Shop Talk: There and BackHomepage > Politics Magazine > June 2009 > Shop Talk: There and BackThese legends of the political biz have just about sen it all—and they say they're not done yet... 
With more than 100 years of combined campaign experience, this month's Shop Talk group had plenty to teach us about the consulting biz. Tom Edmonds: Does it bother either of you guys when someone refers to you as a “veteran”? Do you ever feel like a dinosaur? Peter Hart: You know, I don’t. Maybe its because I do the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, so I still feel as though I’m in the middle of everything that’s going on. I haven’t done candidates for 20 years, but I don’t feel like a dinosaur. I’ll tell you a story, though. I was in the office yesterday and was kidding with some of the younger guys. There was a slide rule on the floor, and I asked them if any of them even knew what it was—of course they didn’t. I said, “This is how I used to get all of my percentages.” It was actually my original slide rule from Lou Harris—dating back to 1964. So am I a dinosaur? I don’t know. (laughter) Politics: How did you all get your start in the business? Edmonds: When I got out of college, I had to make a living so I went to work for an ad agency, and I just loved it. I worked for a large agency that did only pharmaceuticals. I remember when I got the lifetime achievement award [from the AAPC] I joked in my speech that I had worked for Massingill Douche and CB Fleet Enema at the same time. So really without thinking I said, “Making the transition to political advertising wasn’t all that difficult for me.” (laughter) I loved politics and after a while I just couldn’t take not being in it anymore. In 1980, with about $1,000 and 200 pieces of letterhead, I said, “I’m a political consultant.” And that first year I did Bob Dole’s failed presidential bid, I worked on Chuck Grassley’s campaign with Roger Ailes, and I worked with Don Young. We won everything but Dole’s campaign, and I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. Hart: You know you’re a legend in douching. (laughter) People talk about it all the time. Vic Kamber: My story’s a little different. My parents were immigrants and my dad was a missionary from Iran. I never really knew my parent’s politics, but my next-door neighbor was the Republican precinct captain, so I became a Republican. I was president of the Young Republicans in college. In 1968 I was involved in the Rockefeller campaign and then Rockefeller’s people brought me into the Nixon campaign and I moved up to become director of administration for Nixon. All those years I thought I was a Republican without any real foundation or belief. By the middle of Nixon’s term I was becoming more of a Democrat—the Vietnam War turned me off. I joined the service and by the time I came out of the military, I was a McGovern Democrat. I had a choice of where to work and Rockefeller was vice president at the time and I had an offer to go there. I ended up going to the AFL-CIO and stayed there for 8 years. Then in 1980, I opened up a firm and was very fortunate to take five or six labor unions as clients. Hart: I graduated from Colby College and I needed a job. I got an introduction to Lou Harris, who had been John F. Kennedy’s pollster, and he hired me in 1964. I went to work for him as a coder—it paid $2 an hour in New York City, and I worked for him for four years. I worked a lot on Election Night coverage and just learned everything I could. In 1968, also moved by the war, I went out and joined a campaign in Ohio for a person by the name of John J. Gilligan who was running for U.S. Senate. He upset a five-term governor, two-term senator by the name of Frank Lausche in that race. Then I got a job at the DNC as political researcher and pollster. Eventually Lou Harris urged me to go out on my own, and I started my own firm in 1971. Politics: Who were some of your first clients? Hart: Well my first client, not surprisingly, was John J. Gilligan. But I got a fortunate break at the beginning of my career. I opened my firm in 1971 and in 1972 [Daniel] Yankelovich did an exit poll for The New York Times in Florida. I phoned David Broder and told him, “Don’t hand that franchise over to the Times, The Washington Post should be in this.” He was kind enough to introduce me to the editors at the Post, Richard Harwood, Ben Bradlee and Howard Samuels. So having been in business about four months, they hired me to do the polling for The Washington Post. Edmonds: I want to point out something. These are three entirely different stories, but the one thing in common here is passion. We all got involved in the business not because we said, “Wow, I can wear custom-made double-breasted suits,” or because we’d be on television all the time. We got involved because we were passionate about politics. I worry about whether that’s what motivates someone that’s getting a degree at George Washington in campaign management now. Hart: The point about passion is exactly right, and I think it was certainly the driving force for all of us. When we started there wasn’t a cadre of professionals. There wasn’t a group of pollsters out there. Once you got past the Wirthlins, the Teeters and the Hamiltons, that was it. Now there are thousands of these people. I do think it’s very different now. A lot of people look at this much more as a profession and their decision on who to work for is based more on pragmatism than idealism. Kamber: And money, which also didn’t exist when we all started. Edmonds: I asked some students in a class I spoke to recently, “Of all the people who have come speak to you, who would you most like to emulate?” And this student said Roger Stone. So I asked why. He said, “Well, he looks very successful.” This student was actually looking at the cut of his clothes and knowing that Roger had that kind of just-steppedoff- Fifth-Avenue-and-I-can-buy-anything-Iwant look, and that’s what he wanted to be like. Kamber: You know, I’m not sure what a real practitioner is anymore. You’re a genius if your candidate and whatever you’re doing succeeds. Hamilton Jordan was a bozo until Jimmy Cater won and then all of a sudden he was a genius. Hart: But understand something—this business has always been about success and in some respects that’s one of the fatal weaknesses of the business. There was never a judgment on ethics or the way in which the race was run. But if you won, that justified so much. The reason I teach at Penn and Berkeley now is because I want to inspire the next generation to go into polling. I want to get the best and the brightest in there. Kamber: Peter, I’ve always been curious about something because in my mind you have always been on the left of the party. You’ve always represented some of the most progressive candidates. Then you went to work for Scoop Jackson. Was it a business at that point, or were you invested in Scoop Jackson as president? Hart: Well if you look at the spectrum of the candidates I’ve worked for—I’ve worked for everyone from Hal Heflin and John Stennis to Edward Kennedy and dozens of people on the left. The standard that I’ve always used is the character of the person. And secondly, whether the person represents the best we can get for the U.S. Senate for Mississippi or Alabama. I’ve never had an ideological fix as much as I’ve had a pragmatic fix. It was always the person for me, and I turned down a lot of candidates. One was Howard Metzenbaum. It wasn’t because he wasn’t good on the issues—I just didn’t like him. I worked for people that I liked and wanted to represent. Kamber: One of the things that has changed in this industry from 20 or 25 years ago—campaigns were smaller and the campaign side was less professional. On the Obama campaign, I doubt that there were many people that had direct access to Barack Obama. The days of doing work and interacting with that individual candidate and relying on that personal relationship and trust may have disappeared because now you have an interferer in between and a structure in between and a profession in between. Edmonds: Bob Squire, who I became friends with a bit toward the end of his life, was very adamant that political consultants shouldn’t be in the business of policy. That after we get the guy elected, we don’t go into office with them and sit there and start making policy. You think about Karl Rove, Carville, Axelrod—now it’s almost a given that you go into office with the candidate. The lines are blurred. As a consultant, you’re working toward the next campaign from the minute you get in there, but you’re speaking to policy as well as politics. Hart: I think you’re bringing up two different things. To begin with, hooray for Hamilton Jordan, hooray for Jim Baker. And I feel the same way about Karl Rove and David Axelrod. They have gone into the administration, are taking a government paycheck, and they are involved in both policy and they’re on the staff. I think it just shows a tremendous commitment to not only the election of the candidate, but the success of that candidate once in office. And I think that the willingness to give up their lives for four years or eight years towards that end—I commend them. Edmonds: I could argue either side of this. I think that it could have the potential for abuse. Sometimes I think a political consultant might not be qualified to be on the government payroll and he may be making decisions from a political point of view. Kamber: It speaks to what you said earlier. I think that most of the people on either side who have done this have done it out of passion. They certainly haven’t done it for financial reasons. Hart: Right. And I just so diametrically oppose the idea that because somebody comes from the political side they’re not qualified. And I think in some cases, they’re much more qualified. Politics: Would you all go into the same business if you were coming out of college now? Kamber: I clearly would, and I’d be a better businessman. I did let my passion and my ideology interfere with my business judgment at times. So I think I would do everything exactly the same, but I wouldn’t let my passions and ideology interfere with good business practices. Edmonds: I think I would have gotten in the business sooner. 1980 might sound like a long time ago, but I wished I had taken the chance earlier. Hart: I have had the good fortune of working for giants. The Hubert Humphreys and the Walter Mondales and the Lloyd Bentsens. I respected them and I thought they were marvelous. I look today and I don’t see giants. And it’s taking nothing away from these people. Maybe the consulting trade has changed the nature of this, but I don’t know that I would be as fascinated or as desirous to go into the political world today. I would probably do a lot more non-profit work. Working on the bigger issues of society would fascinate me more today than winning a series of political campaigns. Edmonds: I want to ask the two of you, would you ever retire in the old-fashioned sense of the word—do you have an exit strategy, or are you living it now? Hart: This is my exit strategy. I said if I can get an interview with Jamie and Shane at Politics magazine… (laughter) Kamber: As long as my health holds out, and as long as I’m able to use my mind, I want to keep doing this. I don’t want to hang on in Washington, though. I’ve made that decision. Edmonds: I had a senator tell me, “I’m still going to be here, Tom, when you’re on the beach in Florida.” And, yes, he’s younger than I am, but I don’t know whether he was suggesting that maybe it’s time for a change. (laughter) I would love to walk into my own office in the future and have someone I didn’t know working there say, “Oh, you’re Edmonds.” That would be great. At some point I hope I will know when I’m a liability and not an asset to the people I work with. |
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