Can we all agree that it's time for Bob Shrum to retire?

[dolstein]

This guy has had a hand in every losing Democratic presidential campaign over the past thirty plus years. The only campaigns he wasn't involved with? Bill Clinton's 1992 and 1996 campaigns.

This guy couldn't craft a winning campaign message if his life depended on it.

[ohioliberal]

1. If that's the case

It seems like he has a black cloud over him. Get rid of him now before 2008!!!!

[roguevalley]

2. no problem with me.

[FightinNewDem]

3. No!!!

It's LOOOONG past time for Shrum to retire.

Remember, back in the 1980s, the consulting firm of Doak & Shrum was known in Bletway circles as "Soak & Run"!

[charlie]

4. He's the Democrat's Colonel Cargill

Does he keep a Black Dossier, like Hoover? I can't think of any other reason he's been allowed 8 chances to prove his worthlessness.

[LittleClarkie]

5. Honey, we can't all agree on much of anything

Welcome to DU.

[charlie]

6. I'd like to see a Shrum fan show up

I don't believe such an animal exists, even here at DU.

[Leilani]

7. Yes, yes, & yes!

Why he is consistently chosen is a mystery to me.

The Dems also need to change their way of advertising & doing commercials. These strategists get rich by making the ads, & then placing them. It's a conflict of interest.

Why not create an in-house ad group on salary? Or go after some professional Madison Ave types?

Kerry's ads sucked...I don't remember one of them.

[NYCGirl]

8. I posted an article earlier today about Democratic consultants,

with a large part of it about Bob Shrum and his "perfect losing record."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0501.sul...


Hansen is part of a clique of Washington consultants who, through their insider ties, continue to get rewarded with business even after losing continually. Pollster Mark Mellman is popular among Democrats because he tells them what they so desperately want to hear: Their policies are sound, Americans really agree with them more than with Republicans, and if they just repeat their mantras loud enough, voters will eventually embrace the party. As Noam Scheiber pointed out in a New Republic article following the great Democratic debacle of '02, Mellman was, perhaps more than anyone else, the architect of that defeat. As the DSCC's recommended pollster, he advised congressional Democrats to ignore national security and Iraq in favor of an endless campaign about prescription drugs and education. After the party got its clock cleaned based on his advice, Mellman should have been exiled but was instead...promoted. He became the lead pollster for John Kerry's presidential campaign, where he proffered eerily similar advice—stress domestic policy, stay away from attacking Bush—to much the same effect.

Hansen and Mellman are joined by the poster boy of Democratic social promotion, Bob Shrum. Over his 30-year career, Shrum has worked on the campaigns of seven losing presidential candidates—from George McGovern to Bob Kerrey—capping his record with a leading role in the disaster that was the Gore campaign. Yet, instead of abiding by the “seven strikes and you're out” rule, Democrats have continued to pay top dollar for his services (sums that are supplemented by the percentage Shrum's firm, Shrum, Devine & Donilon, gets for purchasing air time for commercials). Although Shrum has never put anyone in the White House, in the bizarro world of Democratic politics, he's seen as a kingmaker—merely hiring the media strategist gives a candidate such instant credibility with big-ticket liberal funders that John Kerry and John Edwards fought a fierce battle heading into the 2004 primaries to lure Shrum to their camps. Ultimately, Shrum chose Kerry, and on Nov. 3, he extended his perfect losing record.

Since their devastating loss last fall, Democrats have cast about for reasons why their party has come up short three election cycles in a row and have debated what to do. Should they lure better candidates? Talk more about morality? Adopt a harder line on national security? But one of the most obvious and least discussed reasons Democrats continue to lose is their consultants. Every sports fan knows that if a team boasts a losing record several seasons in a row, the coach has to be replaced with someone who can win. Yet when it comes to political consultants, Democrats seem incapable of taking this basic managerial step.

A major reason for that reluctance is that Democrats simply won't talk openly about the problem. Shrum did eventually take some heat publicly during the 2004 campaign when the contrast between his losing record and his high position in the troubled Kerry campaign became too stark to ignore. But in general, a Mafia-like code of omerta operates. Few insiders dare complain about the hammerlock loser consultants have on the process—certainly neither the professional campaign operatives whom the consultants hire nor the journalists to whom the consultants feed juicy inside-the-room detail. “Everybody in town talks about Hansen and how he's held candidates hostage through the DSCC,” says Chuck Todd, editor of National Journal's Political Hotline. Todd, however, is one of the few brave insiders. I interviewed two dozen Democratic Party leaders, operatives, and others for this story. Virtually no one had a good thing to say about Hansen or the rest of the oligarchy. Yet few would talk on the record. The exceptions were those who have gotten out of the business of working for political candidates such as Dan Gerstein, a former advisor to Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.). “If a company like General Motors had the same image problem that the Democratic Party does, they would fire the guys responsible,” Gerstein told me. But not Democrats. “We don't just hire those guys,” Gerstein said, “we give them bonuses.”

[DaveinMD]

9. great article

I'm a small political consultant trying to break through. Hansen worked for Daschle. In order to get funded, candidates had to use his firm for direct mail. Its such bullshit. I pray that the DNC sees this at some point and gives some of the small guys a shot at a few campaigns.

[NYCGirl]

11. It's a good idea. The big guys have become way too entrenched, from the

look of it.

[DaveinMD]

14. personally

I they should give one race a piece to a bunch of consultants. This would ensure that each race gets the attention it deserves. I'd be happy with one senate race. I could make enough from that one race to be very happy. And I'd do a better job than a firm doing 10 races. They just can't give each race the proper attention.

[American Tragedy]

30. What have you done to break through, Dave?

I'm just becoming active in politics. The compulsion began when I volunteered on the local Congressional race, and I realized without a doubt that I could run the campaign better, and I knew how I would do it. Yet it's damned near impossible to cut through the old guard, even when your advice is very good and totally for free. I know from experience.

[DaveinMD]

33. so far

I've worked on a bunch of smaller races. One thing I always do is that I'm cheaper than the bigger firms and not by a little bit. I try to build my reputation and meet as many people as possible. I've done some good work at the state and local level.

As far as your experience goes, I think everyone has had that one from time to time. I started out as a volunteer too and eventually I got to run campaigns after I built up experience. Just make yourself seen locally and eventually you will get to run one of those campaigns. Then you can move up to bigger races from there.

[Leilani]

13. That's a terrific article

& all Dems should be made to read it.

Let's hope the next DNC chair changes consulting practices as one of his reforms.

[moggie12]

27. Well, I guess important stuff doesn't get as much attention

Hey NYCGirl, you should re-post this Washington Monthly article in a day or two with some inflammatory title like "Dean Sucks, DLC Sucks, and You Suck, Too". Titles like that get a lot of traffic! (Or the one a few days ago, "What is your favorite French food?' which got 90+ replies).

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Darryl Cramer]

12. If he was a coach

of any college or professional athletic team, he would have been fired, Trump-style, a LONG time ago.

[John_H]

15. Sadly, it's not just hansen, shrum et.al

There is an entire cottage industry of mo-rons at work in the party. hundreds of the same operatives, several rungs below the shrums of the world but with identical records, who continue to be hired and rehired loss after loss, piss poor performance after piss poor performance. Until interests and donors put our feet down, they will keep getting hired.

[DaveinMD]

16. I hope new blood is given a shot

I am some of that new blood they should try out. I won 8 out of the 11 races I worked on last year, yet Hansen keeps getting hired.

[Leilani]

20. Good luck to you on getting some of that work

It's obvious they have to change "politics as usual."

[DaveinMD]

24. thanks

I do great locally and in Colorado. I'm trying to break in to the bigger work. It will happen at some point when the party wises up. I can save them a bunch of money too.

[JI7]

17. i bet you someone will hire him in 2008

[charlie]

18. Haw!

Couldn't get me to take that bet! Crazy, innit? :crazy:

[TSIAS]

19. Yep

I'll admit, the guy has written a good speech or two in his day (Kennedy's 1980 concession for one). However, I can't fathom that such a loser keeps on getting put in key roles of presidential campaigns.

There's got to be at least one person involved in Democratic politics who can do a better job than Shrum.

[yardwork]

22. That's it? His big success was a good concession speech?

Sheesh.

[American Tragedy]

28. A concession speech? I think that says everything about Shrum.

[moggie12]

32. I think that says everything about the Democratic Party n/t

[zulchzulu]

21. Not retire...just not be in charge...

He does have some good things to bring to the table, but I would only use him as one of many advisors on certain issues.

He's not a bad guy...

[DaveinMD]

23. a major problem

is also how Dems pay media consultants. The commission on ad buying is an incentive for consultants to push for more tv time even when it may not be the best thing for the campaign. Republicans don't operate in this structure. Hillary didn't either.

[DinahMoeHum]

25. If this were sports, Shrum would have been fired a long time ago.

Can't do business with an 8-time loser.

:kick:

[youngred]

26. He should have retired long ago

He's a nice guy, and persuasive etc, but he doesn't have the ability to fight a hard dirty campaign and doesn't know how to connect with the voters.

[w4rma]

29. Yes. (nt)

[BlueInRed]

31. Amen

I think he's a scourge on the Democratic party, or a Republican plant (not really, but geez, it seems like it). If only I could get paid millions for screwing up so many campaigns. Even with the big inside joke about the Shrum curse, they still hire the guy. In any other business, he'd have been out of a job ages ago.

And I know we won, even though we're not in the White House. But technical wins doen't count and this guy blew off many states that were completely within reach. Heck, he even convinced Gore to blow off his home state of TN in 2000. I thought Phil Bredesen (D Gov of TN) was dead on the money when he said that we need a 50 state strategy that listens to the locals and doesn't just pay lip service to campaigning in tough, but still winable, swing states. (He said this to the DNC candidates who spoke in the South recently.)

I'll be happy to pitch in for his going away party.