CONTRIBUTOR
REGIONAL PERSPECTIVES / NATIONAL IMPACT
Dick Morris
Member For
21 weeks 11 hours
Website:
DickMorris.com
BIOGRAPHY
Dick Morris, one of the nation's most prominent political consultants, is almost universally credited with piloting Bill Clinton to a stunning comeback re-election victory in 1996, after the president lost Congress to the Republicans two years before. Called “the most influential private citizen in America” by Time magazine, Morris helped steer Clinton to the center and away from the liberal policies he had pursued in his first two years in office. Morris is also credited with advising Clinton to sign the welfare reform bill of 1996 and getting him to back a balanced budget, both key centrist positions.
Morris began his relationship with Clinton in 1977, when he handled the Arkansas attorney general's successful campaign to become the youngest governor in the nation. Morris did not work on Clinton's defeat for re-election in 1980, but he did oversee his comeback victory in 1982, as well as his re-election victories in 1984, 1986 and 1990.
In addition to Clinton, Morris has handled the winning campaigns for more than 30 senators and governors, including Republican Senator and former Majority Leader Trent Lott and former Govs. Bill Weld of Massachusetts and Pete Wilson of California.
In recent years, Morris has turned to foreign campaigns and served as chief strategist for Mexico's reformer Vicente Fox in his upset victory in July 2000 over the PRI, after that party had ruled the nation for 71 years. He also was the chief strategist for the winning campaigns of Fernando de la Rua (Argentina), Jorge Battle (Uruguay), Chen Shui-bian (Taiwan) and, most recently, for Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian presidential candidate who was poisoned during his campaign. He also handled the winning campaign for the new president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon.
In the United States, Morris has become a familiar figure as a commentator for Fox News. He is well known for hard-hitting, nonpartisan, objective commentary about the U.S. political scene. He writes a weekly column for the New York Post, another for The Hill newspaper in Washington, D.C., and another for Fox News.
Morris has written 10 books, including six New York Times best sellers. His most recent, written with his wife, Eileen McGann, is "Outrage: How Illegal Immigration, the U.N., Congressional Ripoffs, Student Loan Overcharges, Tobacco Companies, Trade Protection and Drug Companies Are Ripping Us Off ... and What to Do About It."
The other best-sellers are: "Behind the Oval Office" (his memoir about the Clinton years), "Off With Their Heads" (about the war on terror), "Rewriting History" (a biography of Hillary Clinton he wrote with his wife, McGann), "Because He Could" (about Bill Clinton, also with McGann) and "Condi vs. Hillary" (promoting Condoleezza Rice for president, written with Mcgann). His other books are: "Power Plays," "Vote.com," "The New Prince" and "Bum Rap on American Cities," which he wrote in the '70s.
In November 1999, Morris founded a website in the United States called Vote.com, where people may log on to vote on the major issues of the day. Their opinions are then e-mailed to their senators and representatives and to other significant decision-makers. Over 3 million people have used this site to express their opinions.
As part of his work with Vote.com, Dick -- along with McGann -- founded Legalvote.com, an online jury focus group service. They have conducted online focus groups in over 100 cases, and their clients include two of the top insurance companies in the United States, as well as many of the major plaintiff lawyers in the nation.
Morris lives with McGann, his wife of 30 years, in Florida.
COMMENTARIES
Obama's Program Would Limit Access to Quality Care
By Dick Morris | 07/24/09
President Obama's rhetoric Wednesday night summoned the memory of "1984," George Orwell's novel of a nightmarish future -- where the slogan of the rulers is "War is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength." The president assures us that he will cut health-care spending ... by adding $1 trillion to health-care spending. He says that "health-care decisions will not be made by government" ... while he sets... read more »
6 Comments | Related Topics »National |
Democrats Committing Political Suicide with Massive Overreach
By Dick Morris | 07/22/09
If the Democrats obey Obama's commands and pass health-care reform legislation by the August recess, they will be committing partisan suicide, akin to lemmings going over the cliff en masse. Obama's insistence that we completely make over our health-care system -- and that we do it two weeks after the first bill was marked up in the first committee -- is too arrogant by half. It smacks of the same kind of overreaching as doomed FDR's second... read more »
4 Comments | Related Topics »National |
Obama Paints Himself Into a Corner with Massive Spending
By Dick Morris | 07/18/09
Now President Obama says in The Washington Post that he never envisioned that his stimulus package would afford quick relief to the American economy, but would do so only after it had run its two-year course. But when it was passed, Obama sang a different tune, urgently demanding its enactment to speed relief to a sagging economy. He claimed it would "create or save" 600,000 jobs. Now, even as the economy loses 450,000 jobs each... read more »
5 Comments | Related Topics »National |
Obama Rapidly Losing Support on Key Issues
By Dick Morris | 07/15/09
In the polling hierarchy, the least significant data measure is a president's personal popularity. Here, President Obama excels, with most polls showing him in the high 60s. Next comes his job approval, significant but not necessarily predictive. Obama's approval, in the Rasmussen Poll, has now dipped to 51 percent, one point less than his 2008 vote share of 52 percent. In past polls, most voters registering disapproval for the president had... read more »
8 Comments | Related Topics »National |
Obama's Health Care Proposal Amounts to Repeal of Medicare
By Dick Morris | 07/11/09
Obama's health care proposal is, in effect, the repeal of the Medicare program as we know it. The elderly will go from being the group with the most access to free medical care to the one with the least access. Indeed, the principal impact of the Obama health care program will be to reduce sharply the medical services the elderly can use. No longer will their every medical need be met, their every medication prescribed, their every need to... read more »
4 Comments | Related Topics »National |
A Winning GOP Strategy: Rein in the Rinos
By Dick Morris | 07/01/09
Only the Senate and House Republicans can save Barack Obama now by compromising and lending his extremist legislation the veneer of bipartisanship in order to remove it as a political issue. If the likes of Sens. Olympia Snow, Susan Collins, Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch and others refuse to go along with Obama on health care and on cap and trade, they will force him to pass both programs as one-party bills. Not only is it possible that, as... read more »
4 Comments | Related Topics »National |
Hillary Issues Toothless Response on Iran
By Dick Morris | 06/27/09
Hillary Clinton is really playing hardball with Iran. Faced with its outrageous conduct in killing its own citizens to cow them into silence, she has disinvited Iranian diplomats from the hot dog festival commemorating July Fourth. That'll show 'em. If you feel that stronger action may be required, you might want to consider the Sherman-Kirk Amendment, now passed by a House appropriations subcommittee with bipartisan support. The amendment,... read more »
6 Comments | Related Topics »National |
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