Dick Morris
Encyclopedia
Dick Morris is an American political
author and commentator who previously worked as a pollster, political campaign consultant
, and general political consultant.
A friend and advisor to Bill Clinton
during his time as Governor of Arkansas, Morris became a political adviser to the White House after Clinton was elected president in 1992. Morris encouraged Clinton to pursue third way
policies of triangulation
that combined traditional Republican and Democratic proposals, rhetoric, and issues to achieve maximum political gain and popularity. He worked as a Republican strategist before joining the Clinton administration, where he helped Clinton recover from the 1994 midterm elections
by convincing the President to adopt Republican policies.
The president consulted Morris in secret beginning in 1994. 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". 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.
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 said that he would leave the United States if Hillary Clinton were elected president in 2008.
Morris was the strategist for Republican Christy Mihos
' failed campaign in the 2010 Massachusetts gubernatorial race.
, an early proponent of confessional human interest stories
. He 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 in 1967.
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, in which 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.
, had obtained and published a set of photographs allegedly of Morris and the woman on a Washington, D.C.
, hotel balcony. News of the impending publication broke during the third day of the 1996 Democratic Convention. The Electronic Telegraph reported unverified claims that in order to impress the woman, S. Rowlands, Morris invited her to listen in on his conversations with President Clinton. It was also alleged he had an illegitimate child from an affair with a Texas woman.
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. Privately various aides to Clinton were furious that in his resignation statement Morris credited himself with helping the President "come back from being buried in a landslide" and that Morris ended by comparing himself to Robert Kennedy.
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."
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 documentary about Rodham Clinton when she was still a 2008 Presidential 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 put out an article on his blog that asserted that this was Clinton's way of injecting race into the political campaign.
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).
Morris and Eileen McGann are behind www.vote.com, a site intended to register non-scientific political public opinion on various issues.
Dick Morris had recently worked as a strategist for Christy Mihos
, a Republican candidate for governor of Massachusetts
running to unseat incumbent Deval Patrick
. Morris "oversaw strategy, polling, and advertising for Mihos." Mihos declined to continue his campaign after balloting at the Massachusetts Republican State Convention resulted in Charles D. Baker beating Mihos by a margin of 89 per cent to 11 per cent in a potential primary.
, Hannity
, 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.
Morris regularly makes predictions about candidates' chances of winning elections during these appearances. In a 2005 book on the 2008 Presidential campaign, Morris stated that it was most likely that Hillary Clinton would face Condoleezza Rice
for the presidency. Morris critics reacted by mocking his mistaken predictions of past races. Regarding the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, he initially stated that Howard Dean's candidacy could be written off right away. While ultimately vindicated, he had discussed the likelihood of Dean defeating John Kerry after early strong showings by the former Vermont governor. Kerry defeated Dean and all his other rivals and won the nomination. Additionally, in a column in "The Hill" on June 22, 2005, Morris predicted that Hillary Clinton would face her "worst 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 due to her husband's alleged mafia
ties. 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 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 exit polls showed some 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 in '08.
After Obama won the 2008 election, Morris was critical of him. In early 2009, Morris said: "Those crazies in Montana
who say, 'We're going to kill ATF
agents because the U.N.
’s going to take over'? Well, they’re beginning to have a case." In April 2009, Morris keynoted an animated debate at the Yale Political Union
on the topic
"Resolved: Save Capitalism from President Obama".
In a March 2011 column for The Hill
, Morris predicted that Obama would not win a second term as President.
For many years a "disillusioned Democrat," Dick Morris has stated he is now a Republican.
In August of 2011, Morris began a petition on his website opposing federal funding for the Park51 Muslim community center, claiming that the center is "designed to celebrate the attacks that killed 3,000 Americans", and that the center would "train the same kinds of terrorists who caused the... attacks."
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 had acted as campaign consultants to the successful Yushchenko
Presidential campaign in Ukraine
. Morris reports that he insisted on the use of exit poll
s 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. Interestingly, faced with a similar (though smaller) divergence between exit polling and election returns, he took the opposite stance in a 2004 article in The Hill when he suspected "foul play" on the part of the exit pollsters in the U.S. Presidential race.
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 13, 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 27, 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 coalition and/or interim government until reelections are held.
. The film was a response to Michael Moore
's 2004
film, Fahrenheit 9/11
.
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 ),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)and "Outrage" (ISBN 978-0-06-119540-2).
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 9780061718663), published in June 2008. Its jacket copy states, "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."
His book Catastrophe was released in June 2009.
His latest book is Revolt! How to Defeat Obama and Repeal His Socialist Programs, which was released in March 2011.
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
author and commentator who previously worked as a pollster, political campaign consultant
Political campaign staff
Political campaign staff are the people who formulate and implement the strategy needed to win an election. Many people have made careers out of working full-time for campaigns and groups that support them, but in other campaigns much of the staff might be unpaid volunteers...
, and general political consultant.
A friend and advisor to Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
during his time as Governor of Arkansas, Morris became a political adviser to the White House after Clinton was elected president in 1992. Morris encouraged Clinton to pursue third way
Third way (centrism)
The Third Way refers to various political positions which try to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of right-wing economic and left-wing social policies. Third Way approaches are commonly viewed from within the first- and second-way perspectives as...
policies of triangulation
Triangulation (politics)
Triangulation is the name given to the act of a political candidate presenting his or her ideology as being "above" and "between" the "left" and "right" sides of a traditional democratic "political spectrum". It involves adopting for oneself some of the ideas of one's political opponent...
that combined traditional Republican and Democratic proposals, rhetoric, and issues to achieve maximum political gain and popularity. He worked as a Republican strategist before joining the Clinton administration, where he helped Clinton recover from the 1994 midterm elections
Republican Revolution
The Republican Revolution or Revolution of '94 is what the media dubbed Republican Party success in the 1994 U.S. midterm elections, which resulted in a net gain of 54 seats in the House of Representatives, and a pickup of eight seats in the Senate...
by convincing the President to adopt Republican policies.
The president consulted Morris in secret beginning in 1994. Clinton's communications director George Stephanopoulos
George Stephanopoulos
George Robert Stephanopoulos is an American television journalist and a former political advisor.Stephanopoulos is most well known as the chief political correspondent for ABC News – the news division of the broadcast television network ABC – and a co-anchor of ABC News's morning news...
has said that "Over the course of the first nine months of 1995, no single person had more power over the president". Morris went on to become campaign manager
Campaign manager
A campaign manager is a paid or volunteer individual, whose role is to coordinate the campaign's operations such as fundraising, advertising, polling, getting out the vote , and other activities supporting the effort, directly.Apart from the candidate, they are often a campaign's most visible leader...
of Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
's successful 1996 bid for re-election to the office of President
President
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
. His tenure on that campaign
Political campaign
A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making process within a specific group. In democracies, political campaigns often refer to electoral campaigns, wherein representatives are chosen or referendums are decided...
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
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
which is carried nationwide, contributes columns and blogs to both the print and online versions of The Hill
The Hill (newspaper)
The Hill, a subsidiary of News Communications Inc., is a newspaper published in Washington, D.C. since 1994.Its first editor was Martin Tolchin, a veteran correspondent in the Washington bureau of The New York Times....
, and appears regularly on the Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
for political commentary. He is also President of Vote.com.
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
Living History
Living History is the autobiography of Secretary of State, former United States Senator from New York, and former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, published in 2003....
. Morris said that he would leave the United States if Hillary Clinton were elected president in 2008.
Morris was the strategist for Republican Christy Mihos
Christy Mihos
Christy P. Mihos is an American politician and businessman from the U.S. commonwealth of Massachusetts. He was an Independent candidate for Governor of Massachusetts in 2006 and ran again as a Republican in the 2010 Massachusetts gubernatorial election...
' failed campaign in the 2010 Massachusetts gubernatorial race.
Early life
Morris is the son of writer Terry MorrisTerry Lesser Morris
Terry Morris was a freelance magazine writer and former president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. She also wrote short stories and published several books...
, an early proponent of confessional human interest stories
Human interest story
A human interest story is a feature story that discusses a person or people in an emotional way. It presents people and their problems, concerns, or achievements in a way that brings about interest or sympathy in the reader or viewer....
. He attended Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School , commonly referred to as Stuy , is a New York City public high school that specializes in mathematics and science. The school opened in 1904 on Manhattan's East Side and moved to a new building in Battery Park City in 1992. Stuyvesant is noted for its strong academic...
in New York City, where he was active on the debate team. He managed Jerrold Nadler
Jerrold Nadler
Jerrold Lewis "Jerry" Nadler is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1992. He is a member of the Democratic Party.The district includes the west side of Manhattan from the Upper West Side down to Battery Park, including the site where the World Trade Center stood...
's campaign for class president; Nadler has since gone on to represent New York in the House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
. 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
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
where he earned a Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
degree
Academic degree
An academic degree is a position and title within a college or university that is usually awarded in recognition of the recipient having either satisfactorily completed a prescribed course of study or having conducted a scholarly endeavour deemed worthy of his or her admission to the degree...
, graduating in 1967.
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 to 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
David Wilhelm
A former campaign operative who rose to prominence as chair of the Democratic National Committee in the 1990s, today Wilhelm is an entrepreneur and impact investor devoted to building sustainable jobs and wealth in small town America....
, James Carville
James Carville
Chester James Carville, Jr. is an American political consultant, commentator, educator, actor, attorney, media personality, and prominent liberal pundit. Carville gained national attention for his work as the lead strategist of the successful presidential campaign of then-Arkansas governor Bill...
, George Stephanopoulos
George Stephanopoulos
George Robert Stephanopoulos is an American television journalist and a former political advisor.Stephanopoulos is most well known as the chief political correspondent for ABC News – the news division of the broadcast television network ABC – and a co-anchor of ABC News's morning news...
, and Paul Begala
Paul Begala
Paul Edward Begala is an American political consultant and political commentator. He was an adviser to President Bill Clinton. Begala was a chief strategist for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign, which carried 33 states and made Clinton the first Democrat to win the White House in sixteen years...
. After the 1994 mid-term election, in which Republicans took control of both houses of the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
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
Triangulation (politics)
Triangulation is the name given to the act of a political candidate presenting his or her ideology as being "above" and "between" the "left" and "right" sides of a traditional democratic "political spectrum". It involves adopting for oneself some of the ideas of one's political opponent...
," where Clinton would appeal to a diverse group of voters by distancing himself from both the Democratic and Republican parties.
Scandal
On August 29, 1996, Morris resigned from the Clinton campaign after tabloid reports stated that he had been involved with a female prostitute, Sherry Rowlands, as reported by the Washington Post. A New York tabloid newspaper, the StarStar (magazine)
Star is an American celebrity tabloid magazine.-History:Star was founded by Rupert Murdoch in 1974 as competition to the tabloid National Enquirer with its headquarters in New York City. In the late 1980s it moved its offices to Tarrytown, NY and in 1990 Murdoch sold the magazine to The Enquirers...
, had obtained and published a set of photographs allegedly of Morris and the woman on a Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, hotel balcony. News of the impending publication broke during the third day of the 1996 Democratic Convention. The Electronic Telegraph reported unverified claims that in order to impress the woman, S. Rowlands, Morris invited her to listen in on his conversations with President Clinton. It was also alleged he had an illegitimate child from an affair with a Texas woman.
Morris resigned on the same day that Bill Clinton spoke and accepted the nomination at the Democratic National Convention
1996 Democratic National Convention
The 1996 Democratic National Convention of the was held at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois from August 26 to August 29, 1996. Incumbent Democrat Bill Clinton was renominated for President of United States.-Site selection:...
. 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. Privately various aides to Clinton were furious that in his resignation statement Morris credited himself with helping the President "come back from being buried in a landslide" and that Morris ended by comparing himself to Robert Kennedy.
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.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
Hillary: The Movie
Hillary: The Movie is a 2008 politicized documentary about United States Senator and Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. It was produced by Citizens United. The film was scheduled to be offered as video-on-demand on cable TV right before the Democratic primaries in January 2008, but the federal...
, a documentary about Rodham Clinton when she was still a 2008 Presidential 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
Jesse Jackson
Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He was the founder of both entities that merged to...
in 1988, Morris put out an article on his blog that asserted that this was Clinton's way of injecting race into the political campaign.
Political consulting
As of August, 2009, Morris lends his name and assistance to the League of American Voters, an advocacy group for seniors to defeat the Obama health care reform. He has been 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.Morris has also consulted for candidates in other countries of the western hemisphere, including the campaigns of Fernando de la Rua
Fernando de la Rúa
Fernando de la Rúa is an Argentine politician. He was president of the country from December 10, 1999 to December 21, 2001 for the Alliance for Work, Justice and Education ....
for President of Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
(1999), Jorge Batlle for President of Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
(1999), Vicente Fox
Vicente Fox
Vicente Fox Quesada is a Mexican former politician who served as President of Mexico from 1 December 2000 to 30 November 2006 and currently serves as co-President of the Centrist Democrat International, an international organization of Christian democratic political parties.Fox was elected...
for President of Mexico (2000), and Raphael Trotman
Raphael Trotman
Raphael Trotman, born 1966, is a lawyer and a politician in Guyana.A former executive member of the People's National Congress Reform, Trotman co-founded the Alliance For Change in 2005 along with Khemraj Ramjattan and Sheila Holder...
for President of Guyana
Guyana
Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British...
(2006).
Morris and Eileen McGann are behind www.vote.com, a site intended to register non-scientific political public opinion on various issues.
Dick Morris had recently worked as a strategist for Christy Mihos
Christy Mihos
Christy P. Mihos is an American politician and businessman from the U.S. commonwealth of Massachusetts. He was an Independent candidate for Governor of Massachusetts in 2006 and ran again as a Republican in the 2010 Massachusetts gubernatorial election...
, a Republican candidate for governor of Massachusetts
Governor of Massachusetts
The Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the executive magistrate of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States. The current governor is Democrat Deval Patrick.-Constitutional role:...
running to unseat incumbent Deval Patrick
Deval Patrick
Deval Laurdine Patrick is the 71st and current Governor of Massachusetts. A member of the Democratic Party, Patrick served as an Assistant United States Attorney General under President Bill Clinton...
. Morris "oversaw strategy, polling, and advertising for Mihos." Mihos declined to continue his campaign after balloting at the Massachusetts Republican State Convention resulted in Charles D. Baker beating Mihos by a margin of 89 per cent to 11 per cent in a potential primary.
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 as a political commentator and critic of the Clintons (particularly towards Hillary), appearing on Fox News programs such as Hannity & ColmesHannity & Colmes
Hannity & Colmes was a live television show on Fox News Channel in the United States, hosted by Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes, who respectively presented a conservative and liberal perspective. The series premiered on October 6, 1996, and the final episode aired on January 9, 2009. It was the...
, Hannity
Hannity
Hannity is a television show on the Fox News network, a replacement to the long-running show Hannity & Colmes. It is hosted by conservative political pundit Sean Hannity....
, and the O'Reilly Factor, and on various local and nationally syndicated radio talk shows
Talk radio
Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often feature interviews with a number of different guests. Talk radio typically includes an element of listener participation, usually by broadcasting live...
. Morris is also a regular columnist and Pundits Blogger for The Hill
The Hill (newspaper)
The Hill, a subsidiary of News Communications Inc., is a newspaper published in Washington, D.C. since 1994.Its first editor was Martin Tolchin, a veteran correspondent in the Washington bureau of The New York Times....
, a nonpartisan daily newspaper based in Washington, D.C., and for NewsMax.com, a conservative online news website.
Morris regularly makes predictions about candidates' chances of winning elections during these appearances. In a 2005 book on the 2008 Presidential campaign, Morris stated that it was most likely that Hillary Clinton would face Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
for the presidency. Morris critics reacted by mocking his mistaken predictions of past races. Regarding the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, he initially stated that Howard Dean's candidacy could be written off right away. While ultimately vindicated, he had discussed the likelihood of Dean defeating John Kerry after early strong showings by the former Vermont governor. Kerry defeated Dean and all his other rivals and won the nomination. Additionally, in a column in "The Hill" on June 22, 2005, Morris predicted that Hillary Clinton would face her "worst nightmare" in her 2006 Senate race against moderate Republican candidate Jeanine Pirro
Jeanine Pirro
Jeanine Ferris Pirro is a former prosecutor, judge, and elected official from the state of New York, who is currently a legal analyst and television personality. A Republican from Westchester County, Pirro served as a county court judge before serving as the elected District Attorney of...
, whose campaign subsequently collapsed within a matter of two months after repeated crushing defeats in the opinion polls due to her husband's alleged mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
ties. 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 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
John Edwards
Johnny Reid "John" Edwards is an American politician, who served as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2004, and was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008.He defeated incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth in...
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
Alan Colmes
Alan Samuel Colmes is an American radio/television host, liberal political commentator for the Fox News Channel, and blogger. He is the host of The Alan Colmes Show, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show distributed by Fox News Radio that also airs throughout the United States on Fox News Talk...
asked if he was "saying that Edwards voters are bigots?" Morris elaborated that exit polls showed some Edwards voters were unsure if a woman or a Black American, in reference to then Democratic Primary front runners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
, could get elected to the Presidency for the first time in '08.
After Obama won the 2008 election, Morris was critical of him. In early 2009, Morris said: "Those crazies in Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
who say, 'We're going to kill ATF
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is a federal law enforcement organization within the United States Department of Justice...
agents because the U.N.
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
’s going to take over'? Well, they’re beginning to have a case." In April 2009, Morris keynoted an animated debate at the Yale Political Union
Yale Political Union
The Yale Political Union , a debate society now the largest student organization at Yale University, was founded in 1934 by Professor Alfred Whitney Griswold , to enliven the university's political culture of the time. It was modelled on the Cambridge Union Society and Oxford Union...
on the topic
"Resolved: Save Capitalism from President Obama".
In a March 2011 column for The Hill
The Hill (newspaper)
The Hill, a subsidiary of News Communications Inc., is a newspaper published in Washington, D.C. since 1994.Its first editor was Martin Tolchin, a veteran correspondent in the Washington bureau of The New York Times....
, Morris predicted that Obama would not win a second term as President.
For many years a "disillusioned Democrat," Dick Morris has stated he is now a Republican.
In August of 2011, Morris began a petition on his website opposing federal funding for the Park51 Muslim community center, claiming that the center is "designed to celebrate the attacks that killed 3,000 Americans", and that the center would "train the same kinds of terrorists who caused the... attacks."
Foreign political consultant
Morris worked with the United Kingdom Independence PartyUnited Kingdom Independence Party
The United Kingdom Independence Party is a eurosceptic and right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. Whilst its primary goal is the UK's withdrawal from the European Union, the party has expanded beyond its single-issue image to develop a more comprehensive party platform.UKIP...
in their campaign before the 2004 European Parliament election
European Parliament election, 2004
Elections to the European Parliament were held from 10 June 2004 to 13 June 2004 in the 25 member states of the European Union, using varying election days according to local custom...
. The party, which advocates withdrawal from the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
, won 12 of Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
's 78 seats.
In 2004 and 2005, he and his wife had acted as campaign consultants to the successful Yushchenko
Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko is a former President of Ukraine. He took office on January 23, 2005, following a period of popular unrest known as the Orange Revolution...
Presidential campaign in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. Morris reports that he insisted on the use of exit poll
Exit poll
An election exit poll is a poll of voters taken immediately after they have exited the polling stations. Unlike an opinion poll, which asks whom the voter plans to vote for or some similar formulation, an exit poll asks whom the voter actually voted for. A similar poll conducted before actual...
s as a means of potentially exposing ballot
Ballot
A ballot is a device used to record choices made by voters. Each voter uses one ballot, and ballots are not shared. In the simplest elections, a ballot may be a simple scrap of paper on which each voter writes in the name of a candidate, but governmental elections use pre-printed to protect the...
tampering. He argues this played a significant role in forcing the government of then President Leonid Kuchma
Leonid Kuchma
Leonid Danylovych Kuchma was the second President of independent Ukraine from 19 July 1994, to 23 January 2005. Kuchma took office after winning the 1994 presidential election against his rival, incumbent Leonid Kravchuk...
to acquiesce to a new poll when the official results of the first varied materially from the exit surveys. Interestingly, faced with a similar (though smaller) divergence between exit polling and election returns, he took the opposite stance in a 2004 article in The Hill when he suspected "foul play" on the part of the exit pollsters in the U.S. Presidential race.
Mexico 2004; Morris outlined the strategy of the negative campaign that would be used against the PRD
PRD
-Political parties:*Partido Renovador Democrático, a political party in Angola*Parti de Renouveau Démocratique, a political party in Benin*Partido Revolucionario Dominicano, a political party in the Dominican Republic...
and AMLO
AMLO
Anti-Money Laundering Office, or AMLO, is the national government body to detect and fight money laundering in Thailand. The office has headquarters in north-central Bangkok and regional offices. It is an enforcement entity founded in 1999....
: “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 13, 2007 press conference in Nairobi
Nairobi
Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The city and its surrounding area also forms the Nairobi County. The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyirobi, which translates to "the place of cool waters". However, it is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun" and is...
, Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
, Morris announced that he would be offering his consultancy services pro bono
Pro bono
Pro bono publico is a Latin phrase generally used to describe professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment or at a reduced fee as a public service. It is common in the legal profession and is increasingly seen in marketing, technology, and strategy consulting firms...
for the campaign to elect Raila Odinga
Raila Odinga
Raila Amollo Odinga , also popularly known to Kenyans as Agwambo, is a Kenyan politician, currently serving as the Prime Minister of Kenya in a coalition government. He has served as a Member of Parliament for Langata since 1992, was Minister of Energy from 2001 to 2002, and was Minister of Roads,...
as President of Kenya in the 2007 Presidential election
Kenyan presidential election, 2007
A presidential election was held as part of the Kenyan general election on December 27, 2007; parliamentary elections were held on the same date. Incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner and sworn in on December 30, despite opposition leader Raila Odinga's claims of victory...
running on the Orange Democratic Movement
Orange Democratic Movement
Orange Democratic Movement refers to a political party in Kenya, which is the successor of a former grassroots people's movement which was formed in the 2005 Kenyan constitutional referendum. The erstwhile single party which separated in August 2007 into two...
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 27, 2007 elections in Kenya is still disputed due to allegations of electoral fraud and rigging by the incumbent president, Mwai Kibaki
Mwai Kibaki
Mwai Kibaki is the current and third President of the republic of Kenya.Kibaki was previously Vice President of Kenya for ten years from 1978–1988 and also held cabinet ministerial positions, including a widely acclaimed stint as Minister for Finance , Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for...
, the Party of National Unity
Party of National Unity (Kenya)
Party of National Unity was founded as a political coalition of parties in Kenya. On September 16, 2007, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki announced the party formation and said that he would run as its presidential candidate in the December 2007 Kenyan elections...
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 coalition and/or interim government until reelections are held.
Morris' DVD
Morris has appeared in, and wrote the screenplay for, the documentary film FahrenHYPE 9/11FahrenHYPE 9/11
FahrenHYPE 9/11 is a 2004 film that examines and challenges Michael Moore's documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11. The movie is narrated by Ron Silver...
. The film was a response to Michael Moore
Michael Moore
Michael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...
's 2004
2004 in film
The year 2004 in film involved some significant events. Major releases of sequels took place. It included blockbuster films like Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Passion of the Christ, Meet the Fockers, Blade: Trinity, Spider-Man 2, Alien vs. Predator, Kill Bill Vol...
film, Fahrenheit 9/11
Fahrenheit 9/11
Fahrenheit 9/11 is a 2004 documentary film by American filmmaker and political commentator Michael Moore. The film takes a critical look at the presidency of George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and its coverage in the news media...
.
Tax issues
Morris said that he has reached an agreement with Connecticut and his name will be removed from the next delinquency list. Morris says that he is committed to paying his taxes: "Following a difficult period in my life, I fell into arrears. But since then, I have paid almost $3 million in state and federal taxes."Books
Morris has written several books. He authored Condi vs. Hillary (subtitled The next great presidential race) (ISBN 0-06-083913-9) in which he argues that only Condoleezza RiceCondoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
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
Living History
Living History is the autobiography of Secretary of State, former United States Senator from New York, and former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, published in 2003....
(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 ),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)and "Outrage" (ISBN 978-0-06-119540-2).
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 9780061718663), published in June 2008. Its jacket copy states, "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."
His book Catastrophe was released in June 2009.
His latest book is Revolt! How to Defeat Obama and Repeal His Socialist Programs, which was released in March 2011.
External links
- DickMorris.com, Dick Morris Blog and Opinion Site
- Vote.com, Dick Morris online polling site (heavily biased, it only offers options for Republican candidates, with none for Democratic ones)http://www.vote.com/
- Podcasts of Morris' recent articles
- http://pundits.thehill.com/author/dick-morris/Dick Morris' Pundits Blogs for The HillThe Hill (newspaper)The Hill, a subsidiary of News Communications Inc., is a newspaper published in Washington, D.C. since 1994.Its first editor was Martin Tolchin, a veteran correspondent in the Washington bureau of The New York Times....
]