Word: shrum
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...appeal is simple, direct, visceral. Us vs. Them. The Haves vs. the Have-Nots. The cry has a long and honorable history among Democratic presidential candidates. Dukakis' populist pitch began as far back as Labor Day, when he delivered a speech shaped by Bob Shrum, the veteran Democratic wordsmith who had designed Dick Gephardt's populist incarnation. Lee Atwater, George Bush's pugnacious campaign manager, admits, "I got a little worried after the Labor Day speech that they were going to catch on to the populist approach." But only last week did the Dukakis campaign go ballistic. "George Bush wants...
Speech-writers just don't get enough thanks for what they do. Bob Shrum, the , private wordsmith for the Kennedy family's public utterances, was called in to cobble together something for the convention's Kennedy reunion. He not only wrote John Kennedy Jr.'s introduction of Uncle Ted and Ted's it's-O.K.-to-still-be-a-liberal pep talk, but he also penned the Senator's gracious thank-you for his nephew's gracious introduction...
...effect of the Democrats' antidrug homilies may be little more than saying "Me too." Democratic Political Consultant Bob Shrum calls drugs a "valence" issue -- one that supersedes more routine concerns. Traditionally, Republicans have been perceived as the party of law-and-order and international machismo. But the drug issue gives Democrats a way of denouncing crime and declining social values without sacrificing the virtues of compassion. And it is already serving to help the Democrats strike emotional chords in voters who have mostly been unmoved by the 1988 primaries...
With help from Deputy Campaign Manager Joe Trippi, Political Consultant Bob Shrum, 44, an intense and brilliant veteran wordsmith in four presidential campaigns, went to work on a television ad that would bring Gephardt's theme to life. It showed a stern-looking Gephardt promising to force the Koreans to reduce tariffs on American cars, or "they'll soon learn how many Americans will pay $48,000 for a Hyundai." The spot hit the air in Iowa the day after Christmas and grabbed viewers by the collar. "What the TV did was punch through what I'd been saying...
Over Christmas, Shrum began to cobble together a new stump speech that altered the tone of the Gephardt candidacy: the new Shrum speech zeroed in on the "Establishment" as the culprit for what was wrong with the country. The Establishment, Gephardt charged, was intent on sending jobs overseas, cutting Social Security and hacking up family farms for agribusinesses. It was a brazen act of reinvention: Gephardt's previous message touted his ability as a Washington insider to work within the corridors of power; now he was preaching the politics of resentment...