THE SHRUM CURSE:

Two Central Figures on the Kerry Media Team Go Toe to Toe (JIM RUTENBERG, 4/09/04, NY Times)

[T]he campaign's announcement last week that Jim Margolis, a chief consultant behind those commercials, would significantly reduce his role because of a contract dispute puzzled party officials.

Details of the dispute offer a glimpse into the machinery and growing pains of a presidential campaign as it switches from a primary to a general-election footing. It is then that the risks and rewards grow exponentially, along with the potential financial return to consultants.

But the details also underscore the growing influence of Mr. Kerry's senior strategist Bob Shrum.

People close to the situation would speak only on condition that they not be identified, saying campaign decorum did not provide for publicly speaking about private contractual negotiations. But people on both sides agree that the lessening of Mr. Margolis's role was precipitated by a financial decision of Mr. Kerry's campaign manager, Mary Beth Cahill. She was determined to reduce the rate of commissions being paid to Mr. Margolis's firm, GMMB, and to Mr. Shrum's: Shrum, Devine & Donilon.

Media strategists customarily collect a percentage of the cost of advertising time that campaigns buy, a factor that helps make them among the best-paid people in politics. Yet people familiar with the arrangements at the Kerry campaign said commissions it had paid to its two main advertising firms were not only equal but also relatively modest, with rates in the low-to-mid single digits. These people said each of the two firms had earned a profit of less than $1 million in commissions so far.

But, campaign officials said, Ms. Cahill wanted to lower the commission rate further, in light of the prospect that the the Kerry organization would be spending tens of millions of dollars more on advertising between now and midsummer than it had initially expected. That would have netted the two firms far more than Ms. Cahill wanted to pay them.

Rather than set the new commission structure herself, Ms. Cahill left it to the firms to work it out between themselves, people close to both firms said.

Mr. Margolis, these people said, was unhappy with the terms that Mr. Shrum proposed.

One of the many tensions inherent in the Kerry campaign--and presumably in the man--is trying to base a campaign on service in a war that you say was criminal. Mr. Shrum represents the wing of the party that thinks Mr. Kerry a war criminal for having fought there. A New Democrat would turn the campaign over to someone who thought the war just and his service honorable.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 9, 2004 8:27 AM