KERRY’S CARVILLE-BEGALA
Confirming what The Prowler reported
last November, word leaked out earlier this week that über
political consultant Bob Shrum was signing on as a
media guru to Sen. John Kerry, walking away from
Sen. John Edwards, whom he’d worked for in 1998 in Edwards’
senatorial campaign, and whom he had been advising in the early
days of his presidential run.
Shrum, who has toiled for just about every major Democratic
figure in the past 25 years, has ties to several of the 2004
presidential hopefuls. He worked for Rep. Dick
Gephardt’s 1988 presidential run, for Kerry’s Senate race
in 1996 and Edwards’ ‘98 Senate run. Most recently he was
Al Gore’s main media guy in 2000, after serving as
one of Bill Clinton’s consiglieri during impeachment.
Shrum and Kerry have been mum about a deal — Kerry, after
spending the weekend at home in Washington meeting with select
delegates attending the DNC’s winter meeting, is now in California
working on a tan and fundraising — but Edwards campaign staffers
were more than willing to leak word of the new partnership to
reporters.
“We weren’t willing to give Bob the kind of control he wanted
over the message and the direction of the campaign,” says an
Edwards source. “No properly run campaign would give any one man
that kind of control.”
Translation: Shrum had a choice, didn’t like the looks of the
Edwards campaign, went with the team he felt comfortable with, and
Edwards staffers are badmouthing him.
That would appear to be so, since he has signed on to a Kerry
campaign apparatus that already has several highly paid and highly
thought of media consultants on board for the long haul. Clearly
Shrum wasn’t looking for full control as much as he was looking for
a good horse to ride to the finish line and a role he would feel
comfortable in.
“Let’s face it,” says a Kerry staffer. “Shrum by reputation will
naturally just take on a leadership role here. Everyone knows how
this is going to shake out.”
This, after all, is a man as comfortable in front of a camera as
he is behind it. “He’s better than Carville or Begala because he’s
always calm and together,” says a CBS News producer. “You might not
like what he says, you might never get a word in, but he’s not a
screamer or a spaz. He serves his candidates well.”
HOFFA SPRINGS ETERNAL
Conservatives say that House majority leader Rep. Tom
DeLay is being unfairly criticized for his failure to
kowtow to organized labor. DeLay was supposedly called on the
carpet by the White House and Republican National Committee members
for a letter sent out under his signature by the National Right to
Work Legal Defense Fund. It slammed “big labor bosses” for
exploiting their membership’s position in the war on terror. In the
end, DeLay apologized after Teamsters boss James
Hoffa complained about the characterization to the White
House and other Republicans on Capitol Hill.
What rankles so many conservatives is the apparent ease with
which Hoffa was able to get Republicans to jump for him. “What has
he done for the party, really?” asks one conservative fundraiser.
“The Teamsters don’t support our causes, they don’t give
particularly more to Republicans. We’re all treating this guy like
royalty in the hopes that maybe he’ll come out and endorse Bush in
2004. I think we’re all waiting for nothing.”
Hoffa was, compared to other attendees, a star at the Republican
National Convention in Philadelphia in 2000. Various groups held
fundraisers and dinners to honor Hoffa, all in an attempt to get
him to do what so few organized labor leaders have been willing to
do in the past 15 years: endorse Republicans. Even with all the
rock-star-like adulation, Hoffa didn’t step up and take a stand
with the GOP. Instead he walked the fence throughout the campaign
season.
Now, Republicans are once again hoping to lure Hoffa and his
Teamster dollars and grassroots manpower over to the side of the
good guys.
“That’s fine,” says a House Republican. “But don’t make DeLay
look bad at organized labor’s expense — that’s all ass backwards
as far as I’m concerned. DeLay is a life-long loyal conservative.
We shouldn’t sacrifice him for a Johnny-come-lately like
Hoffa.”
