Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
Name	Richard Lugar
Jr/sr	Senior Senator
State	Indiana
Term start	January 3, 1977
Alongside	Dan Coats
Predecessor	Vance Hartke
Order2	Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Term start2	January 3, 1985
Term end2	January 3, 1987
Predecessor2	Charles Percy
Successor2	Claiborne Pell
Term start3	January 3, 2003
Term end3	January 3, 2007
Predecessor3	Joseph Biden
Successor3	Joseph Biden
Order4	Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture
Term start4	January 4, 1995
Term end4	January 3, 2001
Predecessor4	Patrick Leahy
Successor4	Tom Harkin
Term start5	January 20, 2001
Term end5	June 6, 2001
Predecessor5	Tom Harkin
Successor5	Tom Harkin
Order6	44th Mayor of Indianapolis
Term start6	January 1, 1968
Term end6	January 1, 1976
Predecessor6	John J. Barton
Successor6	William H. Hudnut III
Birth date	April 04, 1932
Birth place	Indianapolis, Indiana
Residence	Indianapolis, Indiana
Party	Republican
Spouse	Charlene Smeltzer Lugar
Profession	manufacturing executive
Religion	Methodist
Residence	Indianapolis, Indiana
Signature	Lugarsign.jpg
Alma mater	Denison University (B.A.)Oxford University
Website	Senator Richard Lugar
Branch	United States Navy
Serviceyears	1957-1960 }}

Richard Green "Dick" Lugar (born April 4, 1932) is the senior United States Senator from Indiana and a member of the Republican Party. First elected to the Senate in 1977, he is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and was its chairman from 1985 to 1987 and 2003 to 2007. Much of Lugar's work in the Senate is toward the dismantling of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons around the world.

Lugar is currently the third most senior senator and the most senior Republican member of the Senate, putting him in place to be elected President pro tempore of the Senate should Republicans gain control of the body. However, Orrin Hatch disputes this claim based on a different interpretation of the Republican Conference's seniority rules.

Previously he served as the mayor of Indianapolis.

Early life, education and career

Lugar was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, to Bertha Green and Marvin Lugar. He attended the public schools of Indianapolis. During this time he attained the Boy Scouts' highest rank: Eagle Scout. Later, he became a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. He graduated first in his class at Shortridge High School in 1950 and from Denison University in 1954 where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi. He went on to attend Pembroke College, Oxford, England, as a Rhodes Scholar, and received a degree in 1956. He served in the United States Navy from 1957 to 1960; one of his assignments was as an intelligence briefer for Admiral Arleigh Burke.

Lugar manages his family's 604-acre (2.4 km²) Marion County corn, soybean and tree farm. Before entering public life, he helped his brother Tom manage the family's food machinery manufacturing business in Indianapolis.

Early political career

Lugar served on the Indianapolis Board of School Commissioners from 1964 to 1967. At the age of 35, he was elected mayor of Indianapolis in 1967 and began serving the first of two mayoral terms in 1968. A political cartoon of the time questioned how an Eagle Scout could survive in the world of politics. He is closely associated with the adoption of Unigov in 1970, which unified the governments of Indianapolis and Marion County. The Unigov plan helped trigger Indianapolis' economic growth and earned Lugar the post of president of the National League of Cities in 1971. In 1972, Lugar was the keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention. During this time he became known as "Richard Nixon's favorite mayor" due to his support for devolving federal powers to local communities.

U.S. Senate

Committee assignments

Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry

*Subcommittee on Energy, Science and Technology

*Subcommittee on Domestic and Foreign Marketing, Inspection, and Plant and Animal Health

*Subcommittee on Hunger, Nutrition and Family Farms (Ranking Member)

Committee on Foreign Relations (Ranking Member)

*As Ranking Member of the full committee, Sen. Lugar is an ''ex officio'' member of all subcommittees

Lugar has been influential in gaining Senate ratification of treaties to reduce the world's use, production and stockpiling of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. In 1991, he initiated a partnership with then-Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn – a fellow Eagle Scout – aiming to eliminate latent weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union. To date, the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program has deactivated more than 7,500 nuclear warheads. In 2004, Senators Lugar and Nunn were jointly awarded the Heinz Awards Chairman's Medal for their efforts.

As Chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Lugar built bipartisan support for 1996 federal farm program reforms, ending 1930s-era federal production controls. He worked to initiate a biofuels research program to help increase U.S. dependency on ethanol and combustion fuels, and led initiatives to streamline the U.S. Department of Agriculture, reform the food stamp program, and preserve the federal school lunch program.

During the August recess of 2005, Lugar and freshman Senator Barack Obama visited Russia, Azerbaijan, and Ukraine to inspect nuclear facilities there. He was detained for three hours at an airport in the city of Perm, near the Ural Mountains, where they were scheduled to depart for a meeting with the President and the Speaker of the House of Ukraine. He was released after a brief dialogue between U.S. and Russian officials, and the Russians later apologized for this incident. In January 2007, President Bush signed into law the Lugar-Obama Proliferation and Threat Reduction Initiative which was furthering Lugar's work with Senator Nunn in deactivating weapons in the former Soviet Union. The Lugar-Obama program focuses on terrorists and their use of multiple types of weapons.

In April 2006, ''Time'' magazine selected Lugar as one of America's 10 Best Senators.

In the 2006 election, Lugar was opposed by Steve Osborn, the Libertarian candidate. The Democratic Party did not field a candidate – in part because of Lugar's popularity in Indiana – deciding instead to focus on key state and national races. Lugar won the election with 87% of the vote, the highest percentage of the 2006 senate elections despite a Democratic take-over of Washington.

Although Lugar's party is in the minority in the Senate, he has good relationships with President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. Lugar was named an honorary co-chairman of their inauguration. On the day of the final 2008 presidential debate, Lugar gave a speech at the National Defense University praising Obama's foreign policy approach, and warning against the isolationist, reactive policies espoused by Senator McCain. At that debate, Obama also listed Lugar as among the individuals "who have shaped my ideas and who will be surrounding me in the White House." There were rumors that either Obama or McCain would select Lugar to be Secretary of State, but that he preferred to keep his Senate seat.

On March 18, 2009, Lugar cast his 12,000th Senate vote, putting him in 13th place for all-time most votes. In 32 years in the Senate, he has a better than 98% attendance record. Senator Lugar has announced that he will run for reelection in 2012, and has an official campaign site.

Political positions

Abortion

Lugar's 2007 rating from NARAL was 40%. His 2007-2008 rating from the National Right to Life Committee was 85%.

Cuba

Lugar believes that the U.S. sanctions on Cuba have failed and wrote to President Obama that "additional measures are needed...to recast a policy that has not only failed to promote human rights and democracy, but also undermines our broader security and political interests." He supports the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act (S.428), which would lift the travel restrictions that have prevented U.S. citizens from visiting Cuba since the early 1960s.

Economy

Lugar holds a conservative view on economy. He voted for Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. He voted against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Health care reform

Lugar opposed President Barack Obama's health reform legislation; he voted against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in December 2009, and he voted against the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

Immigration

Senator Lugar has a generally liberal stance on immigration, supporting the DREAM Act and the McCain-Kennedy Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill which died in Congress.

Iraq War

On June 25, 2007, Senator Lugar, who had been "a reliable vote for President Bush on the war," said that "Bush's Iraq strategy [is] not working and... the U.S. should downsize the military's role."

Lugar's blunt assessment has been viewed as significant because it showed the growing impatience and dissatisfaction with President Bush's strategy in Iraq. Lugar's speech had particular resonance given his stature as one of the party's elder statesmen on foreign policy. After Lugar finished his remarks, Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-IL), a sharp critic of the war, praised Lugar's "thoughtful, sincere and honest" speech, which Durbin said was in "finest tradition of the U.S. Senate." Senator Durbin urged his Senate colleagues to take a copy of Lugar's speech home over the Fourth of July break and study it before returning to work. +Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, in reaction to Lugar's speech: "When this war comes to an end, and it will come to an end, and the history books are written, and they will be written, I believe that Sen. Lugar's words yesterday could be remembered as a turning point in this intractable civil war in Iraq."

Two days later, on June 27, 2007, Lugar said that Congressional measures aimed at curtailing U.S. military involvement in Iraq – including "so-called timetables, benchmarks" – have "no particular legal consequence," are "very partisan," and "will not work."

Judicial nominees

Senator Lugar was the first Republican senator to announce his support for President Barack Obama's first Supreme Court nominee United States Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor and also voted in favor of his second Supreme Court nominee Solicitor General Elena Kagan.

LGBT rights

Senator Lugar voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment, limiting the definition of marriage to one man and one woman. However, he has also voted in favor of the Matthew Shepard Act, which expanded the federal hate crime statutes to include sexual orientation and gender identity. In October 2010, Senator Lugar voted against repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy—which prevents gays and lesbians from serving openly in the armed forces. However, on 18 November 2010, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut announced that Senator Lugar promised to vote to repeal the policy the next time it comes up for a vote. On December 18, 2010, Lugar voted against DADT repeal in both the cloture and final votes.

Pakistan

In October 2008 Lugar and Joe Biden, his partner in the Committee on Foreign Relations, received the Hilal-i-Pakistan (Crescent of Pakistan) Award from the government of Pakistan for their continued support of the country. In July 2008 Lugar and Biden introduced a plan that would give $1.5 billion in aid per year to support economic development in Pakistan.

Political campaigns

Lugar unsuccessfully sought election to the U.S. Senate as the Republican nominee in the 1974 U.S. Senate election, losing to incumbent Democrat Birch Bayh. Two years later, he ran again, unseating incumbent Senator Vance Hartke in the 1976 election. Future Governor of Indiana Mitch Daniels served as his chief of staff from 1977 to 1982. During the 1980 Republican National Convention, Lugar was rumored as a potential Vice Presidential nominee for Presidential nominee Ronald Reagan.

Lugar was reelected in 1982, 1988, 1994, in 2000, and in 2006. Lugar served as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 1984 Senate elections. In 2006, he ran without a Democratic Party challenger and earned over 87% of the vote, and won over three fourths of the votes in every county. In 1994, Lugar became the first Indiana senator to be re-elected to a fourth term. He is currently the third most senior senator.

Lugar ran for the Republican nomination for President in 1996, but his campaign failed to gain traction. His announcement of candidacy speech was made on April 19, 1995, in Indianapolis. He finished fifth in the Republican primaries, with 127,111 votes or 0.83%.

Electoral history

}}

Personal life

Senator Lugar is member of the United Methodist Church and the Indiana Society Sons of the American Revolution. He married Charlene Smeltzer on September 8, 1956, and the couple has four sons and thirteen grandchildren.

Lugar served on the Board of Directors of the National Endowment for Democracy from 1992 to 2001.

Lugar is a member of the board of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, an organization involved in international elections.

Senator Lugar is a member of the board of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI).

Lugar has received numerous awards, including Guardian of Small Business, the Spirit of Enterprise, Watchdog of the Treasury, and 42 honorary doctorate degrees. In 2001 Lugar received the Democracy Service Medal of the National Endowment for Democracy.

References

External links

United States Senator Richard G. Lugar ''U.S. Senate site''

Dick Lugar for U.S. Senate ''official campaign site''

Profile at SourceWatch

Bills sponsored by Senator Lugar in the 110th Congress from the Library of Congress

{{U.S. Senator box |before=Vance Hartke |state=Indiana |class=1 |start=1977 |alongside=Birch Bayh, Dan Quayle, Dan Coats, Evan Bayh, Dan Coats}}

Category:1932 births Category:Alumni of Pembroke College, Oxford Category:American Methodists Category:American Rhodes scholars Category:Denison University alumni Category:Distinguished Eagle Scouts Category:Indiana Republicans Category:Living people Category:Mayors of Indianapolis, Indiana Category:Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st Class Category:Recipients of the Order of the Three Stars, 2nd Class Category:Republican Party United States Senators Category:Sons of the American Revolution Category:United States Navy officers Category:United States presidential candidates, 1996 Category:United States Senators from Indiana

da:Dick Lugar de:Richard Lugar fr:Richard Lugar id:Richard Lugar it:Dick Lugar he:ריצ'רד לוגאר nl:Richard Lugar no:Dick Lugar pl:Dick Lugar pt:Richard Lugar ru:Лугар, Ричард simple:Richard Lugar sh:Richard Lugar fi:Dick Lugar sv:Richard Lugar

Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
Name	Richard Mourdock
Order	53rd
Office	Indiana State Treasurer|Treasurer of Indiana
Term start	February 10, 2007
Predecessor	Tim Berry
Successor	Incumbent
Birth date	October 08, 1951
Birth place	Wauseon, OH
Spouse	Marilyn Mourdock
Profession	Geologist, Business Executive
Religion	Christian
Alma mater	Ball State University Defiance College
Party	Republican }}

Richard E. Mourdock, (born October 8, 1951, in Wauseon, Ohio), currently serves as the 53rd Treasurer of State of the U.S. State of Indiana. A Republican, he began his four year term on February 10, 2007 and was re-elected in November of 2010. He is challenging senator Dick Lugar in a Republican primary for the 2012 US Senate election in Indiana.

As Indiana's Treasurer of State, Mourdock serves as Indiana's Chief Investment Officer responsible for approximately $7.4 billion consisting of Indiana's General Fund and numerous other dedicated funds and trusts. In addition, Mourdock serves as the Chairman of the Indiana Bond Bank, the Wireless Enhanced 911 Advisory Board, and the Indiana Education Savings Authority. Finally, Mourdock serves as the Secretary and Investment Manager of the Indiana Board for Depositories and the Trustee of the Indiana State Police Pension Plan.

Private sector experience

After graduating from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, in 1975 with a Master of Science Degree, Mourdock took a position as a field geologist with AMAX Coal Company and was ultimately promoted to Surface Mine Geology Project Coordinator until his departure from the company in 1979. From 1979 to 1984, Mourdock was employed by Standard Oil Company of Ohio as a Senior Geologist and ultimately became Chief Geologist for the company. In 1984, Mourdock accepted a position with Koester Companies, Inc. in Evansville, Indiana. For sixteen years, Mourdock served as Vice President of the company's coal subsidiary and eventually became Vice President of Business Development for the parent company. In addition, Mourdock served as a Trustee for the company's employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). In 2000, Mourdock founded a successful environmental consulting business and provided various services to numerous clients until being elected as Indiana's State Treasurer in 2006.

Previous public service

He challenged Democratic congressman Frank McCloskey of Indiana's 8th congressional district for reelection in 1990 and 1992, losing 55-45% and 53-45%, respectively. From 1995 to 2002, Mourdock was elected to Vanderburgh County's Board of Commissioners. Vanderburgh County's population of approximately 160,000 is the fourth largest county in the State of Indiana. At various times as a County Commissioner, Mourdock was President of the County Commission, the Vanderburgh County Drainage Board, and the Vanderburgh County Zoning Board.

Indiana State Treasurer

Richard Mourdock took office as Indiana State Treasurer in February of 2007. He was reelected to the office in November of 2010, receiving more than 1,000,000 votes.

2012 U.S Senate Campaign

On February 22nd, 2011, Richard Mourdock announced he is challenging incumbent Richard Lugar in the Republican primary for the 2012 Indiana U.S Senate election. At the announcement Mourdock stated, “Hoosiers want more than a globe-trotting Senator, they want a Senator who routinely holds town hall meetings not to talk but to listen. They want a Senator who will walk the parade routes, visit the county fairs and festivals, and who will eat pork tenderloin and an ear of corn. They told me over and over again that they want a Senator who comes back home.” He also released results from a poll conducted by Wilson Research Strategies on behalf of Mourdock. The poll showed that 65% of Republican primary voters are willing to consider another candidate other than Senator Richard Lugar and support falls for Senator Lugar from 52% on the ballot to 29% once voters hear more about his voting record. Additionally, Mourdock released a list of 12 Republican State Central Committee members and 67 GOP County Chairs who publicly endorsed him.

Electoral history

References

External links

Richard Mourdock for US Senate

Treasurer of State

Indiana Board for Depositories

Indiana Education Savings Authority

Indiana Bond Bank

Wireless Emergency 911

TrustINdiana

Project Vote Smart

Category:Indiana state treasurers Category:1951 births Category:Living people Category:Indiana Republicans

Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
Name	Dick Morris
Birth date
Birth place	New York City, New York
Nationality	American
Religion	Jewish
Known for	Political Strategist, Fox News Analyst
Occupation	Author

Dick Morris (born November 28, 1948) is an American political author and commentator who previously worked as a pollster, political campaign consultant, and general political consultant.

A longtime friend and advisor to Bill Clinton during his time as Governor of Arkansas, Morris became a political adviser to the White House after Clinton was elected president in 1992. Morris encouraged Clinton to pursue third way policies of triangulation that combined traditional Republican and Democratic proposals, rhetoric, and issues to achieve maximum political gain and popularity. He worked as a Republican strategist before joining the Clinton administration, where he helped Clinton recover from the 1994 midterm elections by convincing the President to adopt Republican policies.

The president consulted Morris in secret beginning in 1994. Clinton's communications director George Stephanopoulos has said that "Over the course of the first nine months of 1995, no single person had more power over the president". Morris went on to become campaign manager of Bill Clinton's successful 1996 bid for re-election to the office of President. His tenure on that campaign was cut short two months before the election, when it was revealed that he had allowed a prostitute to listen in on conversations with the President. Morris then turned his focus to media commentary. He now writes a weekly column for the ''New York Post'' which is carried nationwide, contributes columns and blogs to both the print and online versions of The Hill, and appears regularly on the Fox News Channel for political commentary. He is also President of Vote.com, a website which conducts polls on "important public issues and other topics" and then emails results to "important decision makers" in government.

More recently, Morris has emerged as a harsh critic of the Clintons and has written several books that criticize them, including ''Rewriting History'', a rebuttal to Senator Hillary Clinton's ''Living History.'' Morris said that he would leave the United States if Hillary Clinton were elected president in 2008.

Morris was the strategist for Republican Christy Mihos' failed campaign in the 2010 Massachusetts gubernatorial race.

While promoting his new book on a radio show hosted by Peter Schiff, Dick Morris stated that the War on Drugs was not being won because "we're not fighting it", and advocated drug testing every high school student in America.

Early life

Morris attended Stuyvesant High School in New York City, where he was active on the debate team. He managed Jerrold Nadler's campaign for class president; Nadler has since gone on to represent New York in the House of Representatives. Morris was also involved in the first campaign of Richard Gottfried for New York State Assembly in 1970. Morris graduated from Stuyvesant in 1964, then attended Columbia University where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, graduating in 1967.

Morris and the Clintons

Morris first worked with Bill and Hillary Clinton during Bill Clinton's successful 1978 bid for Governor of Arkansas. Morris is credited by many with engineering Clinton's re-election to the Arkansas governorship after a humiliating defeat at the end of Clinton's first term. As a result, Clinton turned to Morris after the mid-term elections of 1994, when Republicans gained control of the U.S. House and Senate and Clinton's own chance for a second presidential term seemed remote. From the early months of 1995 to August 1996, Morris was a principal architect of the Clinton-Gore re-election strategy.

Morris did not have a role in Clinton's successful 1992 Presidential campaign, which instead was headed by David Wilhelm, James Carville, George Stephanopoulos, and Paul Begala. After the 1994 mid-term election, in which Republicans took control of both houses of the United States Congress and gained considerable power in the states, Clinton once again sought Morris' help to prepare for the 1996 Presidential election. It was Morris who proposed a strategy that is now referred to as "triangulation," where Clinton would appeal to a diverse group of voters by distancing himself from both the Democratic and Republican parties.

Scandal

On August 29, 1996, Morris resigned from the Clinton campaign after tabloid reports stated that he had been involved with a female prostitute, Sherry Rowlands, as reported by the Washington Post. A New York tabloid newspaper, the ''Star'', had obtained and published a set of photographs allegedly of Morris and the woman on a Washington, D.C., hotel balcony. News of the impending publication broke during the third day of the 1996 Democratic Convention. The ''Electronic Telegraph'' reported unverified claims that in order to impress the woman, S. Rowlands, Morris invited her to listen in on his conversations with President Clinton. It was also alleged he had an illegitimate child from an affair with a Texas woman.

Morris resigned on the same day that Bill Clinton spoke and accepted the nomination at the Democratic National Convention. In his resignation statement, he said that "while I served I sought to avoid the limelight because I did not want to become the message. Now, I resign so I will not become the issue." In his response, President Clinton praised Morris as a "friend", and thanked him for his years of service. Privately various aides to Clinton were furious that in his resignation statement Morris credited himself with helping the President "come back from being buried in a landslide" and that Morris ended by comparing himself to Robert Kennedy.

Morris was featured on two consecutive covers of ''Time'' magazine. The September 2, 1996 issue, which was released before the prostitute story broke, featured Morris as "The Man Who Has Clinton's Ear." The following week, the cover featured Morris and his wife, Eileen McGann, and the headline read "The Morris Mess: After the Fall."

Later work

In his 1997 book ''Behind the Oval Office,'' Morris wrote that, following an argument in the Arkansas Governor's Mansion, he strode toward the exit and was tackled by Clinton. In 2003, Morris further stated that Clinton cocked his arm back to throw a punch, but Hillary Clinton pulled her husband off Morris. In both versions of the story, she consoled Morris and apologized to him, stating that Bill only behaved such with those he cared for most. According to Morris, she did this to keep him quiet about the incident. He says the incident was the reason for denying Bill Clinton's request to work on the 1992 campaign.

Morris has become a vocal and regular critic of the Clintons since his departure, in particular Hillary Rodham Clinton and her bid for the presidency. Morris has written extensively about the Clintons (see below) and also contributed to ''Hillary: The Movie'', a documentary about Rodham Clinton when she was still a 2008 Presidential candidate. Later, after former President Bill Clinton's comments about the similarities between the Obama win and the win of Presidential candidate Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1988, Morris put out an article on his blog that asserted that this was Clinton's way of injecting race into the political campaign.

Other work

Political consulting

As of August, 2009, Morris lends his name and assistance to the League of American Voters, an advocacy group for seniors to defeat the Obama health care reform. He has been described as America's most ruthless political consultant in the BBC documentary Century of the Self Episode 4, which chronicled how he brought lifestyle marketing to politics for the first time.

Morris has also consulted for candidates in other countries of the western hemisphere, including the campaigns of Fernando de la Rua for President of Argentina (1999), Jorge Batlle for President of Uruguay (1999), Vicente Fox for President of Mexico (2000), and Raphael Trotman for President of Guyana (2006).

Morris and Eileen McGann are behind www.vote.com, a site intended to register non-scientific political public opinion on various issues.

Dick Morris had recently worked as a strategist for Christy Mihos, a Republican candidate for governor of Massachusetts running to unseat incumbent Deval Patrick. Morris "oversaw strategy, polling, and advertising for Mihos." Mihos declined to continue his campaign after balloting at the Massachusetts Republican State Convention resulted in Charles D. Baker beating Mihos by a margin of 89 per cent to 11 per cent in a potential primary.

Guest commentator and political prognosticator

Since leaving the Clintons' employ in 1996, Morris has said he has become profoundly "disillusioned" with the actions of the Clintons in the late 1990s. He has now formed a career as a political commentator and critic of the Clintons (particularly towards Hillary), appearing on Fox News programs such as ''Hannity & Colmes'', ''Hannity'', and the ''O'Reilly Factor'', and on various local and nationally syndicated radio talk shows. Morris is also a regular columnist and Pundits Blogger for The Hill, a nonpartisan daily newspaper based in Washington, D.C., and for NewsMax.com, a conservative online news website.

Morris regularly makes predictions about candidates' chances of winning elections during these appearances. In a 2005 book on the 2008 Presidential campaign, Morris stated that it was most likely that Hillary Clinton would face Condoleezza Rice for the presidency. Morris critics reacted by mocking his mistaken predictions of past races. Regarding the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, he initially stated that Howard Dean's candidacy could be written off right away. While ultimately vindicated, he had discussed the likelihood of Dean defeating John Kerry after early strong showings by the former Vermont governor. Kerry defeated Dean and all his other rivals and won the nomination. Additionally, in an column in "The Hill" on June 22, 2005, Morris predicted that Hillary Clinton would face her "worst nightmare" in her 2006 Senate race against moderate Republican candidate Jeanine Pirro, whose campaign subsequently collapsed within a matter of two months after repeated crushing defeats in the opinion polls due to her husband's alleged mafia ties. He even went so far as to suggest that Clinton would "give up" and drop out to focus on her 2008 campaign.

Morris further wrote that "[Hurricane] Katrina has the capacity to shape the second Bush term in the same way September 11 shaped his first term—not only in rebuilding New Orleans but in taking preventative steps around the nation to bolster our defenses against natural and man-made disasters and terror strikes. Responding to disasters is a source of presidential strength and popularity, and Bush is about to show how it is done." Appearing on Fox News' ''Hannity and Colmes'' on January 29, 2008, Morris said that those voting for John Edwards were "at the moment... those that can't decide which they don’t like more—a black or a woman getting elected". Host Alan Colmes asked if he was "saying that Edwards voters are bigots?" Morris elaborated that exit polls showed some Edwards voters were unsure if a woman or a Black American, in reference to then Democratic Primary front runners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, could get elected to the Presidency for the first time in '08.

After Obama won the 2008 election, Morris was critical of him. In early 2009, Morris said: "Those crazies in Montana who say, 'We're going to kill ATF agents because the U.N.’s going to take over'? Well, they’re beginning to have a case." In April 2009, Morris keynoted an animated debate at the Yale Political Union on the topic "Resolved: Save Capitalism from President Obama".

In a March 2011 column for ''The Hill'', Morris predicted that Obama would not win a second term as President. For many years a "disillusioned Democrat," Dick Morris has stated he is now a Republican.

Foreign political consultant

Morris worked with the United Kingdom Independence Party in their campaign before the 2004 European Parliament election. The party, which advocates withdrawal from the European Union, won 12 of Britain's 78 seats.

In 2004 and 2005, he and his wife had acted as campaign consultants to the successful Yushchenko Presidential campaign in Ukraine. Morris reports that he insisted on the use of exit polls as a means of potentially exposing ballot tampering. He argues this played a significant role in forcing the government of then President Leonid Kuchma to acquiesce to a new poll when the official results of the first varied materially from the exit surveys. Interestingly, faced with a similar (though smaller) divergence between exit polling and election returns, he took the opposite stance in a 2004 article in ''The Hill'' when he suspected "foul play" on the part of the exit pollsters in the U.S. Presidential race. Mexico 2004; Morris outlined the strategy of the negative campaign that would be used against the PRD and AMLO: “The PRD would be a disaster for Mexico, the country would go in the same direction as Chávez and Castro.” That is to say, López Obrador would be “a danger to Mexico,” as Rob Allyn said in an article published on April 3, 2006, published in the New York Post.

In a November 13, 2007 press conference in Nairobi, Kenya, Morris announced that he would be offering his consultancy services pro bono for the campaign to elect Raila Odinga as President of Kenya in the 2007 Presidential election running on the Orange Democratic Movement ticket.

With four weeks to the National Elections, an editorial in one of the leading dailies called into question the legalities of Dick Morris' consulting work from the perspective of his presence in, and lack of legal ability to work in Kenya "pro bono" or "through the back door".

The outcome of the December 27, 2007 elections in Kenya is still disputed due to allegations of electoral fraud and rigging by the incumbent president, Mwai Kibaki, the Party of National Unity and erroneous reporting by the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK). Massive protests and tribal tensions have since erupted between the president's Kikuyu tribe and the majority of other tribes not favorably aligned to the outcome. Major mediations have commenced between concerned parties, including possible formation of a coalition and/or interim government until reelections are held.

Morris' DVD

Morris has appeared in the documentary film ''FahrenHYPE 9/11'', a response to Michael Moore's 2004 film, ''Fahrenheit 9/11''. He also wrote the screenplay.

Tax issues

Morris said that he has reached an agreement with Connecticut and his name will be removed from the next delinquency list. Morris says that he is committed to paying his taxes: "Following a difficult period in my life, I fell into arrears. But since then, I have paid almost $3 million in state and federal taxes."

Books

Morris has written several books. He authored ''Condi vs. Hillary'' (subtitled ''The next great presidential race'') (ISBN 0-06-083913-9) in which he argues that only Condoleezza Rice could block Hillary Clinton's anticipated 2008 bid for the White House. He co-authored this book with his wife, Eileen McGann.

Previously he wrote a pair of books criticizing the Clintons, again co-authored by his wife, Eileen McGann. ''Rewriting History'' (ISBN 0-06-073668-2) was published in May 2004 as a rebuttal to Hillary Clinton's book, ''Living History'' (ISBN 0-7432-2224-5). In it, he argues that Hillary Clinton has presented a false "nice" persona in the book. Morris instead remembers her as manipulative, cold, and single-minded in her pursuit of power. Similarly, Morris and McGann wrote ''Because He Could'' (ISBN 0-06-078415-6) in response to Bill Clinton's memoir ''My Life'' (ISBN 0-375-41457-6). Morris has also written ''Behind the Oval Office: Winning the Presidency in the Nineties'' (ISBN 1-58063-053-7), a retrospective of his work with the Clintons that was published soon after his resignation from the campaign in 1996. Other books include ''Power Plays: Win or Lose—How History's Great Political Leaders Play the Game'' (ISBN 0-06-000444-4), ''The New Prince'' (ISBN 1580631479 ),''Vote.com: How Big-Money Lobbyists and the Media Are Losing Their Influence, and the Internet Is Giving Power Back to the People'' (ISBN 1-58063-163-0)and "Outrage" (ISBN 978-0-06-119540-2).

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann's latest collaboration is ''Fleeced: How Barack Obama, Media Mockery of Terrorist Threats, Liberals Who Want To Kill Talk Radio, The Do-Nothing Congress, Companies That Help Iran, And Washington Lobbyists For Foreign Governments Are Scamming Us...And What To Do About It '' (ISBN 9780061718663), published in June 2008. Its jacket copy states, "In this hard-hitting call to arms, Dick Morris and Eileen McGann reveal the hundreds of ways American tax-payers are routinely fleeced--by our own government; by foreign countries like Dubai that are gobbling up American interests and spending millions to influence government decisions and American public opinion; by Washington lobbying firms that are pushing the agendas of corrupt foreign dictators on Capitol Hill; and by hedge-fund billionaires collecting huge tax breaks courtesy of the IRS."

His book ''Catastrophe'' was released in June 2009.

His latest book is ''Revolt! How to Defeat Obama and Repeal His Socialist Programs'', which was released in March 2011.

References

External links

DickMorris.com, Dick Morris Blog and Opinion Site

Vote.com, Dick Morris online polling site

Podcasts of Morris' recent articles

The Hill">Dick Morris' Pundits Blogs for The Hill

Category:1948 births Category:American campaign managers Category:American columnists Category:American political pundits Category:American political writers Category:Clinton Administration personnel Category:Columbia University alumni Category:Living people Category:Stuyvesant High School alumni Category:United States presidential advisors

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