Adios, Bob

Wonderful news.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 - Bob Shrum, one of the dominant Democratic political strategists and speechwriters of the last three decades, said Wednesday that he was ending his formal consulting career and moving to New York, where he would write and teach at New York University as a senior fellow.

"I wanted to reflect on what I've done, not just keep doing it," Mr. Shrum, 61, said in an interview. "And I wanted to draw lessons from what I'd seen and draw implications for the future."

He leaves Washington with a mixed record, having served as an adviser on 26 winning Senate campaigns, perhaps more than any other consultant, but also eight losing presidential campaigns, which may also stand as a record. Mr. Shrum was a lead adviser to Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign, where he was sometimes a divisive figure and where he occasionally drew more attention from reporters than his candidate did. He was widely criticized as failing to develop a clean, consistent message.

"No one will believe this, but there is a reasonable chance that I would have done this had Senator Kerry won," Mr. Shrum said of ending his formal work as a consultant. "I didn't want to go to the White House or lobby."

Shrum is the most elite of the elite Washington campaign strategists who, despite consistently losing -- ever more badly -- election after election, continue to hold the reins of power at the DNC. While Republicans have found their best strategists from outside of the beltway (think of Karl Rove), Democrats have been forced to rely on guys like Shrum, an excellent speechwriter (still living off a poignant speech he wrote for Ted Kennedy -- in 1980, for godsakes) who was way out of his depth when it came to running a national political campaign, and who was increasingly out of touch with changes in the electorate. For more on this elite cadre of losers, read Amy Sullivan's excellent piece, "Fire the Consultants," in the Washington Monthly.

But, before you go, check out this weird paragraph from Katharine Q. Seelye's piece in the Times:

If [Shrum] had stuck with Jimmy Carter in 1976, he would have had one victory under his belt. But he grew disenchanted with Mr. Carter and quit just nine days after joining his campaign.

Um, Kit, wouldn't it have been more likely that, if Shrum had stayed on and Pat Cadell had not been permitted to play the role he did in shaping Carter's campaign, Carter would have been yet more Democratic roadkill on the highway to the White House?