Dick Morris Secretly Consulting For Mike Huckabee, The New King Of Iowa
Politico:
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has been holding private conversations with Dick Morris, according to aides, a longstanding relationship that is raising new questions as Huckabee’s campaign begins to take off.
Morris’ most prominent calling card has been with Bill Clinton — for two decades, starting in 1977, as his most influential (if sometimes erratic) political adviser and for the past decade as one of his most persistent (if sometimes erratic) public critics.
But the Arkansas connection the controversial consultant and commentator established through Clinton also brought Huckabee onto his client roster, beginning in 1993 when he advised the Republican’s winning campaign for lieutenant governor.
Morris lately has been lavishing praise in newspaper columns and television appearances on Huckabee, whose polished debate performances and recent gains in the polls in Iowa have given him a chance to penetrate the top tier among the GOP candidates.
“Mike Huckabee is on a roll,” Morris began one of his columns in The Hill newspaper last month. He also offers regular political analysis for Fox News and the New York Post.
Morris’ public touts of Huckabee sometimes come with disclosures of his past working relationship with the candidate, but they do not mention that the two men still talk regularly — an omission that could raise eyebrows among journalistic ethicists.
As Huckabee’s prospects become more serious, speculation about Morris’ role has blossomed in the small circle — sometimes incestuous, sometimes bitterly competitive — of national political operatives. Some accounts place Morris as an important figure among Huckabee’s kitchen cabinet of outside advisers.
Here is what is known: Morris and Huckabee confer with one another, according to two top Huckabee advisers — campaign manager Chip Saltsman and consultant Dick Dresner, who is himself a former business partner of Morris.
Here is what is not known: the exact dimensions of Morris’ current role with Huckabee or the degree to which his talks with the candidate are influencing campaign strategy.
Morris declined to be interviewed but said in an e-mail he talks with Huckabee casually and does not consider himself an adviser.
“He, like Rudy [Giuliani] and the staff of three or four other campaigns, are personal friends, and I chat with them from time to time, but nothing like an adviser,” Morris wrote on Friday.
“Yeah, they do,” Dresner said, when asked if Huckabee and Morris still actively confer.
“Just like you [in the press corps], he gets his calls returned. The difference is [Morris] has a close, personal relationship with the governor.”
Ongoing conversation
Dresner also has a longstanding relationship with Huckabee — but also with Morris.
The two New Yorkers have been friends on-and-off for nearly 40 years and previously were business partners. Dresner now serves as Huckabee’s pollster and media consultant, the only outside strategist retained on the former governor’s payroll.
Saltsman downplayed the significance of the talks between his candidate and Morris but acknowledged that the conversation is ongoing.
“He’s got lots of friends from his years as governor,” he said.
Asked hours after this story was first published whether he had been consulting with Morris, Huckabee himself sought to play down his contact with his former adviser — but then conceded that he thinks highly of Morris and still talks to him.
“I wish I had been,” Huckabee said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” “Dick’s one of the smartest political minds, as you well know, in the business. I’ve known Dick for, gosh, almost, I guess, 18, 17 years. He was a political consultant for me in the early ’90s in the first races that I won.
“But Dick is not available for doing political consulting work. Frankly, I wish he was, because he’s a brilliant political mind, and I still consider him a friend. I run into him from time to time, or I may talk to him. But I probably talk to 30, 40 journalists a week. Most of them I talk to more than I talk to Dick Morris, and I haven’t talked to him in a while.”
Questions raised
But those who have worked around Morris said this mild description likely does not do justice to the full tang of the Morris-Huckabee talks.
For one thing, virtually any conversation with Morris is a ceaseless, occasionally manic, flow of political analysis and theorizing, historical analogies, predictions, importuning and advice.
It is implausible Morris would turn off this faucet for a strictly social chat with a former client who just happens to be running for president.
At a minimum, the previously unreported Huckabee-Morris conversations raise two sets of questions.
One set is political: What will conservatives think about Huckabee’s mind-melds with a consultant who, in addition to having a history of sexual scandal, is known as an apostle of exhaustively polled centrism that Morris coined “triangulation.”
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NO NO NO on Huckabee! He is a pro-ILLEGAL immigration guy and a pro-OPEN border guy and a pro-TAX guy . . . no no no!
December 2nd, 2007 at 1:01 pmI say yes yes yes to Huckabee. Bush is obviously Pro-illegal too since he has done nothing about the situation down there. And to be honest they all must be since we’re still in this same situation. Romney and Guliani both have allowed sanctuary cities to develop in their states. But whoever gets the presidency better do something about it, and at this point no one has.
December 2nd, 2007 at 1:37 pmDick Morris on the other hand used to work for the Clintons and knows all of the strengths and weaknesses so i can understand this.
I think Huckabee would make a great President
Respectfully, Kurt - I disagree. I don’t know exactly who the right candidate for the Republicans is at this point, but I know it is not Mike Huckabee.
I live in Texas and the corruption related to border security is out-of-control here. As you noted, President Bush has failed his own state and our country regarding border security. I respect what the president has done in the WOT abroad, but failing to protect us in Texas has been so disheartening.
The lack of border security is a huge issue here, in Texas. The crime in Texas by those here illegally is out of control. The city of Laredo has been over run with crime including murder and kidnappings (41 Americans are missing at this point feared kidnapped by the drug cartels). Dallas is the drug smuggling-clearing house from Mexico to everywhere else.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2007/10/30/beck.nuevo.laredo.cnn
Sheriff Rick Flores Loredo is begging for federal help and President Bush will not even meet with the border sheriffs. I can’t trust anyone who even SOUNDS LIKE PRESIDENT BUSH on the border issue, i.e. Huckabee.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1923817/posts
Bottom line – border security is out of control and we can’t afford another president who for some “odd” reason wants to ignore it . . .
Mike Huckabee is very charming, yes, and a Christian, yes – but if you look at his record and his recent comments, he is not advocating border security at all. We can’t afford another four years of no border security in Texas or anywhere else in America for that matter.
You can read further what Michelle Malkin has to say about his open border policies, but then maybe you are for open borders . . . if so, okay, I will not be able to change your mind . . . respectfully.
http://michellemalkin.com/2007/11/26/mike-huckabees-open-borders-record/
Mrs. McGuire
(another infidel - worried for my daughter’s future)
Arlington, Texas
RIP Dallas Policeman Brian Jackson
December 2nd, 2007 at 2:47 pmYeah you living in Texas would know the problems of open borders is causing in this country. My point was that all of our elected officials have had a horrible record as far as locking up the borders goes so its hard to go against one particular Republican for this. I proudly voted for Bush and yes he has absolutely failed us in that category. But then again so has everyone else.
To mention that i might be for open borders is blasphemous as far as im concerned. my recent post even said i was against it. Im sick and tired of all these illegals running around our country getting everything for free when we dont get anything for free. I like Huckabee on the other issues, think he would make a strong President
December 2nd, 2007 at 2:56 pmKurt - I am glad to hear your opinion on the border. I didn’t mean to blaspheme - after I went on and on and on about the border, I thought well maybe I am talking to an open border guy – my mistake – :beer: I apologize :beer: - glad to hear you are for securing the border! I don’t understand why Duncan Hunter has not done better in the poles - It seems really odd to me that the front runners are all border wishy-washy when it is really such a huge issue in other poles. We are really worried in Texas and it is very frustrating that we have no control over who the nominee is. I am also fearful that they will all say we are going to secure the border and then stab us in the back after we elect them like our Governor Rick Perry did last year – I mean, it was just a few days after the election and that asshole started going back to his previous promises about a stronger stance on border control – well, he moaned, we really can’t do anything about the border – it is a Federal issue, blah, blah, blah . . . God Bless Oklahoma for their strong stance – see House Bill 1804.
http://www.outragedpatriots.com
Thanks for your comments, Kurt.
Where is the fence?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90SDkhwnEIo
December 2nd, 2007 at 3:14 pmpolls - polls - polls - I can’t spell worth a flip!
December 2nd, 2007 at 3:16 pmI dunno …
Whenever I see Dick Morris on TV an image of a toad pops into my head.
I do not believe someone could ever “used to” work for the Clintons. The Devil don’t give refunds …
Simply, I don’t trust Dick Morris any farther than I can kick him. And I’m not sure Huckabee should either …
December 2nd, 2007 at 3:21 pmI cant for the life of me understand why no one has secured the borders yet. I have family in Texas and worry about the people along the border all the time. I wish the minutemen would start squeezing the trigger to be honest with you. Maybe that would change their minds before crossing our border. This is an American problem and it impacts all of us greatly. Companies love them because they can pay them 80% less than they would pay an American. We need to lock that border down right now and no need for anymore excuses by the government
December 2nd, 2007 at 3:42 pmEverytime I see Morris on TV, I think about women’s shoes. Yeck. Not the image I want in a political consultant. Morris might know the Hildabeast, but in all other things political, he’s full of shit IMHO.
I like Huckabee as a person. I don’t like his views on border security, and I doubt that he would do more than what is already being done…which is nothing at this point.
There is no serious candidate running for POTUS that has a border security plan that interests me.
Seems like the only way to control our borders is to form a militia and take the border back from the criminals, drug lords and human trafficers.
December 2nd, 2007 at 3:51 pm@ Kurt and LMcg
December 2nd, 2007 at 4:05 pmSame over here in AZ. re: borders.
We have sheriff Joe holding the line, as best he can, but he is not on a border county (Maricopa Co.) sure like to cut him loose on this border crap.
What does it all matter if we contain the GWOT in other countries and we loose what this country is all about.
Duncan Hunter seems to grasp this, but the “party” doesn’t want to hear it.
Slam the employers, big time.
Stack the bad boy’s on the border like cordwood.
Holding on in AZ-
My husband and I are part of those “racist” minutemen . . . we have not been able to make a trip to the border to help out yet - hopefully, next summer. It is so frustrating, but we can’t give up for the sake of the future of our country and the future of our daughter. I can not imagine the heartbreak of those moms who live in Laredo - their two daughters were kidnapped by Mexican police and given “as a prize to a Mexican drug lord” . . . I can’t imagine their pain.
http://www.saynotoillegalimmigration.com/2007/10/30/laredo-texas-and-nuevo-laredo-mexico-worse-than-baghdad/
December 2nd, 2007 at 4:05 pmFor the record, Dick Morris also consulted for fat cat Trent Lott. It is VERY good for the country that Lott is retiring.
Morris occasionally has some interesting inside information, but he is married to his “triangulation” method of politics, i.e., selling your soul to win. A brilliant mind, but as is typical of most lawyers, hampered by his absolute lack of character and conviction. On the positive side, however, he has absolute hatred of the Clintons, particularly Hillary.
Just my $0.02.
December 2nd, 2007 at 4:28 pmAdded to the above:
Huckabee’s interaction with Morris doesn’t bode well.
December 2nd, 2007 at 4:30 pmThanks cb10 for your input from Arizona - I love Sheriff Joe - If I were President, I would appoint him head of Homeland Security - Chertoff Jerkoff needs to go.
December 2nd, 2007 at 4:32 pm