Shrum, Robert – Complete Video, Compressed
The Election of 2004 – Collective Memory Project Interviewee: Robert Shrum Current: Warschaw Chair in Practical Politics, University of Southern California In 2004: Senior Advisor, John Kerry Presidential Campaign Interviewer: Dr. Michael Nelson Fulmer Professor of Political Science, Rhodes College Fellow, SMU Center for Presidential History Disclaimer: This transcription has been prepared according to the strictest practices of the academic and transcription communities and offers our best good-faith effort at reproducing in text our subject's spoken words. In all cases, however, the video of this interview represents the definitive version of the words spoken by interviewees. December 11, 2013 Q: OK. I doubt there’s ever been anything that’s the equivalent of what came to be called the Shrum Primary in the lead up to an election, as there was in 2004. What’s the Shrum Primary, and why would there be such a thing? SHRUM: Well, it was a journalistic artifact. It was because I had previously worked for John Kerry, I had previous worked for John Edwards, I had previously worked for Joe Lieberman. And so, there was this whole sense -- the press created it. You know, I found it annoying, actually. Q: Obviously there’s a back story to this, which is your long involvement in multiple Democratic campaigns for president, as well as senator, governor, and so on. SHRUM: Yeah, well, I’d done the John Edwards campaign in 1998, when he came out of nowhere to get elected to the Senate in North Carolina. Thought he was immensely [00:01:00] talented. I had been a friend of John Kerry’s for almost 40 years, and in 1996, when he faced a really tough race against [Bill] Weld, I’d been brought into that race in the beginning of September.
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