Bob Shrum, the longtime political consultant who is a great analyst and talking head but whose record in winning big U.S. elections is not stellar, has now become enmeshed in another controversy — in Great Britain.
Shrum has been under fire for his influence on Prime Minister Gordon Brown and in a new controversy a newspaper suggests that some of Brown’s speech phrases even seem lifted from American politicians.
Shrum came under the microscope recently in a big way via this piece carried by Times Online:
Bob Shrum has fought eight US presidential elections and lost them all. That has not stopped his re-emergence as an influence on Gordon Brown, an old friend to whom he has played host in Cape Cod.
The veteran Democratic strategist helped to write the Prime Minister’s conference speech and is even said to have been given a desk at the Cabinet Office from where he is helping to plan Labour’s election campaign.
Even before Tony Blair’s departure Mr Shrum was travelling to London to dispense advice to Mr Brown. The Times disclosed that in March last year he delivered a speech at a private seminar at the John Smith Institute attended by Brownite notables such as Ed Balls and Douglas Alexander. He suggested that Labour needed to distance itself from Mr Blair’s record and eschew the politics of “triangulationâ€, they meant that leaders had to set their compass by the direction of others, he said.
Who says the U.S. has lost its influence in the world?
American political consultants or former politicians have not ruled out putting their two cents in (although their clients paid a lot more than two cents) abroad on political and other matters. Former Clinton political maven James Carville is thinking about doing some consulting in Greece. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has criss-crossed the world as a paid security consultant. MORE from times:
Mr Shrum’s hand was also detected in the Chancellor’s 2006 Budget speech, which had echoes of the “people versus the powerful†theme of Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign.
One senior Democratic figure expressed concern that Mr Shrum could be about to reprise the election strategy in which the Vice-President distanced himself from the Administration of his boss, Bill Clinton. “Tell him to stop – I mean, it really worked for ‘President’ Gore, didn’t it?†he said.
Karl Rove, who masterminded President Bush’s election victories against Mr Gore in 2000 and a similarly advised John Kerry in 2004, was likewise incredulous. Mr Brown was “hanging out with a loserâ€, and his link to Mr Shrum was likely to reinforce the Prime Minister’s image in the White House as someone with traditional US Democratic views, he told friends.
And now there are outright allegations of plagiarism. The Times again:
Claims by The Times that Gordon Brown drew on speeches from American politicians for his first conference leader’s speech were described as garbage by one of his Cabinet allies.
Andy Burnham, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, went even farther and suggested that the newspaper was acting as the tool of an increasingly desperate Opposition. He was reacting to research by Times Online’s Comment Central, which found rehashed phrases from Bill Clinton and Al Gore in Mr Brown’s conference address this week.
Further research by The Times yesterday uncovered more similarities between Mr Brown’s speeches and those delivered by a generation of top American Democrat politicians.
Bob Shrum, now one of Mr Brown’s close advisers, also ran their campaigns, although Labour has strongly denied that speeches were recycled.
In June the Prime Minister addressed the special party conference that elected him leader. Its structure and theme as well as words bear comparison with the speech that John Kerry gave three years earlier after being accepted as Democratic presidential candidate. Mr Kerry, a Vietnam War hero, came on stage and announced that he was “reporting for dutyâ€. When Tony Blair dramatically introduced his successor to the Manchester conference,Mr Brown strode out to say that he was “ready to serveâ€.
The second paragraph of each address makes a patriotic reference to “our countryâ€. Mr Kerry begins: “We are here tonight because we love our country.†Mr Brown starts: “I accept the privilege and the great responsibility of leading our party and changing our country.â€
There’s more so read the entire article.
WARNING TO BROWN: Make sure an American political consultant doesn’t tell you that they have a GREAT joke for you to tell…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.