No Reversing This Curse

Conspicuously absent from the 2008 race is Bob Shrum, the über-consultant who worked on eight presidential campaigns before retiring to Cape Cod, Mass. But across the Atlantic, Shrum, 64, is still quietly plying his trade for his close friend, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Since Brown's ascension, Shrum has been working, unpaid, as a speechwriter and strategist and sees the P.M. "once or twice a week"—a level of access comparable to that of a senior cabinet member.

Yet Brown's staff downplays Shrum's role, pointing out that he's only one of several key political advisers. Their fear is that exposing it will spotlight an unwelcome American influence over British politics and the return of "spin" to 10 Downing Street. Some prominent Labour Party figures are also grumbling over what has become known in the United States as the "Shrum curse": none of his clients ever made it to the White House. "The man is a klutz," says one of Tony Blair's closest former advisers, who asked for anonymity discussing sensitive matters. "He has a tin ear for British politics." (Shrum didn't respond to multiple requests for comment.) The problem, they say, is that Shrum is trying to bring his ideological liberalism to a country where pragmatic centrists have won the last three general elections.

Shrum's role went virtually unnoticed until the Labour Party's conference in September, when Brown was riding so high in the polls that one set of advisers—including a "cautious" Shrum, according to a Downing Street source—urged him to call a snap election. Then came Brown's conference speech, with language such as "sometimes people say I'm too serious" and "I will not let you down." London Times commentary editor Daniel Finkelstein heard a voice other than Brown's. He Googled the suspect phrases and came up with Shrum as channeled by his client Al Gore at the 2000 Democratic National Convention: "Sometimes people say I'm too serious" and "I will never let you down." The speech was only part of Brown's undoing, but over the next 10 days, Labour's poll lead vanished and the opposition Conservative Party got its highest ratings since 1992. The Shrum curse seems stronger than ever.

© 2007