Word: democratic
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...claim a moral victory. There is obviously something to this, but there is a large pshaw factor as well. "Capture the center" is the usual game in politics, and Republicans have played it skillfully over the years. Once again, there seems to be a feeling that for a Democrat to play it just as skillfully is somehow cheating...
With apologies to the candidates, Morris may be the most intriguing character in this campaign. And what's astonishing about him is that he sits at the right hand of a President who cannot quite trust him. He's a Democrat turned Republican turned Democrat again, a longtime Clinton adviser who for two years traveled the country telling Republicans that in 1996 Clinton would be defeated--if not indicted. Which begs a question: How did such a rogue become the most influential private citizen in America...
Republicans didn't accept Morris any more than Democrats had. He got plenty of work--Trent Lott, now the Senate majority leader, talked him up in the Republican cloakroom, and Jesse Helms became his most right-wing client ever in 1990--but he was always valued, never trusted. Helms media man Alex Castellanos accused him of grabbing credit for a TV spot Castellanos had made, the infamous ad showing a pair of white hands crumpling a job-rejection notice while a voice said, "You needed that job...but they had to give it to a minority." A number of G.O.P...
Young Morris jumped into politics early, running his first campaign in fourth grade (his candidate won the student-council presidency). In 1960, at 12, he canvassed his apartment building for John Kennedy and gave street-corner speeches extolling the Democrat. The next year, at elite Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, Morris joined the debate club, displaying a talent for arguing any side of any issue ("Truth is that which cannot be proved false," he said) and teaming up with a group of budding pols that included future Congressman Jerrold Nadler and state assemblyman Richard Gottfried. "Dick was always the leader...
...Morris organized his West Side district in support of a local candidate; by sending students to ring every doorbell he tripled the district's Democratic turnout. Graduating from Columbia University in three years, he worked New Hampshire for Eugene McCarthy's 1968 presidential campaign, butting heads over budget and turf with another West Side Democrat, Harold Ickes. Twenty-eight years later they're still at it: Ickes, now Clinton's deputy chief of staff for policy and political affairs, uses his control of the campaign purse strings to torment Morris. Eight years older than Morris, Ickes belonged to the Democratic...