So Bob Shrum – he of the distinguished campaign consulting and speechwriting record of Ed Muskie, then George McGovern in 1972, Ted Kennedy 1980, Dick Gephardt 1988, Mike Dukakis 1988, Bob Kerrey 1992, Al Gore 2000, John Kerry 2004 - is going after Mitt Romney:
Romney is the remainder man of the Republican race, the one to have once conservatives realize that dwarf stars like Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore are dim possibilities. This also assumes, of course, that John McCain, who’s been busily engaged in some base licking of his own, can’t overcome the doubts about him by cozying up to Jerry Falwell. If McCain falters, Romney will be there as the plausible alternative. But in a straight-up choice between them, McCain has the advantage. He’s not only a genuine career-long social conservative—a truth obscured by the sliming he took from the Bush campaign in 2000 — he’s also the next in line, steadily drawing Bush operatives and fundraisers to his side, in a party that nominates by primogeniture and increasingly regards McCain as both acceptable enough to the base and electable enough in the country to hold the White House in 2008.
I recently read Richard Ben Cramer’s
What It Takes, a fascinating, but really, really long (1051 pages!) portrait of the 1988 presidential race. (And no index. Arrrrgh, as Bob Dole would say.) Anyway, guess who makes an appearance, and comes across as rather odd, in a section describing the campaign of Dick Gephardt:
And [Gephardt campaign manager Bill] Carrick got in, looked the thing over, and discovered there’s no message. Who’s doing message? And Carrick said, there’s only one guy to do message: guy’s a genius – Bob Shrum. They’d worked together for Teddy Kennedy – Shrummy and Bill, pals, you see… so Carrick told Dick he had to get Shrum. So Dick called Shrum, and called him, and called him back, and finally invited him to dinner… out to the house for dinner. So they made a date, and Jane cooked, and everything was ready, out in the woods of Virginia, where Dick and Jane had their lovely, airy house… except that day, Shrum was meeting about [Mario] Cuomo. Had an appointment with Mario’s son, Andrew – supposed to talk for an hour or so. But Shrummy and Andrew got to talking and the time… well, it just went! … and it got to be awfully late. And there were Dick and Jane, in the woods in Virginia, and no Shrum, and the dinner was drying out in the oven by the time Shrum finished talking to Cuomo… and that was in Washington, forty-five minutes, at least, from Dick’s house, and Shrum would have to find someone to drive him (Shrum’s a genius and does not have to drive himself – he once took a cab in Washington… to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) so Shrum had to go back to his office and get a colleague to drive him out to Dick’s, and by the time they got there, even Shrum thought Dick might be, well, a little ****ed off… but no.
“Good to see youuu…” Dick said at the door. Jane was in the kitchen, taking the supper off life-support. And Shrum and Dick started talking… about the campaign, the nation’s ills, the Congress, the White House, the field for ’88… and it was great. Shrummy talked about a lot… but the amazing was, how well they agreed! And by the time Dick jumped into his own car, to spend an hour and a half driving Shrum back to Washington (Hey, no problem – after midnight there’s hardly any traffic at all!) Shrum forgot all about Cuomo.
[All italics and ellipses in original.]
Let me get this straight: This guy can run a campaign, but he can’t drive a car?
I guess Romney could shut up Shrum’s criticism by challenging him to a drag race.
