Dick Morris

Dick Morris is an American political author and commentator who previously worked as a pollster, political campaign consultant, and general political consultant.

Morris became an adviser to the Bill Clinton administration after Clinton was elected president in 1992. As a shrewd expert on polls and trends, Morris encouraged Clinton to pursue so-called third way policies of triangulation that merged traditional Republican and Democratic proposals, rhetoric, and issues to achieve maximum political gain and popularity.

The president consulted Morris in secret beginning in 1994. In the words of Clinton's Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, "I always had the feeling that the president wanted to listen to the dark side, even though he clearly knew in his guts where the issues were and what he wanted to do. He always wanted to listen to the Morris voice to kind of say, what are the thoughts of the most extreme kind of manipulative operation that could go on in politics? I want to hear that voice. I want to hear what he's thinking." Clinton's communications director George Stephanopoulos has said that "Over the course of the first nine months of 1995, no single person had more power over the president".[1] Morris went on to become Campaign manager of Bill Clinton's successful 1996 bid for re-election to the office of President. His tenure on that campaign was cut short two months before the election, when it was revealed that he had allowed a prostitute to listen in on conversations with the President. Morris then turned his focus to media commentary. He now writes a weekly column for the New York Post which is carried nationwide, contributes columns and blogs to both the print and online versions of The Hill, and appears regularly on the Fox News Channel for political commentary. He is also President of vote.com, a website which states that it conducts objective polls, but which is charged by critics of being heavily slanted toward the Republican viewpoint.

More recently, Morris has emerged as a harsh critic of the Clintons and has written several books that criticize them, including Rewriting History, a rebuttal to Senator Hillary Clinton's Living History. Morris once joked he would leave the United States if Hillary Clinton were elected president in 2008.

Early life

Morris attended Stuyvesant High School in New York City, where he was active on the debate team. He managed Jerrold Nadler's campaign for class president; Nadler has since gone on to represent New York in the House of Representatives. Morris was also involved in the first campaign of Richard Gottfried for New York State Assembly in 1970. Morris graduated from Stuyvesant in 1964, then attended Columbia University where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, graduating a year early, in 1967.

Religion

Dick Morris stated on Fox News that he was Jewish, and because of that he sympathized with those that wanted to take the Confederate Flag off the South Carolina Statehouse. In one of the very few times that he agreed with Alan Colmes instead of Sean Hannity on Fox's Hannity & Colmes, he described that keeping the Confederate flag flying would be like flying the Nazi flag.

Morris and the Clintons

Morris first worked with Bill and Hillary Clinton during Bill Clinton's successful 1978 bid for Governor of Arkansas. Morris is credited by many with engineering Clinton's re-election to the Arkansas governorship after a humiliating defeat at the end of Clinton's first term. As a result, Clinton turned to Morris after the mid-term elections of 1994, when Republicans gained control of the U.S. House and Senate and Clinton's own chance for a second presidential term seemed remote. From the early months of 1995 until August 1996, Morris was a principal architect of the Clinton-Gore re-election strategy.

Morris did not have a role in Clinton's successful 1992 Presidential campaign, which instead was headed by David Wilhelm, James Carville, George Stephanopoulos, and Paul Begala. After the 1994 mid-term election where Republicans took control of both houses of the United States Congress and gained considerable power in the states, Clinton once again sought Morris' help to prepare for the 1996 Presidential election. It was Morris who proposed a strategy that is now referred to as "triangulation," where Clinton would appeal to a diverse group of voters by distancing himself from both the Democratic and Republican parties.

Female Presidential Candidates and Sexism

On November 5th 2007 when asked about Hillary Clinton's claim of experiencing sexism during the Democratic Presidential Primary debates in the months prior to the Iowa Caucuses, Morris commented that "when a woman wants to be President, she shouldn't complain based on gender. I'm going to go home because the big boys are picking on me. What happens when the boys in the Middle East or the boys who run Russia or the boys who run China start picking on you? Are we going to have a President of the United States saying the boys are picking on me? This is what Hillary always does. Whenever she gets under fire, she retreats behind the apron strings.".

On September 2nd 2008 during the Republican National Convention Morris said, in reference to personal attacks on 2008 Republican Vice-Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin and her children, that "a man would never have had to go through this." Morris elaborated that the attacks on her ability as a mother of five to balance family life and the duties of the Vice-Presidential office reflected a "deep sexism that runs through our society."

Fallout

File:DickMorris TimeMagazineCover Scandal.jpg

Time Magazine featured the scandal on September 9, 1996.

On August 29, 1996, Morris resigned from the Clinton campaign after reports surfaced that he had been involved with a prostitute. A tabloid newspaper had obtained and published a set of photographs of Morris and the woman on a Washington, D.C., hotel balcony. The Daily Telegraph reported that in order to impress the woman, Sherry Rowlands, Morris invited her to listen in on conversations with the President. The Telegraph also alleged that Morris had a preference for "toe-sucking and dominance," and that he regaled Rowlands with a version of "Popeye the Sailor Man," performed in his underpants.[2]

Morris resigned on the same day that Bill Clinton spoke and accepted the nomination at the Democratic National Convention. In his resignation statement, he said that "while I served I sought to avoid the limelight because I did not want to become the message. Now, I resign so I will not become the issue." In his response, President Clinton praised Morris as a "friend" and thanked him for his years of service.

Morris was featured on two consecutive covers of Time magazine. The September 2, 1996, issue, which was released before the prostitute story broke, featured Morris as "The Man Who Has Clinton's Ear." The following week, the cover featured Morris and his wife, Eileen McGann, and the headline read "The Morris Mess: After the Fall."

Later work

In his 1997 book Behind the Oval Office, Morris wrote that, following an argument in the Arkansas Governor's Mansion, he strode toward the exit and was tackled by Clinton. In 2003, Morris further stated that Clinton cocked his arm back to throw a punch, but Hillary Clinton pulled her husband off Morris. In both versions of the story, she consoled Morris and apologized to him, stating that Bill only behaved such with those he cared for most. According to Morris, she did this to keep him quiet about the incident. He says the incident was the reason for denying Bill Clinton's request to work on the 1992 campaign; Clinton's side of the story is not known.

Morris has become a vocal and regular critic of the Clintons since his departure, in particular Hillary Rodham Clinton and her bid for the presidency. Morris has written extensively about the Clintons (see below) and also contributed to Hillary the Movie, a Michael Moore-style film about the then-candidate. Later, after former President Bill Clinton's comments about the similarities between the Obama win and the win of Presidential candidate Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1988, Morris quickly put out an article on his blog that asserted that this was Clinton's way of injecting race into the political campaign.

Other work

Political consulting

Described as America's most ruthless political consultant in the BBC documentary Century of the Self Episode 4 which chronicled how he brought lifestyle marketing to politics for the first time. Dick told Clinton the way to winning was to throw out all ideology and treat politics as a consumer business -- to target the swing voters and identify their personal desires and whims and then promise to fulfill them. (Century of the Self Part 4 ~36:00). Targeting the worries of the swing voters became all that mattered and issues such as the V-Chip were the issues that became relevant. American suburbanite voters were running America's domestic policy and some of its foreign policy in the 1990s as the Clinton administration developed their political stance and strategies based on popular opinion polls, for example the bombing of Bosnia. (Century of the Self Part 4 ~41:00).

Morris has also consulted for candidates in other countries of the western hemisphere, including the campaigns of Fernando de la Rua for President of Argentina (1999), Jorge Batlle for President of Uruguay (1999), Vicente Fox for President of Mexico (2000), and Raphael Trotman for President of Guyana (2006).[3]

Morris and Eileen McGann are behind www.vote.com, a site intended to register non-scientific political public opinion on various issues

Guest commentator and political prognosticator

Since leaving the Clintons' employ in 1996, Morris has said he has become profoundly "disillusioned" with the actions of the Clintons in the late 1990s. He has now formed a career of sorts as a political commentator and critic of the Clintons (particularly towards Hillary), primarily appearing on Fox News programs such as Hannity & Colmes and the O'Reilly Factor, and on various local and nationally syndicated radio talk shows. Morris is also a regular columnist and Pundits Blogger for The Hill, a nonpartisan daily newspaper based in Washington, D.C., and for NewsMax.com, a conservative online news website.

Occasionally Morris attempts to predict candidates' chances of winning elections during these appearances, though with a somewhat-mixed record. In a 2005 book on the upcoming 2008 Presidential campaign, Morris stated that it is most likely that Hillary Clinton would face Condoleezza Rice for the presidency. Morris critics reacted by mocking his mistaken predictions of past races. For instance, he stated "I don't give much for his chances," referring to John Kerry challenging Howard Dean for the Democratic nomination for the Presidential run in 2004, a prediction that was not borne out when Dean was beaten in the race. Additionally, he predicted that Hillary Clinton would face a "nightmare" in her 2006 senate race against moderate Republican candidate Jeanine Pirro, whose campaign subsequently collapsed within a matter of two months after repeated crushing defeats in the opinion polls. He even went so far as to suggest that Clinton would "give up" and drop out to focus on her 2008 campaign.

Morris further wrote that Hurricane Katrina would mark Bush's second term the same way 9/11 marked his first term, saying: "Katrina has the capacity to shape the second Bush term in the same way September 11 shaped his first term -- not only in rebuilding New Orleans but in taking preventative steps around the nation to bolster our defenses against natural and man-made disasters and terror strikes. Responding to disasters is a source of presidential strength and popularity, and Bush is about to show how it is done."

Appearing on Fox News' Hannity and Colmes on January 29, 2008, Morris said that those voting for John Edwards were "at the moment... those that can't decide which they don’t like more - a black or a woman getting elected". Host Alan Colmes asked if he was "saying that Edwards voters are bigots?" Morris elaborated that exits polls showed Edwards voters were unsure if a woman or a Black American, in reference to then Democratic Primary front runners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, could get elected to the Presidency for the first time.

Foreign political consultant

Morris worked with the United Kingdom Independence Party in their campaign before the 2004 European Parliament election. The party, which advocates withdrawal from the European Union, won 12 of Britain's 78 seats.

In 2004 and 2005, he and his wife have acted as campaign consultants to the successful Yushchenko Presidential campaign in Ukraine. Morris reports that he insisted on the use of exit polls as a means of potentially exposing ballot tampering. He argues this played a significant role in forcing the government of then President Leonid Kuchma to acquiesce to a new poll when the official results of the first varied materially from the exit surveys. Mexico 2004; Morris outlined the strategy of the negative campaign that would be used against the PRD and AMLO: “The PRD would be a disaster for Mexico, the country would go in the same direction as Chávez and Castro.” That is to say, López Obrador would be “a danger to Mexico,” as Rob Allyn said in an article published on April 3, 2006, published in the New York Post.

In a November 13th 2007 press conference in Nairobi, Kenya, Morris announced that he would be offering his consultancy services pro bono for the campaign to elect Raila Odinga as President of Kenya in the 2007 Presidential election running on the Orange Democratic Movement ticket.

With four weeks to the National Elections, an editorial in one of the leading dailies called into question the legalities of Dick Morris' consulting work from the perspective of his presence in, and lack of legal ability to work in Kenya "pro bono" or "through the back door".

The outcome of the December 27th, 2007 elections in Kenya is still disputed due to allegations of electoral fraud and rigging by the incumbent president, Mwai Kibaki, the Party of National Unity and erroneous reporting by the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK). Massive protests and tribal tensions have since erupted between the president's Kikuyu tribe and the majority of other tribes not favorably aligned to the outcome. Major mediations have commenced between concerned parties, including possible formation of a collision and/or interim government until reelections are performed.

Morris' DVD

Morris has appeared in the documentary film FahrenHYPE 9/11, a response to Michael Moore's 2004 film, Fahrenheit 9/11. He also wrote the screenplay.

Books

File:DickMorris RewritingHistory Cover.jpg

Morris responded to Hillary Clinton's Living History with his book Rewriting History.

Morris has written several books. Most recently he wrote Condi vs. Hillary (subtitled The next great presidential race) (ISBN 0-06-083913-9) in which he argues that only Condoleezza Rice could block Hillary Clinton's anticipated 2008 bid for the White House. He co-authored this book with his wife, Eileen McGann.

Previously he wrote a pair of books criticizing the Clintons, again co-authored by his wife, Eileen McGann. Rewriting History (ISBN 0-06-073668-2) was published in May 2004 as a rebuttal to Hillary Clinton's book, Living History (ISBN 0-7432-2224-5). In it, he argues that Hillary Clinton has presented a false "nice" persona in the book. Morris instead remembers her as manipulative, cold, and single-minded in her pursuit of power. Similarly, Morris and McGann wrote Because He Could (ISBN 0-06-078415-6) in response to Bill Clinton's memoir My Life (ISBN 0-375-41457-6). Morris has also written Behind the Oval Office: Winning the Presidency in the Nineties (ISBN 1-58063-053-7), a retrospective of his work with the Clintons that was published soon after his resignation from the campaign in 1996. Other books include Power Plays: Win or Lose--How History's Great Political Leaders Play the Game (ISBN 0-06-000444-4), The New Prince (ISBN 1580631479 ) and Vote.com: How Big-Money Lobbyists and the Media Are Losing Their Influence, and the Internet Is Giving Power Back to the People (ISBN 1-58063-163-0).

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann's latest collaboration is Fleeced: How Barack Obama, Media Mockery of Terrorist Threats, Liberals Who Want To Kill Talk Radio, The Do-Nothing Congress, Companies That Help Iran, And Washington Lobbyists For Foreign Governments Are Scamming Us...And What To Do About It (ISBN-13 9780061718663). It came out in June 2008 and is described as "In this hard-hitting call to arms, Dick Morris and Eileen McGann reveal the hundreds of ways American tax-payers are routinely fleeced--by our own government; by foreign countries like Dubai that are gobbling up American interests and spending millions to influence government decisions and American public opinion; by Washington lobbying firms that are pushing the agendas of corrupt foreign dictators on Capitol Hill; and by hedge-fund billionaires collecting huge tax breaks courtesy of the IRS."

See also

• David Horowitz
• American politics
• Polling
• Political consultant
• Campaign manager
• Commentator
• Bill Clinton
• Hillary Clinton

References

• Conason, Joe (2008-04-09). "Daily show". comedycentral.com. Retrieved 2008-03-09. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Conason, Joe (2003-06-12). "Setting Dick Morris straight". Salon.com. Retrieved 2004-10-14. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• "Dick Morris Biography". NewsMax.com. Retrieved 2004-10-14.
• "Clinton ex-adviser gives boost to Britain's anti-EU party". EUBusiness. 2004-06-15. Retrieved 2004-10-14. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Morris, Dick (2003-06-12). "Setting the Record Straight: An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton". National Review Online. Retrieved 2004-10-14. {{cite magazine}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• "NewsHour Transcript: The Morris Resignation". Online NewsHour. 1996-08-29. Retrieved 2004-10-14. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

External links

• DickMorris.com, Dick Morris' Blog and Opinion Site
• Vote.com, Dick Morris' online polling site
• Podcasts of Morris' recent articles
• Dick Morris' Pundits Blogs for The Hill
• Dick Morris at IMDb