Dick Morris Popular Books

Dick Morris Biography & Facts

Richard Samuel 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 friend and advisor to Bill Clinton during his time as Governor of Arkansas and since his 1978 run, 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 so as 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 Republican Revolution by advising him to adopt more moderate policies. The president consulted Morris in secret beginning in 1994. Clinton's communications director George Stephanopoulos has said, "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 Clinton's successful 1996 bid for re-election as president, but his tenure on that political campaign was cut short two months before the election, when it was revealed that he had not only solicited a prostitute but also allowed her to listen in on conversations with the President. As of 2000, Morris wrote a weekly column for the New York Post that is carried nationwide, and contributes columns and blogs to both the print and online versions of The Hill. He is also president of Vote.com. By 2005, Morris had emerged as a harsh critic of the Clintons and wrote several books that criticize them, including Rewriting History, a rebuttal to then-U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton's Living History. Morris was the strategist for Republican Christy Mihos's campaign in the 2010 Massachusetts gubernatorial election, and supported Mitt Romney in 2012, predicting that he would achieve a landslide victory. Blogger Andrew Sullivan has named an annual award after Morris, given for "stunningly wrong political, social and cultural predictions". He has appeared in the past on Fox News for political commentary, especially appearing on The O'Reilly Factor and Hannity. After the 2012 presidential election, Morris did not appear on Fox News for three months, and the network ultimately opted not to renew his contract. Early life Morris was born in 1948 in New York City, New York, the son of writer Terry Lesser Morris, an early proponent of confessional human interest stories, and attorney Eugene J. Morris. He 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. 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. At Columbia, he roomed with Nadler. Morris and the Clintons Morris first worked with Bill and Hillary Clinton during Bill Clinton's successful 1978 bid for Governor of Arkansas. 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 midterm elections, 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. In his writings, Morris "recounts the First Lady’s numerous kindnesses to his aging (and of course Jewish) parents." Prostitute scandal On August 29, 1996, Morris resigned from the Clinton campaign after tabloid reports stated that he had been involved with a prostitute, Sherry Rowlands, as reported by The Washington Post. A New York tabloid newspaper, 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 Rowlands, Morris invited her to listen in on his conversations with President Clinton. It was reported that Rowlands worked for $200 an hour and that after he solicited her for sex, Morris gave Rowlands access to President Clinton's campaign speeches before they were delivered and also let her hear the President's voice during a telephone conservation. According to Rowlands, Morris had a fondness for sucking toes. It was also alleged he had an out-of-wedlock 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 publicly thanked him for his years of service. Privately, several of Clinton's aides 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 F. 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". Montgomery Blair Sibley wrote a book Why Just Her in defence of the "Washington Madam", Debra Jeane Palfrey. In it, he wrote that Morris was a client of Palfrey's escort agency, and the first individual he (Sibley) planned to call in Palfrey's defence. Later work In his 1997 book, Behind the Oval Office, Morris wrote that, following an argument in the Arkansas Governor's Mansion in May 1990, 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 behaved as such only 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 Bill .... Discover the Dick Morris popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Dick Morris books.