Shrum, who is 0-8 in presidential elections and yet is still rumored to be in line for the Corzine and and Nelson races,
took at least $5 million from the Kerry campaign.
The Kerry campaign hired mainly consultants entrenched in the Democratic establishment, led by Robert Shrum, a speechwriter, media adviser and strategist on eight losing presidential campaigns dating to Edmund S. Muskie in 1972. The Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee also used a consortium, called Riverfront Media, which was paid $150 million for TV advertising. The first receiving the Democratic work were:
Shrum, Tad Devine and Michael Donilon's firm, which was paid about $5 million.
James Margolis's firm, Greer Margolis Mitchell Burns and Associates, and Bill Knapp's firm, Squier Knapp Dunn Communications, which divvied up $5 million.
Democratic media consultants David Axelrod and Steve Murphy, who split about $1 million in fees for DNC independent expenditure ads.Having done some preliminary examination of Kerry's FEC reports, I have seen another $1.5 million or so billed directly by Shrum Devine & Donilon to the campaign. Whether that's included in the Washington Post's numbers, or whether's that's Shrum's take of the Riverfront Media pot is unclear.
What isn't unclear is the practice of paying out 15% to media buying firms. The Bush campaign did away with the practice. Corporate America ditched the practice years ago. Yet the Democratic Party is held in thrall by this racket by DC Democratic media consultants.
It's got to end. Any incentive system that rewards consultants on how much of a campaign's war chest they can spend is inherently broken. The incentives lie in spending more money on ads, rather than taking neutral stock of a campaign's needs and allocating funds where most effective, rather than where they will personally profit the consultants most.
Jereome has more.