"Shrum and Dumber"

I'm going to blog about it in a more substantial way later, but for now I thought I'd just note that my review of Bob Shrum's memoir No Excuses: Confessions of a Serial Camapaigner is up on The Washington Monthly's website. And, of course, it's also available in their print magazine:

Walking around Washington, D.C., telling people you’re reading Bob Shrum’s forthcoming memoir turns out to be a fantastic small-talk gambit. People are astounded, confused, sympathetic. Someone gave him a book deal? Who would read that? Who would buy it? Good questions, all. But none quite as good as the question of why Shrum wrote the book.

Read the rest.

Comments

If Kerry had voted against the war, he would have lost by 10 points, having been portrayed as a weak peacenik who had been against both Iraq wars.

The war was not unpopular in the fall of 2004.

Posted by David | May 26, 2007 8:37 AM

David, the first commenter, is right on. Polling on Iraq (http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq2.htm) shows that as election day neared in 2004, a majority of people thought Dubya was mishandling the war in Iraq, but the majority also disagreed with the notion that the war was a mistake. So, Kerry was on that issue perfectly positioned to win the election. He failed for other reasons.

Whether you like it or not, a majority of Americans favored the invasion of Iraq. Moreover, they continued to favor the war until about mid-2005 and opposed ending it until mid-2006.

Posted by Kevin B. O'Reilly | May 26, 2007 10:16 AM

This brutal review of Democratic party titan by blogging 'teenager' should be nominated for Kaus's Whippersnapper! award.

Posted by otto | May 26, 2007 10:29 AM

Part of the reason, though, that Americans still supported the war was because even the Democrats had supported it going in.

Consider an alternate reality in which rather than signing off on Bush's plans, Dems had stood firmly against the war from the beginning, citing A) no 9/11 connection, B) weak evidence for WMD, al Qaeda connections and C) danger that sectarian tensions could spiral into a civil war. (all of which they knew full well) For one thing the public would have been made aware that these objections even existed. As it was on the eve of the war the public assumed Saddam was behind 9/11, that he was developing nuclear weapons and was in cahoots with al Qaeda. And considering that the Democrats weren't even contesting any of this why would they think any differently?

But if Dems had stood firm I believe that by Fall '04 the public would be thinking "hey, perhaps they were right after all" as opposed to "oh, well it's convenient for you to criticize it now that it's going poorly, but you supported it back then, so your criticisms are just political opportunism."

This is all a long winded way of saying that it's not just about checking the right boxes, it's about leadership and moving the public to your point of view through forceful persuasion.

Posted by Lee | May 26, 2007 11:30 AM

Can those Washington Monthly guys proofread or what! Damn!

Posted by John Emerson | May 26, 2007 11:37 AM

This is certainly my favorite part:

After Kerrey’s loss, Shrum is surprised to be locked out of Bill Clinton’s general election campaign on the grounds that Hillary is upset by rumors that Shrum was gossiping with George McGovern about Bill’s extracurricular sexual escapades. This Shrum seems to feel is a bum rap, though he does admit he passed on to McGovern an unsubstantiated secondhand rumor about Clinton hitting on Ron Brown’s daughter.

I believe Shrum believe he swayed the vote of Kerry and Edwards but, on the other hand, if Shrum told me that the Sun rises in the east, I'd be tempted to buy a compass.

Posted by BruceMcF | May 26, 2007 11:54 AM

Lee,

Opposing the war from the beginning might have been a good strategy for the Democratic Party as a whole. Maybe a concerted campaign by the Dems could have swung public opinion. But this advice is irrelevant to a single candidate. If Kerry had gone out on a limb and opposed the war from the beginning, he would have ended up like Howard Dean. He wouldn't even have won the primary, much less changed public opinion.

Anyway, when the Dems authorized the President to use military force in 2002, it was as much a principled stand as a political calculation. At the time, most Dems thought it was the right thing to do.

In hindsight, the right strategy for Kerry would have been to say during the general election campaign that although he supported the war in the beginning, Bush had botched it so badly that it was time to pull out.

Posted by Ragout | May 26, 2007 12:30 PM

In hindsight, the right strategy for Kerry would have been to say during the general election campaign that although he supported the war in the beginning, Bush had botched it so badly that it was time to pull out.

Clever. Except that, um, the war was strategic idiocy from the start.

Get it through your head: "Triangulation" is a long-term loser. Consistent advocacy of sound policies, coupled with a least a facade of conviction, builds both winning coalitions and sound governments.

Posted by sglover | May 26, 2007 1:08 PM

Shrum says, running “in a 9/11 election against a wartime president who wrapped himself in that tragedy” was an objectively difficult proposition

On Bush's watch, thousands of people from "SpecialInterest" countries (Iran, Iraq, S.A., Afghanistan, etc. etc. etc.) have successfully crossed the border. Obvious to just about everyone except the corrupt Dem leadership, that tends to undercut Bush's claims to be protecting the U.S. If Kerry had pointed that out during the Tempe debate or elsewhere, he could have cost Bush several points and would have won Arizona.

Then, there's Bush's original "GuestWorker" plan. Pointing out how un- and anti-American this would have been and all the damage it would have done and what it revealed about Bush would have been so trivially easy 3rd graders could have done it. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GQM-4q099A

If Kerry had brought that up, he could have cost Bush even more points and won at least Ohio.

Once again: highlighting what Bush supports could have sunk his candidacy. It would have been trivially easy.

Perhaps Matt should spend a bit more time looking into this whole immigration thing, and trying to figure out what to do about Dem corruption.

Posted by TLB | May 26, 2007 1:19 PM

sglover,

I'm not trying to be clever or triangulate. It's pretty easy to be right in hindsight. But it's pretty hard to be as wrong in hindsight as you and Matt are.

I think Kerry's vote to authorize the use of military force in October 2002 was the right thing to do. I'm pretty sure Kerry thought it was the right thing to do (I've appended his September 2004 justification below).

How anyone can doubt that voting for the AUMF was the right move politically, I can't understand. There were 2 anti-war candidates in the Democratic primaries -- Clark and Dean -- and they were both trounced. Maybe you or Matt can explain how a position that couldn't even win support from Democratic primary voters was going to succeed in the general election.

Two years ago, Congress was right to give the President the authority to use force to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. This President -- any President -- would have needed the threat of force to act effectively. This President misused that authority. [John Kerry, 9/20/2004]

Posted by Ragout | May 26, 2007 2:53 PM

Maybe you or Matt can explain how a position that couldn't even win support from Democratic primary voters was going to succeed in the general election.

Because they thought they were being strategic? What I remember from the primary season was ABB and this awful paranoia from the average primary voter that any bloodletting was some conspiracy by Karl Rove to weaken the ABB candidate. Kerry took Iowa and everyone out there said "whatever" and glommed onto him. Your primary voter is exactly who is going to be swayed by "electabilty" sort of concerns. Come to think of it, that's exactly what's going on right now with the Republican primaries.

Posted by Ed Marshall | May 26, 2007 3:00 PM

Get it through your head: "Triangulation" is a long-term loser. Consistent advocacy of sound policies, coupled with a least a facade of conviction, builds both winning coalitions and sound governments.

So if Kerry had advocated an end to the war on drugs, he would have won by a landslide....

Or,say, an increase in the estate and gasoline taxes.

Posted by David | May 26, 2007 3:02 PM

Ragout,

What makes you think the Dems supported the war on principle and that they really thought it was the right thing to do? Of course Shrum himself says he convinced Kerry and Edwards to vote for the war despite their objections, telling them it was a vote they had to make if they wanted a shot at being President. Obviously just because Shrum says something doesn't make it so, but in this case I'm inclined to believe him simply because I think that whatever their faults Kerry and Edwards are basically smart people. And any smart person who was well informed about the world knew from the beginning that this was the wrong war to fight.

I will concede there were two things we know now that we didn't know then. First, we all assumed that there were biological/chemical weapons in Iraq, and though those were by no means worth going to war over the idea was that even if the nuclear weapons facilities didn't exist the Bush adm. would still be able to tell scary stories about how many people X amount of mustard gas would kill if put in the water supply, etc. So even though the WMD thing was bogus, by conflating nuclear weapons with these other weapons the Republicans seemed to have the upper hand on that issue.

Secondly, while imposing Democracy on a country like Iraq was always far-fetched at best, given the enormous power of our military there seemed to be a chance at least that they might be able to pull it off. This was frankly based on wishful thinking, but in the unlikely event it did work the Dems would look bad for having opposed it. (Of course if that happened no Dem would have a chance at winning the Presidency anyway.)

But look, people who actually take these issue seriously know that war is not a game, and you don't start one unless you've got a damn good reason. Because once that ball starts rolling you really can't know where it's going to take you. Edwards knew this and Kerry DAMN WELL knew this, having seen firsthand where it can lead.

I'm not demanding blood for this... they made a bad call for bad reasons. I've made a few myself (over less important matters, obviously). But let's be real: there was not a real debate about this issue. Those who supported this war on "principle" were either lunatics or dupes. Dems like Kerry on Edwards were neither of those but supported the war because of their (poorly thought out) political calculations.

That's what I think anyway.

Posted by Lee | May 26, 2007 3:27 PM

Oh I am so freaking over the whole "the vote wasn't for war, it was to give the Presidency the authority so that he could use it to pressure Saddam, but then Bush screwed it up and went to war anyway." I made that argument myself about a thousand times during the '04 elections like the good little Democrat that I am.

But goddammit, that's bullshit. We all knew full well that Bush was hell-bent on going to war with Iraq. I mean, why were even TALKING about Iraq, when there were actual terrorists in many countries OTHER THAN Iraq. Kerry acts like he had no reason not to take Bush in good faith... why then was there no outcry when Saddam let the inspectors back in, and WE STILL WENT TO WAR. The reason is that Kerry knew full well when he cast that vote that he was voting for war with Iraq. Not to give the President leverage, but to go to war.

2004 was a year where we all had to play silly little political word games like that. Of course it still didn't work. We still lost. I think it's time we just start calling like we see it and see how that works.

Posted by Lee | May 26, 2007 3:36 PM

I think Kerry's vote to authorize the use of military force in October 2002 was the right thing to do. I'm pretty sure Kerry thought it was the right thing to do (I've appended his September 2004 justification below).

Yeah, well, I'm speaking as somebody who knew, at the time, that that vote was 1) a blank check for a strategic disaster, and 2) a symptom of profound institutional failure in our government. I also speak as a guy who knew, before it happened, that the Iraq adventure would inevitably lead to a situation with no good options -- pretty much the essence of bad strategy. So obviously I should defer to your insight. Sheesh.

Kerry wasn't as bad a candidate as I thought he'd be, but I think there's good reason to believe that, like too many Dems, he voted for the blank check out of fear for his own political future. This "Bush fucked up what would have otherwise been a splendid war" has always been the most pathetic kind of blame dodging. It was clear that Bush and his crowd wanted war, it was clear that it wouldn't go anything like the bullshit happy predictions promised, and it was also clear -- before the fact -- that the execution would be done in the most half-assed and blase' manner.

If you have time on your hands, go to www.plastic.com, and look through the 2002-03 archives for my name, or any discussion thread about the pending war. I only mention this because it's a place where pre-war arguments among regular folks exist. Many educated lay people saw exactly how this clusterfuck was going to go.

Posted by sglover | May 26, 2007 7:28 PM

So if Kerry had advocated an end to the war on drugs, he would have won by a landslide....

Nice try, but I don't think the contexts are at all the same. Maybe you can show me how my criterion -- "consistent advocacy of sound policies" -- was satisfied Kerry's recorded votes for the "authorization of force" and against a subsequent "supplemental" or "emergency" or whatever-the-hell-it-was appropriation.

In any case, enabling the war was a discrete event. As I suspect you're aware, the war on (some) drugs is a boatload of policies, which will almost certainly not end at the behest of one politician. The cure for that disease is going to be a long-term campaign -- more of that "consistent advocacy of sound policies" that I keep going on about.

Posted by sglover | May 26, 2007 7:53 PM

So even though the WMD thing was bogus, by conflating nuclear weapons with these other weapons the Republicans seemed to have the upper hand on that issue.

Bravo, Lee. This was maddening at the time, and one of the most maddening things about it was that NO national Dem ever bothered to clear that deliberately muddied water. I would've loved to hear one of them say, "You keep talking about the 'WMD' threat. What we really need to worry about the nuclear threat. Does Iraq have that? How so, when they don't even control their own airspace?"

This was one of the worst instances of the Dem aversion to the entire topic of foreign and military policy that MY often mentions.

Posted by sglover | May 26, 2007 8:02 PM

I think Kerry believed that in order for diplomacy to work, it's best to allow the President to threaten war, and that Congress should mostly defer to the President on matters of war & peace.

Lee & sglover think that's a bad policy. Fine, but most voters and most Democratic office holders don't. In voting for the AUMF, Kerry was in the mainstream of Democratic Party thinking. Democrats continue to vote this way in Congress, as we've seen with the recent vote to fund the war without strings, and in the failure to de-authorize war on Iran. You can't attribute all of this to Shrum or to the political calculations of a presidential candidate.

Posted by Ragout | May 26, 2007 9:58 PM

Lee & sglover think that's a bad policy. Fine, but most voters and most Democratic office holders don't.

Translation: Just because you were correct years ago is no reason why anybody ought to listen to you. Got it. Been getting it for about four years now.

Democrats continue to vote this way in Congress, as we've seen with the recent vote to fund the war without strings, and in the failure to de-authorize war on Iran. You can't attribute all of this to Shrum or to the political calculations of a presidential candidate.

Who's blaming Shrum for the latest Dem sell-out? The Dems can fuck up (and they really fucked up this week, make no mistake -- the war is now theirs, too) without the services of a genius like Shrum.

Look, sorry for the sarcasm. I use it too much, but also, like I said, I saw this war as a disaster from the start. People start telling me all the other factors, the political calculations, the realities, and I just don't have any tolerance for it any more.

Posted by sglover | May 27, 2007 12:50 AM

You left out the biggest mistake of all in Gore's 2000 campaign: Not fitting Lieberman with a ball gag and locking him in the trunk of a car until the election was over. I will remain convinced until my dying day that Holy Joe delivered at least four times as many Nader votes as Nader did.

Posted by justawriter | May 27, 2007 2:00 AM

matt, you deserve an A+ on your book report! Another underlying lesson---Don't nominate sitting Senators for prez.

Posted by jvoe | May 27, 2007 4:20 PM

Lol - perfect opener.

Good book review.

Posted by Neal M | May 27, 2007 6:42 PM

I liked Matt's review, but I tend to listen to my first instincts about things, and my first instinct about this book was that even if Shrum was a failure as a consultant and that Democrats were stupid to hire the man he does undestand something, namely that he has some dirt to dish on prominent Democrats and that enough is likely to sell a few books.

And just because you're a failure at being a consultant and Democrats are stupid to hire you doesn't mean that John Edwards isn't a homophobe, a limousine liberal, and an empty suit.

Posted by Linus | May 27, 2007 7:50 PM

One other thing: had John Edwards done the right thing and gone home to take care of his wife (rather than using her likely-to-be-fatal illness to raise campaign cash) Bob Shrum would've looked like a big fucking asshole for dishing on the man.

But John Edwards didn't do the right thing, and more revelations will be forthcoming. What Shrum has to say about him may be seen in retrospect as the beginning of the end of his bid for the presidency.

Still, it isn't too too late for Edwards to salvage his reputation. He should (even now) go back to North Carolina, take care of his wife, maybe run for Congress again. He has the free time and cash and connections to found the most richly funded, most transparent, and most effective ngo to lift Americans out of poverty in history.

This presidential bid may ruin him if he continues.

Posted by Linus | May 27, 2007 8:16 PM