Posted on 01/24/2004 11:43:43 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
I love stories about people who take their hits and come back. So this one is for my friend Bob Shrum. John Kerry has never sounded better. His stump speech has tightened up even since Iowa to the best presentation he's ever made in a campaign. His message clearly resonates as he talks about voters and their concerns, about dinner table issues, not about himself. Lots can change, as Iowa proves. But right now, what you're seeing are two seasoned veterans at the top of their game. In the bad old days in the Kerry campaign, when the obituaries were being written and the blame game played out in the press, no one was the target of more daggers than Bob Shrum. Boy, were they after him. There have always been people who have played the kiss and tell game. Shrum himself first came to fame in 1976, when he quit as a Carter speechwriter and wrote about why. When he was hired by Ted Kennedy in 1979, I remember people in the campaign passing the article around and wondering whether he would be loyal, which is a joke now considering that his relationship with the senator and his family has remained close for decades. But the kissing and telling in the Kerry campaign amounted to a veritable orgy, in which alternative speeches were leaked to the press and rejected strategies detailed in an effort to avoid blame for Kerry's standing in the polls. Departed staff members went directly to other campaigns, which is certainly not the common practice. Suffice it to say that even though he had to apologize for it, you could understand why Kerry himself said that his campaign was better off without the people who either got fired or resigned. Bob Shrum was an easy mark. After all, there had been the competition for his services, the so-called Shrum primary, forcing him to decide among his clients in the race including both Sens. Kerry and Edwards, whom he had trumpeted for vice president to Al Gore. And there was the fact that even if he did have more senators than any other Democratic consultant, and even if he is acknowledged to be the best wordsmith in the party, Shrum has never been part of a winning White House campaign. Like many smart people, he speaks his mind, and is often convinced that he's right, which he often is. Difficult is what that's called. Personally, I think he's mellowed over the years, but we've always gotten along since Larry Tribe introduced us nearly 30 years ago. As it happens, things turned out just about the way Shrum expected. Dean effectively destroyed himself. Had Kerry gone negative from the very beginning, as Shrum's critics wanted, he would have built up his own negatives, which might have left Edwards and not him as the only appealing candidate now. The defectors who went to Clark have yet to figure out how to make the connection to voters with their new candidate. Maybe they weren't so brilliant after all. Maybe experience and a long view count for something. The challenge for Kerry is not to convince voters that he is capable of doing the job of being president, but to show them that a man who comes across as a patrician, a Back Bay/Yalie/Heinz Husband, understands that in America today, as Professor Elizabeth Warren points out, a two-income family is more likely to file for bankruptcy than for divorce. And mind you, that's a two-income family, not the single mothers we hear so much about. And we're talking about today's so-called strong economy. Can Kerry do it? With Shrum at the top of his game, why not? Bob might yet get the prize that has eluded him. Watch out, Karl.
No northeastern liberal is going to be president of the United States.
Nobody knows.
Last one was JFK. .....but he wasn't quite as liberal as Kerry.
She really knows the ins and outs of puttng together a strong message.(sarcasm)
HAHAHAHAHAHA
Agreed. Karl needs to hunker down and do a whole lot more of his taking conservatives for granted. He should propose doing more for illegal aliens, recommend confiscating guns, and support abortion. After all, they can count on the Republican vote no matter what, right?
If he becomes the Democrat candidate for president, watch small children and babies cry when he comes near.
I can't believe that millions of Americans would vote to double their taxes!
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