"Jolen cream bleach turns the mustache on your upper lip to the exact color of Richard Gephardt's hair, which is better than its looking like Frida Kahlo's mustache, but it's still slightly hairier than you mean it to be."

Wrote Nora Ephron, a while back.

I'm finding that this morning, because Dick Gephardt is in the news today, blogged here, where William asked "How did Gephardt spend so many years in public life without being relentlessly mocked for his orange hair. I guess back then people were more tolerant of orange hair...."

Also, Bob Shrum, in "No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner," describes a Dukakis ad (in 1988) that mocked Gephardt by showing a "gymnast with comically dyed orange hair dressed in a suit... trampolining and tumbling forward and back and forward and back again" with the voice-over describing Gephardt's various flip-flops.

So orange hair got mocked, even in the old days. It's not just something invented recently to attack Trump. I certainly remember Reagan's hair getting mocked, especially since he denied dyeing it. The much-repeated joke attributed to Gerald Ford was: "Ronald Reagan doesn't dye his hair, he's just prematurely orange."

"Well, he's not running for sociologist in chief, he's running for president."

On "Meet the Press," Bob Shrum articulated a potential new meme about Barack Obama. The subject, of course, was Obama's statement that small-town people "get bitter" and "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Mike Murphy picked up Shrum's "sociology" theme:

The--one of the big vexing things for Democratic elite is how to hell do working-class whites ever vote Republican? We give them all the class warfare stuff, but they still seem to do it. Well, they do it on culture. And the Democrats, many of them, look at this like some sociological disease to be explained away. And Barack, sitting in some $10 million backyard had to explain it like a sociologist...

For Murphy, unlike Shrum, "sociology" was not a way of encapsulating and setting aside a stray musing, but evidence of a central problem of Democrats: They're out-of-touch and elitist.

Shrum reworks his meme:

And I think he was explaining what was going on with a lot of those folks. Now, should he have said it that way? No.... People go with sociology, and he shouldn't be a sociologist.... People--sociology says that when people are in distress, when they're economically deprived, they, they hold onto the things in their lives that give them some sense of security and identity. That's faith, that can be hunting, that can be all of those things.

Sociology says.... Obama was only saying what the experts know, right? But it was not a good idea to say it when you need these people to vote for you.

James Carville stammers into the fray:

I'm just, I'm just saying that in--culturally, he, he, he, he--I know he's not sociologist in charge, but that he didn't have his kind of history right. He needs to have a better history and a better understanding. I think--and I think Bob is right, he's going to have a chance in the debate, and he's going to have a chance to, to, to kind of re-explain himself here. But this statement was really off in terms of his--its, its, its accuracy and understanding who "these people are." They're--they'll--there's a large segment of the Democratic Party that would like to win an election without these kind of white, working-class voters, and we need a substantial...

I think he's about to say that real Democrats can't stand those people Obama was talking about. Shrum talks over him and prevents him from going deeper into that hole.

"The mother lode of opposition research" on Hillary Clinton...

... is locked up at the Clinton Library.

"Opposition researchers would be very hungry to see what's there." Robert Shrum, senior political strategist in Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, said: "In 2 million pieces of paper, would opposition researchers hope to find one where she wrote a memo saying, 'I wish I'd never gotten involved in healthcare?' Sure. That's what they'd love to find."...

Before documents are released, archives staff must read them and, by law, must redact material that they determine contains classified information, invades a person's privacy, reveals trade secrets, reveals confidential advice from presidential advisors or raises other concerns specified in the records law.

Asked how long it might be before Hillary Clinton's records are released, the library's chief archivist said it could take years.

"We're processing as fast as we can," Melissa Walker said....

What records that have been made public offer tantalizing details about Hillary Clinton's White House years. One memo reveals details about the "war room" for the healthcare plan. Aides wrote of the need for secrecy, but also presented Hillary Clinton with arguments she could make that the process of drawing up a healthcare plan was "the most open in the history of the federal government."

A 1993 memo discussed a plan to create reports on members of Congress, tracking their positions on healthcare. The files would log when members met with Hillary Clinton, how they voted on key bills, and -- under a category called "influence" -- whom they consulted for advice. One 1994 memo offers a historical curiosity: It draws Clinton's attention to a rising Republican politician, Mitt Romney, who is now a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination.

In the memo, Clinton's aides discussed a trip to Boston, where the then-first lady was to appear at a fundraising event for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass). Kennedy was then running for reelection against Romney.

"Romney, a millionaire business consultant with no political experience, is a Mormon," the memo reads. "His religion is a delicate issue, which Kennedy himself has not raised but other Democrats have."...

Other records kept from public view include a 1993 memo to the first lady entitled "positioning ourselves on healthcare," and another from that year called "public portrayal of the Medicare program."

We're processing the papers as fast as we can, and we just won't be able to get to these papers in time for the 2008 election. Do you accept that answer? Do you think the opposition's hunger for these documents is ugly, that they'll only rummage through it all to pull a few things out of context to make Hillary Clinton look bad? We already know enough about what happened with her failed health care program, don't we? Why should we get a chance to rip into the internal deliberations about it?

Shrum versus Mehlman.

Once again, neither candidate is on "Meet the Press." I suppose they just can't risk it. So I resign myself to watching Ken Mehlman (Bush's campaign manager) and Bob Shrum (Kerry's chief campaign strategist) wielding their powers, getting the message across. Tim Russert is my favorite TV news interviewer. (I also really like Chris Matthews, whose "Fox News Sunday," I may TiVo-blog later.) [UPDATE: I mean Chris Wallace! Sorry.]

Russert puts up his first graphic: all the recent polls showing Bush pulling back ahead. (This was before the devastating new Gallup poll.)

Shrum? Oh, he says just what you'd expect: there are actually other polls showing Kerry ahead, and then there are the internals. Roll out the conventional wisdom: a President can't get reelected if his approval rating is below 50%. Yawn! Of course, Shrum has to say that.

Mehlman? Well, what do you expect him to say? The polls show how much people like Bush and don't like Kerry!

Next question: what are the key issues in the campaign? Shrum reels out a bunch of things (like health care coverage) and then slows down to deliver this big shock: "this extraordinary statement in the New York Times Magazine this morning, that as soon as he's inaugurated, the President wants to rush to--and this is his word--privatize Social Security." (Interestingly enough, Joe Lockhart, on "Fox News Sunday," expressed shock at this proposal, which he portrayed as some sort of invidious secret plan.)

Shrum and Mehlman go back and forth about Social Security policy, and Shrum annoyingly tries to dominate by interrupting and talking over Mehlman, and even resorting to chanting "finish! finish! finish!" while Mehlman is trying to make his point (even though Shrum had already talked longer than Mehlman). Shrum was bright red when this discussion began and now he seems to have entirely lost his cool. He keeps banging his hands--and his giant round cufflinks--on the table. Mehlman's smiling. He's got the polls, why shouldn't he be calm and collected? Shrum speaks again, uninterrupted, then as soon as Mehlman begins his response, he's back to interrupting. One thing I love about Mehlman is that he never wastes any time saying "let me finish" and "I didn't interrupt you, now don't interrupt me"; he just gets his points in and lets Shrum look like a jackass.

Russert asks about Iraq, and here Shrum's whole response is about how Osama bin Laden attacked us and Iraq is a distraction. Mehlman, who has just emphasized the importance of seeing the Iraq conflict through to success, now takes the opportunity to say "Tim, you heard something here: it's called a pre-9/11 worldview, the notion that America should just respond when we're attacked." If Kerry cares at all about Iraq, Shrum disserved him terribly here. This is the determinative issue for me, and Shrum gave me absolutely zero.

New video clip: "We're all God's children, Bob." Yes, it's Kerry smarmily allying himself with God as he gratuitously drags the Vice President's daughter's private life into the policy debate. I'm struck, as I was when I first heard the third debate, by the way Kerry pauses and lowers his voice before he says "a lesbian" (in the sentence, "I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter ... who is ... a lesbian"). I called that "creepy" when I simulblogged the debate. Was Kerry ashamed of himself for saying it? Was he trying to make some listeners feel that being a lesbian is a bad thing, even though, of course, he wasn't saying it was? I get the feeling Kerry was deciding to go for some perceived political advantage here, even though it's not the sort of thing he would normally bring up. He doesn't even talk about his own private feelings. How weird for him to talk about someone else's sexual feelings!

Should Kerry apologize? Shrum: no ... and Kerry won all three debates. And people have attacked Kerry's war record! And Kerry wants to do something about health care!

Next clip: Cheney, asked by a citizen to say what he personally thinks of gay marriage, talks about his gay daughter. Question to Mehlman: if Cheney himself talks about his daughter's sexuality, why can't Kerry? Mehlman: it's wrong to use the Vice President's daughter to make a political point. Shrum, heated up, knocking a cufflink onto the desk repeatedly, re-asks Russert's question, then asserts that because Bush lost the debate so badly, the Republican spinners picked this bogus issue because it was all they could come up with.

Amazing how easy it was to use that one thing--quite successfully--to overshadow Kerry's big (supposed) victory in that debate, isn't it? Look at those poll numbers! Kerry used the debates to pull himself back into the running, and now the debates are over, and precious days are being lost over Kerry's foolish misstep, which his people have decided to dig in and defend as just something really kind and sympathetic that Kerry was nice enough to say. (I'm sure Mary Cheney is sitting around thinking: isn't he a lovely man for caring so much about me?)

Mehlman uses Kerry's minor misstep to paint a big picture:

Remember the famous Dean scream? The famous Dean scream was seen as relevant because it was a window into something that people thought was bigger. And I think what you saw with John Kerry, when he brought that point up in the debate: it was part of a larger pattern here, a pattern of someone who is literally willing to say anything in order to win."

Mehlman then connects the remark about Cheney's daughter to Edwards's statement that if Kerry is elected people like Christopher Reeve will walk again and Kerry's warning that Bush will bring back the draft. The point is: these people will say anything to get elected. Shrum, ever ready to interrupt, grumbles "he has to finish his prepared speech"--as if Shrum's remarks are all off the cuff. (Did I mention Shrum is wearing the largest cufflinks in the history of the world?)

A few questions later, Russert shows the clip from the debate in which Bush says "Gosh, I don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden" and then the two embarrassing clips from 2002 of Bush saying that he's "not that concerned" about Osama bin Laden. Mehlman just emphasizes the successes against al Qaeda. Shrum complains about various failures in Afghanistan--how could Bush have failed to wipe out opium!--and ends with what he thinks is a big kicker: "Bush keeps talking about the schools he's opened and the fact that women voted in Afghanistan. Well, I think that's good, but I wish the President would care about women's rights and education in this country as much as he does in Afghanistan."

Finally, Russert asks Mehlman to explain the bulge in Bush's jacket. Mehlman makes a couple jokes, and still doesn't explain it. Why don't they just explain it? Is it some kind of trick to get Bush's opponents to waste their time on something that has no significance?

All in all, an excellent confrontation. I think Mehlman clearly got the better of Shrum, in both style and substance. But maybe people who really want Kerry to win will find a way to convince themselves that Shrum and his cufflinks really mopped the floor with Mehlman.

Kerry's mysterious mix of issues and the muted left.

Adam Nagourney, in today's NYT, examines the mystery of "Why the Democrats' Left Wing Is Muted" about Kerry, given the positions he's been taking lately about the war. Hmm ... I see I just wrote "positions," and I notice that the article running right next to Nagourney's (in the paper Times) is "Kerry Redoubles His Attack Over the War" by Robin Toner. While Nagourney concentrates on Kerry's failure to appease antiwar Democrats and explains their seemingly mysterious support of him in terms of intense hostility to Bush, Toner writes of the Kerry "campaign's current mix of patriotism, support for the troops in Iraq and scalding criticism of the policies that put them there":

On the second day of a two-week drive to establish his credentials on national security, Mr. Kerry also told an audience of veterans that Mr. Bush had shortchanged their health and benefit programs while carefully protecting tax cuts for the wealthy....

Mr. Kerry said it was impossible to predict what the situation in Iraq would be when - if elected - he took office. But he said neither the United States nor its allies could afford a failure in Iraq, and repeated his call for Mr. Bush to engage more countries in the transition.

"I promise you this," he said, "I am going to get the troops home as fast as possible, with honor and the job accomplished in the way it needs to be, and we will bring other people into the process."

One can easily portray Kerry as a man who takes so many different positions in such a confounding mix that no one--no one with any real potential to actually vote for him--ever gets too upset. Yet, obviously, Kerry has a careful balancing act to perform, and he seems sensible about trying to hold on to the middle. For the antiwar side, he seems to be offering only a feeling that he's going to wind things down more quickly and effectively than Bush, but Bush is trying to reach the same goals Kerry is stating. (This is why I'm not deciding between the two candidates until October: I'll see what Bush has actually done between now and then.) Kerry is urging--Toner reports--that we get away from "partisan politics" and "just think common sense about our country, about what it should be doing." I don't argue with that. It's hard for him to get specific about what he would do, since he wouldn't be starting to do anything until over eight months from now. How can he use common sense to figure out what should be done that far in the future when things are changing every day so far out of his control? That's the downside of not being an ideologue.

Ralph Nader is puzzled that the left wing of the Democrats isn't more active pressuring Kerry to move in their direction, as Nagourney reports:

"There are antiwar Democrats who will fume and still vote for Kerry," Mr. Nader said, adding: "I don't think Democrats should give their candidate a pass on the war. If Democrats are so freaked out by Bush that they are, like, 'Do anything you want, John, we'll support you,' well, as I told him in our meeting, he's not going to be left with a mandate." ...

Mr. Nader said he could not understand why unions, antiwar groups and other traditional Democratic constituencies were signing on with Mr. Kerry without insisting they get something in return. And he criticized Mr. Kerry for not making real concessions to the antiwar crowd.

"He's listening to Shrum," said Mr. Nader, referring to Mr. Kerry's senior political adviser, Bob Shrum. "He's listening to all the cautious advisers. They are saying don't cater to these antiwar people, they have nowhere to go. They are going to vote for you. You know the old game."

So Nader really wants something in return for supporting Kerry, but he isn't finding that he has a constituency to deliver over in the deal. He's becoming irrelevant. There seems to be a lot of common sense going around these days.

"Shrummery." Most interesting passage in Ryan Lizza's piece on Bob Shrum in the May issue of The Atlantic:

More than any other figure, Shrum has crafted the populist philosophy that for two decades has been the hallmark of Democratic politics: the belief that "powerful forces" stand in the way of progress for average Americans, and that Democrats are the only agents of change who will fight to restore balance and fairness. It has become one of the most potent and oft-used strains of Democratic rhetoric, famously echoed in Al Gore's 2000 campaign pledge to fight in behalf of "the people, not the powerful" against the "special interests."

And how does that relate to Kerry?

What is perhaps most fascinating about the coming election is that Shrum's trademark populism, which seemed so discordant just two years ago, will suddenly have renewed resonance. With much of the country passionately aligned against President Bush, the consummate Shrum villain if ever there was one, the sociological and political landscape may at last be hospitable to the consultant's steadfast world view. And a win for Kerry would bestow on Shrum the one thing that separates him from Karl Rove: credit for bringing a President to power.

If, however, Kerry loses, he will become the second patrician Democrat in two presidential elections to do so on populist themes of economic and class warfare. It's hard to see how Shrum's outsize reputation—and by extension the current direction of the Democratic Party—could possibly remain intact.

It's a good day for reading about Shrum, because Kaus is also on his case. ("Can Shrum Do Centrism?") "Shrummery" is Kaus's word, and here's his bottom line:

[A]sking Shrum--who's spent much of his life looking for the next JFK--to be the man to tell Kerry--who's spent all of his life trying to be the next JFK--that he isn't the next JFK seems way too much to expect.