Word: shrum
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Shrum carries a colorful political history: A Harvard Law School graduate, he was principal speechwriter to former South Dakota Sen. George S. McGovern in his 1972 presidential run. Fired after 10 days on the only successful presidential campaign for which he has ever worked (Jimmy Carter’s in 1976), Shrum trashed the candidate on his way out. After finding a permanent home as the top wordsmith for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy ’54-’56, D-Mass., Shrum opened a wildly lucrative political consulting shop noted more for its consistency than its batting average...
...Shrum campaign occasionally offers Kennedy-esque imagery (Kerry’s “we need to go to the moon here on Earth”), often involves unsubtle negativity (Gore’s 2000 ads featuring pollution almost emanating from Bush’s head), but always—always—delivers some variant of the “fighter” message. Call it repetitive, brilliant, leftist or anything else—but realize that Shrum’s narrative has never won a presidential election. This is not to say that populism is a mistake; Shrum...
...Shrum Populism is dramatically different from the populism that wins. Yes, Jimmy Carter ran against “entrenched Washington insiders,” Ronald Reagan used non-existent “welfare queens” to symbolize government excess and Bill Clinton attacked “brain-dead politicians.” But that wasn’t who they were. They were Common-Man Populists—Carter on his peanut farm, Reagan at his Santa Barbara ranch, Clinton from small-town Arkansas. They were guys you would enjoy inviting over for a beer, and who seemed...
Chris Matthews, the MSNBC commentator, likes to say that the Americans vote for the presidential candidate with “the sun on his face.” The Common-Man Populists are optimists. Carter, Reagan, Clinton—they understood something that Shrum never will: Americans are aspirational, not punitive. To defeat the last Republican president running for re-election, Bill Clinton said, “All of us—we need each other. When George Bush fails to invest in our people, what he doesn’t understand is that, in America, we don?...
...When Shrum advises his candidates to attack the top 1 percent, he neglects that (according to USA Today’s polls) 20 percent of Americans believe that they’re already among the wealthiest 1 percent, and 50 percent believe they will reach the highest 1 percent in their lifetimes. When Shrum advises his candidates to condemn corporations, he ignores that (according to the Survey of Consumer Finances) nearly half of all Americans own some form of stock—and want American companies to succeed. And when Shrum advises his candidates to call President Bush a tool...