Democratic Consultants: Paid to Lose

[kpete]

Democratic Consultants: Paid to Lose
Posted by Jane Hamsher, Firedoglake on December 26, 2007 at 4:11 AM.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/#71611

By CHRISTOPHER DREW
Published: December 25, 2007

It was the spring of 2004, and Senator John Kerry had just secured the Democratic presidential nomination. But as huge sums of money began pouring into his campaign, his top strategists had more on their minds than just getting ready for a tough race against President Bush.

Behnind the scenes, they were fighting over the lucrative fees for handling Mr. Kerry’s television advertising. The campaign manager, Mary Beth Cahill, became so fed up over the squabbling that she told the consultants, led by Robert Shrum, one of the most prominent and highly paid figures in the business, to figure out how to split the money themselves.

Divvy it up they did. Though the final tally has never been publicly disclosed, interviews and records show that the five strategists and their firms ultimately took in nearly $9 million, the richest payday for any Democratic media consultants up to then and roughly what the Bush campaign paid its consultants for a more extensive ad campaign.

Mr. Shrum and his two partners, Tad Devine and Mike Donilon, walked away with $5 million of the total. And that was after Ms. Cahill, in the closing stages of the race that fall, diverted $1 million that would otherwise have gone to the consultants to buying more advertising time in what turned out to be an unsuccessful effort to defeat Mr. Bush.

...........................

more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/25/us/politics/25consult.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

[ProSense]

1. Very telling article

The three leading Democrats — Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama and former Senator John Edwards — are all clamping down. They are following what has become an almost standard practice among Republican presidential nominees by paying their media advisers flat fees, or placing a cap on their payments, rather than making payments based on a percentage of the amount they pay television stations to broadcast their commercials.

OMG! Hillary is paying $10,000 a day month to a SC consultant, then there is Mark Penn and his crew, but hey they are following Republicans.

:rofl:

The story seems to be another excuse to bring up Kerry!

[ProSense]

8. Paid to lose:

Mr. Shrum, who is not involved in this year’s race, has been criticized for favoring the same populist themes in both the Gore and Kerry losses. But he and other Democratic consultants say the work has become even more difficult as the presidential campaigns get longer, the audiences become more fractured and the attacks and counterattacks force them to churn out more and more ads. They also said that they often had to pay subcontractors to help, and that the Republican consultants could afford to charge less because they earned more doing similar work for corporate clients.

<...>

In 1996, President Bill Clinton’s re-election committee slashed the fee percentage, and a small group of consultants split $7.1 million on just over $100 million in ads for the campaign and the Democratic Party. They included Dick Morris, the strategist; Mr. Penn, the pollster; and William Knapp, a media consultant.

In 2000, Mr. Gore’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid almost $7 million in fees to Mr. Shrum, Mr. Devine, Mr. Donilon, Mr. Knapp and the campaign’s chief media consultant, Carter Eskew, on roughly $100 million in ads. The fees, which also covered the cost of a number of contractors, amounted to about 7 percent of the budget.

By contrast, Mr. Bush and the Republican National Committee paid a combined $8.7 million in fees, or about 6 percent, on $145 million in ads.

Clinton and Gore lost? Some say the 2004 election was stolen. If Bush paid a flat fee, he spent more than Gore on consultants, and lost in 2000. Consultants suck, but the entire article seems like a tip to the Republicans as being frugal (yet it doesn't mention that Bush violated campaign finance laws by overspending by $40 million), and we spin it as "paid to lose."

[ixion]

2. Hiring Shrum is the kiss of death

but they still do it, and pay him millions to help them lose.

Go Figure.

[demnan]

3. On reading the article I was encouraged

It seems that Clinton, Obama and Edwards are now doing flat fees for advertising, changing what was a mistake in the Kerry campaign. Also Mr. Shrum was not hired this time around, which is also very encouraging.

[dbt]

4. A consultant is a man who knows 150 different sex positions

but doesn't know any women.

For an example of consultants' "work," just scan up and down your local radio dial. See how much Plain Vanilla you can detect. See if you can find a station with more than 250 ("well-testing") songs on its playlist. Y'hear any original thoughts outside the (probably syndicated) morning show--or does it sound like robots reading sound bites from cue cards?

"We have to eliminate tune-outs," the CONsultants chant in unison. But they can't tell you how to maximize the tune-INS.

Now. Go scan the field of candidates. Either party. Do they sound like your "local" radio station or WHAT?

"A consultant is a guy who borrows your watch, tells you what time it is and charges you $150 for doing it."

"When you're too afraid to make your own mistakes, you hire a consultant to help you."

Ad nausem, stir well.

[kenfrequed]

9. Heh

Very true.

I have long thought that Democratic consultants are nigh useless. They all seem to attempt to play to and placate some illusory moderates with fuzzy-wuzzy buzzwords and extremely pared down language with minimal substance.

At least Republicans hire campaign consultants that know how to talk to their supposed base.

[Echo In Light]

5. Yet suggesting complicity in the supposed "loss" enrages many dems!

[flashl]

6. Just redistribution of the election cycle's monies pyramid scheme.

Move along, there's nothing to see.

[undeterred]

7. Now think of all those beg emails during the last few weeks in 2004

and the $50 million left over... makes me never want to donate to a presidential campaign again.

[bvar22]

10. Paying a RICH, WHITE, CORPORATE multiMillionaire.....

to create and control the "campaign strategy" to elect a "Democrat"????

Whats WRONG with THAT picture????

:think:
Maybe the Democrats should just listen to Americans who WORK for a Living.



"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans. I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."---Paul Wellstone