Mike Hersh, PDA Communications Director

Mike’s views are his own, and do not represent PDA’s official positions

In my previous article, I referenced the consultant class that gives losing advice to Democratic candidates in return for eye popping paychecks. Mark Penn is just one example. Now, let’s meet some of the other members of what I call “The Second Place Club” for their penchant of finishing behind right wing Republicans.

Bob Shrum is perhaps the most infamous losing consultant. His résumé includes advising Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004—two presidential campaigns that managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory against George W. Bush.

Shrum’s guidance was straight out of the corporatist consultant’s playbook: run away from the base and avoid discussing popular policies. Above all, ignore Main Street so as to not scare Wall Street. After the Kerry loss, Shrum’s legacy was cemented in his own memoir with a stunning confession: “I was wrong.” But by then, he’d already raked in $millions over a career that never once ended in a presidential victory.

David Axelrod earned credit for helping Obama win in 2008—but even that campaign had to be dragged leftward by the base. Axelrod has spent much of his post-White House career scolding the left for being too ambitious, as if the real danger in American politics were free community college and health care for all, not fascism.

James Carville, who once helped elect Bill Clinton, keeps showing up to divide Democrats by attacking progressives as the problem. According to Carville, we Democrats talk too much about race, gender, and inequality. In other words, the issues that motivate the party’s most loyal voters the most. 

All of these and other consultants echo Republican talking points about “wokeness” and “cancel culture,” instead of fighting voter suppression, economic inequality, or police brutality. It’s not just ideological laziness—it’s a business model. Lose, raise money off the loss, then bill $millions for another “safe” campaign next cycle. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Democrats don’t have a messaging problem. They have a consultant problem. The party’s base—young people, people of color, women, working-class voters—aren’t clamoring for more triangulation or more poll-tested non-positions. They want jobs, healthcare, housing, and justice.

If Democratic leaders keep outsourcing their political strategy to a consultant class more interested in pleasing donors than winning elections, they shouldn’t be surprised when voters stay home—or look elsewhere. Because the real “extremism” in the Democratic Party isn’t coming from the left. It’s coming from the grifters who keep losing to fascists—and getting rich while they do it.

Penn is a case study in what happens when consultants go completely corporate. His consulting firm, Burson-Marsteller, billed the Hillary Clinton campaign $13 million, an astonishing figure.  Some within the campaign expressed frustration over Penn’s dual roles as a strategist and as the CEO of a major public relations firm, suggesting potential conflicts of interest. That aside, the 2016 Clinton campaign exposed a broader issue afflicting Democratic campaign strategies.

Despite significant financial investments, the Clinton campaign’s messaging failed to resonate with key voter demographics, contributing to an unexpected loss. This due to listening to high-priced consultants whose advice alienates the party’s base. 

Similarly, the Kamala Harris 2024 presidential campaign exemplifies the consultant-centric model. Despite raising nearly $1.5 billion, the campaign ended with a $20 million debt. 40% of the funds—approximately $600 million—was allocated to four media consulting firms: Media Buying & Analytics, Gambit Strategies, Bully Pulpit Interactive, and Dupont Circle Strategies. 

Despite spending so much more money, Harris lost all seven swing states and the popular vote. Like the Clinton 2016 campaign, huge expenditures in 2024 did not translate into electoral success. Instead, they led to losses to Trump. These failures prompt serious critiques about the efficacy of lavish spending on consultants. 

Democratic Party congressional campaigns also suffer from high priced bad advice. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), charged with winning House campaigns, consistently fails to deliver. The DCCC steers candidates toward over-priced under-performing consultants, creating a closed ecosystem that benefits a select few. 

This practice not only unnecessarily inflates campaign costs, it also drastically limits the diversity of views. DCCC mediocrity is a stark contrast to the dominance of New Deal Democrats, who secured House majorities in 29 out of 31 cycles from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s election in 1932 through Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 (inclusive). 

Since 1992, however, Democrats have won the majority in the House of Representatives only four times: in the 2006 midterm elections due to progressive opposition to Bush and the Iraq war, in 2008 during Barack Obama’s presidential landslide, in 2018 amid widespread opposition to the Trump administration, and most recently in 2020, with a razor thin margin.

Democrats maintained control for nearly six uninterrupted decades. This because good polices make for good politics. Strong support for We the People is the best way to achieve electoral success. Absent that, too many base voters sit out critically important elections.

By urging the Democratic Party to repudiate its foundational philosophy, consultants led candidates to abandon with the Party’s principles, throwing the Party’s base under the bus, with predictable results. Failure to deliver meaningfully for We the People led to massive, historic, seismic reversals in 1994 and 2010. 

This precipitous, preventable decline correlates with Democratic insiders’ Faustian bargain: abandoning the base (labor, civil, and equal rights, environmentalism, etc.) in search of massive donations. Big money to support massive fees for consultants. 

Rather than trying to rebuild that winning coalition, consultant-driven candidates ignored and insulted the base and attacked progressives who called out this betrayal. 

In 2019, the DCCC began blacklisting consultants who worked with primary challengers to incumbents. This to suppress progressive voices within the party. Although the policy was rescinded, its impact lingered, leaving behind a chilling effect. That contributed to stunning losses and near losses. 

In 2020, then-DCCC Chair Rep. Cheri Bustos narrowly won her own re-election campaign and subsequently chose not to seek another term as chair. Doing her one worse, in 2022 then-DCCC chair Sean Patrick Maloney, lost his seat to a Republican. Their inept leadership highlights flaws in the DCCC’s consultant driven direction. 

The Democratic Party is at a crossroads. We must cure the systemic fatal flaws in the politics for profits approach. That requires a commitment to fundamental party reform. We must strongly and effectively extricate ourselves from the entrenched, enriched interests festering within the party’s apparatus.

Consultants convinced the party to repudiate and end the New Deal Coalition that delivered decades of unprecedented economic, social, and political success. That Coalition, despite its flaws, was built on progressivism. It championed policies that worked for every day people. 

By enacting these policies, Democrats won broad based, sustained support. By campaigning for and then enacting similar policies—the 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights and the Green New Deal—we will win again.

To prevail over faux populism and neoliberal corporatism, we must return to strategies that worked in the past and that will win going forward. To rebuild an inclusive and effective electoral coalition, the Democratic Party must put the people first once again. 

We must end reliance on a moribund mercenary consultant class that prioritizes personal financial gain over electoral success. We must break the influence of those who seek to stifle diverse, inclusive voices. Embracing a broad range of voices and strategies—informed by and resonating with the party’s progressive base—offers the only sustainable path to victory.