Dick Morris (born November 28, 1948) is an American political author and commentator who previously worked as a pollster, political campaign consultant, and general political consultant.
A longtime 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, a website which conducts polls on "important public issues and other topics" and then emails results to "important decision makers" in government.
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's failed campaign in the 2010 Massachusetts gubernatorial race.
"Anybody who thinks that getting a communication from a voter in your district is spam - that guy is pork. Roast pork unless he changes his point of view.""As Bob Dole found out, you can't keep a positive image while being your party's mouthpiece in Congress. That's why no legislative leader since James Madison has ever been elected president.""Bill and Hillary Clinton have one central idea in their uncluttered, ambitious minds: Hillary in 2008. Let Bush get re-elected, use the '04 primaries and general election to clean out the underbrush of competing Democratic candidates, and proceed unimpeded to the '08 nomination.""Democrats are not about to nominate anyone who backs the tax cut, and Americans are not going to elect anyone who favors a tax increase.""I didn't do what they said I did. I may have done enough so that I don't know if I can prove my innocence.""I love Karl Rove. He elected Bush.""Idealism that makes no distinction between areas where our national interest lies and those from which it is remote does no good for America. The weariness of the post-Versailles, post-Korea, post-Vietnam eras is never far from the national mood.""No candidate can win a presidential race advocating gay marriage and opposing the military action in Iraq.""Now a great debate has been born. The thesis is Democratic Socialism. The antithesis is free-market capitalism. The Obama Democrats have posed the challenge. It is now up to the Republicans to pick it up and fight along these lines.""Public-opinion polls show that Americans split about evenly on civil unions. But when the words "gay marriage" are presented, they break 3-to-1 against it.""Spontaneous combustion of grassroots politics is the future.""The Democratic Party opposes tax cuts but it cannot say so publicly. Thus, it is forced to support the idea of lowering the tax burden but using class warfare rhetoric to dispute the allocation of the relief.""The Iraq War marked the beginning of the end of network news coverage. Viewers saw the juxtaposition of the embedded correspondents reporting the war as it was actually unfolding and the jaundiced, biased, negative coverage of these same events in the network newsrooms.""The old rules and the old methods of winning are gone.""The stronger Hillary is, the weaker she is. The more she seems like a likely presidential winner, the more difficult the senate race becomes in New York. It's perfect.""Washington is a mean town where human sacrifice has been raised to an art form.""We need to stop spending money on death, the war in Iraq and on enhancing the lives of the people in our own country.""'Yes' is a far more potent word than 'no' in American politics. By adopting the positions which animate the political agenda for the other side, one can disarm them and leave them sputtering with nothing to say."
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 in 1967.
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, 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.
Fallout
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 Star, 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."
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 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.
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 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 is currently working as a strategist for Christy Mihos, a Republican candidate for governor of Massachusetts running to unseat incumbent Deval Patrick. Morris will "oversee strategy, polling, and advertising for Mihos."
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 & Colmes, 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 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. 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 an 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 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 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".
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 had 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. 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 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.
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."
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 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 ),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 latest book is "Catastrophe", which was released in June 2009.
