Shrum's sole skill.

• Author: Jaeger, Algernon
• Position: LETTERS - Letter to the editor

The review of Bob Shrum's book, No Excuses: Confessions of a Serial Campaigner ("Shrum and Dumber," by Matthew Yglesias, June), covers this consultant's particular skill at defeating his own clients but doesn't mention his greatest skill: defeating other consultants. In the lead-up to Gore's presidential campaign, Shrum cleverly defeated Gore's original consultant, Bob Squier. Squier was one of the most successful and innovative consultants in American political history. Squier was both cavalier and capricious, but he had a knack for winning. Shrum worked tirelessly to take the Gore account, and finally did.

Likewise, in 1991, after Shrum's candidate of choice, Mario Cuomo, dropped out, Shrum flew into Manchester and wooed Bob Kerrey away from his long-time consultant and friend, Joe Rothstein. Rothstein had been with Kerrey since Kerrey's days as a pharmacist running a drugstore in Omaha, Nebraska. Rothstein, one of the deans of American political consulting, had done every campaign Kerrey had been in and never lost one. Yet Shrum's talent for bringing along celebrity contributors (who...