SHRUM SERVICE
Rumor in Washington has Democratic über political consultant
Bob Shrum jumping off the presidential bandwagon
of Sen. John Edwards, and hopping on board that of
Sen. John Kerry. There is no apparent rift, but
some insiders posit that Shrum feels less comfortable shaping a
faux-centrist campaign like the one Edwards will have to run in
2004, and more comfortable with the standard liberal Democratic
dogma of Kerry.
“There was probably going to be some moving about by advisers as
things shook out a bit after the election,” says a Democratic
consultant in Washington. “Then we got hammered, and there seemed
to be a real shift in opinion that Democrats were going to have to
move left and make a stand. Kerry is in good position to do
that.”
Shrum was a key player in the later years of the Clinton White
House, advising the president in some of his most politically
tenuous days during impeachment proceedings. During the 2000
presidential runup, Shrum was the most vocal Gore adviser pushing
the candidate to pick Edwards as his running mate. But of the
prospective presidential candidates, Kerry may be in the best
position for some big momentum in the coming months. He’s
contracted with historian and Jimmy Carter biographer
Douglas Brinkley, who’ll write a biography of
sorts on Kerry’s experiences in Vietnam. And Kerry is expected to
be a far more vocal critic of the Bush administration in his senior
position in the Senate.
LEFTIST LOCK
Over in the House, where Democratic candidates recruited by
outgoing Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman
Nita Lowey were a disaster, the minority party
seems dedicated to pushing itself further and further to the
left.
Instead of seeking a respected moderate to recruit candidates
who might be palatable to the middle of the road undecided voter,
the Democratic caucus is going to choose between Massachusetts Rep.
Ed Markey and Louisiana Rep. Bill
Jefferson to run the DCCC next go round.
Both are vocal lefties on almost all issues. Jefferson, who is
African-American, is seen as preferential to Markey, in part
because he is a new face and it would give the Congressional Black
Caucus a seat at the leadership table.
“But there is no way that either of those guys helps the party
woo moderates,” says a DCCC staffer. “Lowey went after liberals who
tried to play at being moderate and it failed because the voters
seemed to understand they were liberals. Now it just seems we’re
going to recruit more of the same.”
JACKSON’S HOLE
Former Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson has quietly
begun speaking to influential Democrats in Washington and elsewhere
to measure whether to mount a new challenge to current Democratic
National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe when
the DNC’s executive board meets in February. The New York
Times reported last week that Jackson, who squared off against
McAuliffe for control of the DNC in 2001, had sent a letter to
McAuliffe demanding a meeting of the DNC board where McAuliffe
could explain the Democrats’ recent defeat.
Jackson had challenged McAuliffe a year ago on the grounds that
the Clinton money man was too focused on money, not on building up
a grassroots party and paying attention to the Democratic base. As
it turns out, Jackson was probably right. In this election cycle,
McAuliffe raised lots of dough and spent lots of dough. But not
much was spent on the party’s high profile black candidates, such
as New York gubernatorial challenger Carl McCall.
Now Jackson has reached out to some politicos who might hold a
grudge against McAuliffe, like, say, Al Gore and
John Kerry, both of whom stand to lose out in DNC
support with McAuliffe controlling many of the party’s national
operations. At least that is what some DNC insiders think.
“People like Gore and Kerry see McAuliffe as a Clinton guy, a
Gephardt guy, and this concerns them going into the 2004 election
cycle,” says a DNC staffer. “I don’t think Terry cares who the
presidential candidate is as long as that person is the strongest
candidate.”
Jackson, however, doesn’t care about 2004. He cares about
beating McAuliffe now. So any support he can muster from the
perceived party elites would help him in that regard. If Jackson
were to mount a challenge to McAuliffe, insiders say the only way
he could win is if McAuliffe lets him.
“If he sees the DNC chairmanship as a no-win situation, and that
he can do more good and have more fun working for one candidate in
2004, then McAuliffe could just let Jackson win,” says the DNC
source. “But I don’t see that happening. If Terry has been sincere
in what he’s been saying the past couple of weeks, he stays and
Jackson goes home. “
