I Fired Dick Morris Before It Got Trendy

Two years ago, I was running the campaign of a 29-year-old Democratic candidate for state senator near Redding, Conn. We were running hard on a critical local issue, state funding for public schools. The local press nicknamed our campaign “the Victory Team,” of which our candidate was the oldest member.

Some older politicians who were acting as mentors to my candidate set up a meeting with a man who they said was a brilliant political consultant. He would wise-up the campaign, give us some real issues and get us focused. But he was a high level Republican operative, so we had to be discreet. His name was Dick Morris. I had never heard of him.

“This meeting must be kept top secret,” were the first words out of Morris’ mouth as he walked through the door of our storefront headquarters two hours late. “No one can know that I am involved in this campaign,” he continued, looking around nervously.

For about an hour, Morris spoke to us as if we were children, asking questions, taking copious notes on his lap-top and reminding us several times that his involvement must be kept “top secret.” As soon as he left, we nicknamed Morris “Colonel Flagg,” after the comically secretive military intelligence officer in several episodes of “M*A*S*H.”

Two weeks later, we went to Morris’ home in Redding to discuss the results of a poll he had conducted for us. But instead of talking numbers, Morris turned to boxing metaphors. “You have to hug your opponent,” he said, “hug and then counterpunch.” He explained: “If your opponent is for ‘three strikes and you’re out,’ you are for ‘two strikes and you’re out.’ . . . Forget about this school funding issue. It’s a loser. Let’s get out ahead of your opponent on a brand new issue. What about metal detectors in the schools? Police powers to search student lockers. Mandatory life sentences for drug dealing in the school yard. Extending the death penalty to minors for gang related crimes. Something like that.”

Morris resisted questions about the poll for which we had paid thousands of dollars (through a third party in order to hide Morris’ identity). The more we pressed, the more he stared at us with irritation. He kept saying, “Don’t worry about the poll. I’ll tell you how to run and I’ll tell you what to say.” My candidate declared that he was not ready to sell his soul. Morris said, “Do you want to win this election or not?”

That was when Morris moved all the way to the edge of his seat, looked around furtively as if to double check that we were alone and whispered, “This is not the only Democratic campaign which I am secretly advising.” He continued in a whisper, “I am also secretly advising President Clinton.”

Now we thought the guy was delusional. If Morris really was advising the president, what was he doing with us? More to the point, if it was such a big secret, why would he tell us about it?

By this point, we had looked over the poll pretty carefully. While the numbers looked fine on the surface, we discovered that some seemed mathematically impossible. When I related all of this information--the secrecy, the right-wing issues, the problems with the poll numbers--to the local politicians who had introduced us to Morris, they were unfazed. “Just do what Morris says,” they assured me, “and you will win.”

Instead, we fired him. We decided to go it alone with our own issues and our own brand of pragmatism. Along with most other Democrats in 1994, we lost.

It wasn’t until several months after the 1994 massacre that Morris began appearing in every newspaper and magazine, on every television and radio station. Boy, did I feel dumb.

Local politicians don’t easily forget the blunders of the young and brash, especially blunders like personally firing the president’s chief political advisor. They faxed me a lot of news clippings and called me to say things like, “Hey, after working so closely with Dick Morris, you must be getting a lot of invitations to the White House these days.”

Last month, Time magazine put Morris on the cover and called him “the most influential private citizen in America.” I thought I would never hear the end of Dick Morris.

Then came the Star, catching Morris in one of his more ridiculous indiscretions. For a moment, I thought justice had been done, until someone suggested that, in the end, this whole sex scandal will probably add $1 million to Morris’ book deal and $10,000 an hour to his fee on the speaking circuit.

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Bruce Tulgan wrote “Managing Generation X: How to Bring Out the Best in Young Talent” (Merritt Publishing, 1995). E-mail: rainworld@aol.com