Behind the Oval Office
Winning the Presidency in the Nineties
by Dick Morris


(Click for Amazon book review)

Morris' primary credential is his invention of the policy of "triangulation," which is widely credited with winning Clinton his second term. "Triangulation" means (according to Morris on p. 80) "the president needed to take a position that not only blended the best of each party's views but also transcended them to constitute a third force in the debate." In other words, Clinton would come up with his own policy that used some Democratic components and some Republican components, and then implement the policy as his own. Clinton applied triangulation most famously to welfare reform, but also to "don't-ask-don't-tell" for gays in the military; the "middle class tax cut"; and defusing the school prayer debate. Bill Clinton was good at triangulation; astute voters may assume that Hillary Clinton will apply the same policy method, but Morris doesn't reveal that.

Dick Morris does reveal more of his personal story than in his other books (we've reviewed Take Back America and Condi vs. Hillary.htm). Morris reveals his own story of how he fell from power due to a sex scandal (pp. 285ff, including his apology, p. 107); how he established a "back door" for the Republican Senate leader to communicate with Clinton (pp. 74ff); and how Bill Clinton most feared Colin Powell as an unbeatable opponent in 1996 (p. 155). Morris also reveals that this book was "authorized" by Bill Clinton (p. 103), at least in concept, if not in detail.

So will Dick Morris return for the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign? Maybe not: Morris has always been primarily a friend-of-Bill, not fully a friend-of-Hillary, and he burned a lot of bridges with Democrats when he fell from grace in the 1990s. Many Democrats question Morris' Democratic Party credentials, since he has worked for several Republicans -- he says "sometimes I vote Democrat and sometimes I vote Republican" (p. 19). Morris' self-description of his politics is an Alinskyite: "I organized my own political machine… using the political organizing tools of the activist Saul Alinsky, author of the famous Rules for Radicals" (p. 44). Who else have we heard of who has been accused of being an Alinskyite? Why, Hillary Clinton, who wrote her Wellesley thesis about Saul Alinsky! So maybe we will see Dick Morris -- or sense his presence behind the scenes -- on Hillary's 2016 campaign...

-- Jesse Gordon, editor, OnTheIssues.org, October 2013

OnTheIssues.org excerpts:  (click on issues for details)

Health Care     Bob Dole: Let workers keep insurance when they change jobs.     Hillary Clinton: 1994: can't fix just part of problem; it's all or nothing.     Newt Gingrich: 1995: Let Medicare wither on the vine.     Ted Kennedy: Let workers keep insurance when they change jobs.

Click for quotations from other sources by: Bob Dole Hillary Clinton Newt Gingrich Ted Kennedy