Back in an earlier life I met him a few times.
Democrat operatives don't work for Republicans. Dick Morris is an exception.
Democrat operatives don't work for Republicans. Dick Morris is an exception.
Well ok, how about we take a crash course in Michael Whouley? He sounds like a super organizer with almost dictatorial control over the organization and the client. Can we hire this guy? rofl
But there might be another, more hidden story -- a secret weapon Kerry unleashed in Iowa several weeks ago. His name is Michael Whouley.
Michael who? Unless you're a hard-core political junkie, you've probably never even heard the name. But within the Democratic political world, Whouley is an almost-mythical figure. Revered as one of the party's fiercest and most talented ground-level organizers, Whouley is widely credited with saving Al Gore's foundering campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire in the 2000 primaries against Bill Bradley. Now this old Kerry ally may be working his magic one more time.
Whouley often seems like a kind of Keyser Soze figure -- his fearsome powers are the stuff of legend, but the man himself is rarely seen. Unlike other top campaign operatives, Whouley shuns attention. He avoids shows like "Hardball" and "Crossfire," and you can't find a picture of him on the Web. Whouley is so secretive that in 2000 he wouldn't even walk in front of a C-SPAN camera so his mother-in-law could see him on television. On the phone, Whouley sounds like a 300-pound truck driver -- he has a grumbly, profane voice, heavily inflected with the accent he acquired growing up in Boston's wor
king-class Dorchester neighborhood. (In fact, he is short, "balding," and "whip thin," according to The New York Times.)
Whouley also hates to be written about. Gore's former campaign manager, Donna Brazile, confided to me yesterday that she'd just gotten off the phone with Whouley. He'd told her "to stop bragging about him" to reporters.
But Whouley's track record makes him hard to ignore. Numerous veterans of the 2000 Gore campaign, including Gore himself, give Whouley vast credit for saving Gore's hide from Bill Bradley's primary challenge that year. At the time, Whouley was a fortyish ground operative who had been field director for Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign and, briefly, patronage chief in the White House. He was first dispatched to New Hampshire after a poll showing Bradley with a lead in New Hampshire rocked the complacent Gore campaign. Whouley quickly identified the problem: Gore had been too regal and distant from the voters. He ended Gore's endless endorsement events and forced him to bang on more doors and make himself accessible through long town-hall meetings with undecided voters. They proved highly popular and crucially humanized the stiff vice president.
Having shored up Gore in New Hampshire, Whouley proceeded to Iowa, where Bradley was also gaining ground. Whouley called in several trusted old allies from around the country, many from Boston, and overhauled Gore's state operation. Once again, Whouley got results -- even if it meant bruising feelings. Press accounts describe an "icy fury" and killer stares shot at campaign workers who fail him. Brazile says she blanched when Whouley insisted that the man who'd been promised the prestigious job of managing California for Gore be sent to Western Iowa instead. But it was done. More efficient mail and phone operations helped Gore find his footing, and he blew out Bradley by 28 points.
Finally Whouley returned to New Hampshire for the homestretch in that state. He micromanaged Gore's voter turnout machine to the last possible hour -- even sending a last-minute throng of volunteers to pound on doors based on 4 p.m. primary exit poll data. In a rare moment of self-promotion following the primary, Whouley even bragged that he'd dispatched a convoy to create a traffic jam on I-93, designed to prevent upscale suburban Bradley voters from getting to the polls. (He later insisted this was a joke.) "He is so incredibly focused," Gore would later conclude to The Washington Post, that when Whouley sets a goal, "book it."
Lucky for Kerry, he had a longtime relationship with Whouley, dating back to Kerry's 1982 campaign for lieutenant governor. Kerry developed so much respect for Whouley that he actually cited him as a reason for not challenging Gore for the nomination in 2000. "I would not have enjoyed running against Whouley," Kerry told The Washington Post. "I definitely want him in my foxhole."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/16/opinion/main593698.shtml
