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The Morning Grind / DayAhead |
Paul Johnson: Nice guys finish ...?
Clark's new campaign manager arrives today
By John Mercurio
CNN Political Unit
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Team Clark: Strategists are watching to see what effects Paul Johnson's management may have on the campaign of Wesley Clark.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Shortly after he decorated his family's Christmas tree last night, Paul Johnson kissed his wife Amy and two kids goodbye, jumped into his car and drove north on I-71, turning east on I-30 near Texarkana.
With good traffic, it's a three-hour drive from his home in Shreveport to his new job in Little Rock as Wesley Clark's campaign manager.
"That's much better than [the commute to] Florida, which door-to-door could be anywhere from eight to 12 hours," Johnson said yesterday, the only time the mild-mannered Minnesotan spoke ill of his seven-month stint running Bob Graham's failed presidential bid. (Except to acknowledge -- shocker! -- that Clark could possibly, just maybe, have more "charisma" than the retiring senator from Florida.)
But in the hard-driving world of political strategists, Johnson, 42, can shock in other ways. For one thing, few may expect Karl Rove to say: "I don't view myself as a great guru who's going to dispense great thoughts." But Johnson said it, in explaining how he'll sit on the back row of Clark's campaign, at least for a while, to "listen and learn, and not to make any false assumptions" about the general's existing campaign structure.
"I don't presume to have any great scheme for this, other than to go in, make an assessment and take things from there," Johnson said. "There are a lot of talented people there. They've made great progress already."
Johnson's resume is long and deep. It includes working for Walter Mondale in 1984, Bob Kerrey in 1992, running the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 1996 and 1998 (both respectable cycles, if not outright wins, for Dems) and managing several winning Senate races, including those of Bob Kerrey and Ben Nelson in Nebraska and Tom Daschle in South Dakota. He also worked as a top adviser in 2002 to Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor, the only Democrat to oust a Republican senator that year.
Still, the self-effacement, or whatever it is, runs deep. In October, Hotline asked Johnson to name the best-managed campaign, ever. "Not one that I have managed," he replied.
Change ahead?
So, what does Johnson's nonchalance tell us about Clark and, more importantly, about the state of his '04 campaign?
For one thing, unlike John Kerry, whose campaign has undergone a notable transformation since the senator switched managers last month, Clark, who has lacked a manager since Donnie Fowler Jr. quit in early October, is confident with the course he's on.
Whether that course will lead Clark anywhere other than Little Rock is, of course, unclear. Aides say his fourth-quarter fund-raising is on track to meet or surpass the $12 million goal he set last month, and a new poll in must-win South Carolina shows he continues to lead neighbor John Edwards among those surveyed, albeit narrowly.
During a conference call yesterday, Rahm Emanuel, a Clark backer and Bill Clinton '92 strategist, said other dynamics help Clark.
Kerry's decision to fight an aggressive "stop-Dean" strategy in Iowa, for example, has "opened up the Clinton spot" in New Hampshire -- meaning the No. 2 position Kerry now holds, behind Howard Dean -- which Clinton took in declaring himself the "Comeback Kid." Whoever fills that spot, which Emanuel argues Clark is best-equipped to do, will be the story on January 27, not Dean. Recent polls show Clark with a distant, but solid, third-place showing among respondents in the Granite State.
It will be interesting to see how Johnson fares in Clark's inner circle. Flanked by hard-chargers like Chris Lehane, Mickey Kantor, Ron Klain and Jamie Rubin, he certainly won't want for advice on how to run the campaign.
Matt Bennett, Clark's communications director, said Johnson's arrival will have one major impact on the campaign, or at least on campaign chairman Eli Segal. Johnson's presence in Little Rock "will free up Eli to be more visible and do the things that campaign chairmen do, to get out of Little Rock, to visit with governors and congressmen, to go up to New Hampshire and be more public.
"But Paul doesn't think it would be wise or necessary to make enormous changes in the structure of the campaign. We have finally, after six or seven weeks, built a strong campaign team," Bennett said, singing from the same page as Johnson. "What Paul intends to do is wrap his arms around the budget and make sure the trains are running on time here. That's what he's expert at."
Also starting today with Clark's campaign: political director Lara Bergthold; scheduling co-directors Catherine Grunden and Holly Johnson; policy director Jason Furman; research director Ben Holzer; and advance director Robert McLarty.
One final note, however, on Johnson, who worked Iowa for Mondale in 1984. He did offer a less-than-glowing assessment of Clark's decision to pull out of the Hawkeye State in October. "That door's been shut. Truthfully, I haven't even thought about it," Johnson said, curtly ... but very, very politely.
