The Kerry Tribes The seven factions fighting for control of his campaign [View All]

[Classical_Liberal]

The Kennedy Militia
The power center of the campaign. Three of Kerry's top aides—chief media strategist Bob Shrum, campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill, and communications director Stephanie Cutter—come from the province of Sen. Ted Kennedy (himself an important Kerry adviser). Shrum, who has been close to Kennedy since his 1980 presidential campaign, has consolidated control over Kerry's operation, making himself its mightiest warlord. During the primaries, Shrum helped to force out Kerry's first campaign manager, Jim Jordan, and replace him with Cahill, who had been Kennedy's chief of staff. Cutter also came straight from Kennedy's staff. Shrum is a famous advocate of populist, us-against-them rhetoric, and Kerry's emphasis on "special interests" and "Benedict Arnold companies" is a clear reflection of his growing power.
What they want: Fiery populism.
Sign that they're winning: Kerry issues Shrumian broadsides against special interests.
Biggest enemy: The Clintonites, who prefer 1990s Democratic centrism to "people vs. the powerful" tirades.

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Clintonites
While few Clinton-era politicos have joined the campaign (see above), plenty of Clintonites are now toiling in Kerry's policy shop, hammering out his agenda. Kerry's policy director is Sarah Bianchi, a health-care wizard who spent years in the Clinton White House (and was Al Gore's policy director). His economics team is also composed of ex-Clinton wonks, including Gene Sperling and Roger Altman. Kerry has also recently started taking advice from Bruce Reed, Clinton's former policy director and a godfather of Democratic-centrist domestic policy. On foreign affairs, too, Kerry talks to all the top names from the Clinton years: Sandy Berger, Madeleine Albright, Richard Holbrooke, and Jamie Rubin. (Rand Beers, a Clint,.........

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