Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Robert Shrum, who was for three decade among the most prominent Democrati political consultants in the country, neve mastered the exigencies of everyday life. He gre up in Los Angeles but does not drive; he is bes known as a speechwriter but does not type. Sinc 2000, he has spent his summers at a house o Cape Cod, but his complexion seldom appear other than pasty or sunburned. Over the years, Shrum effectively turned himsel into a machine for campaigning, and then, suddenly, after the 2004 election, h turned the machine off. “I thought it was time to move on,” Shrum said the othe day over lunch downtown. “I’d been doing it long enough.

There was also, of course, the matter of the “Shrum curse.” In his last contest, Shrum served as the chief strategist for John Kerry, the eighth time he had worked for a Democratic Presidential candidate and his eighth loser. In lieu of a candidate, Shrum has this summer produced a memoir, “No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner,” a dishy recounting of his career. Page for page, notwithstanding the title, the book probably has more excuses than concessions, and there are revealing, and often unflattering, glimpses of his former clients: a foulmouthed Edmund Muskie, a dithering Bob Kerrey, and a lightweight John Edwards, among others. In all, though, Shrum, who is sixty-four years old, takes on the subject of the curse without actually acknowledging its existence.

“At a personal level, I don’t believe in the ‘Shrum curse,’ ” he said.

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Why ever not? It's perfectly accurate and it succinctly describes his impact. I understand that there wasn't much that could be done with the material at hand, but there are always ways to make things worse. And Shrum was the man to take it on. Never has so horrid been so ill-served by such a loser. His unfortunate combination of bootlicker and second-rate Madison Ave machiavel has moved on (ho, ho, ho) to embrace spiteful recriminations. But his legacy will endure. His role in the decades' long, demented and pointless retreat from the caricature of liberalism foisted on the Democrats by the Republicans has sufficient inertia to keep them going as contemptible duffers for another thirty years.

Here's looking at you, Shrum.