnected environment of allies and loyalists, from the chief of staff in the White House to “downtown” lawyers. The flora and fauna:

THE ADMINISTRATION

EPA administrator beloved by the greens

State department aide still hoping for promotion

FCC chair and cyberspace expert

Justice aide and Gore’s brother-in-law

Harvard buddy in key job: budget chief

THE POLITICOS

Gore media adviser long before he became Clinton’s

Rising star operative, may run Gore’s campaign in 2000

THE WHITE HOUSE

New chief of staff was 1988 Gore delegate

Gore chief of staff and key transition aide

Quitting as White House counsel for family reasons and to set up campaign

May be tapped to head domestic-policy council

THE DOWNTOWN LAWYERS

Gained experience heading 1996 campaign

Longtime friend, heads Baby Bell lobby

THE MEDIA

Cheerleader–editor of The New Republic