19960909
DEMOCRATS ACT TO REMOVE MORRIS STAIN FROM CONVENTION
September 9, 1996
Like the Republicans a few weeks before, the Democratic National Committee two weeks ago orchestrated a presidential nominating convention designed to project a desired television image. That image was one of projecting government's positive role. Tied in with President Bill Clinton's train tour through the Midwest to Chicago, the idea was to show that literally and figuratively, the country is on the "right track" with Clinton's leadership.
But convention choreographers received a rude intrusion of unwanted news when word of an alleged sex scandal by Clinton's top campaign advisor roared through the convention on Thursday, Aug. 29--the day Clinton would give his acceptance speech on national television. On that day, Clinton's staff learned that a tabloid newspaper, The Star, would publish in its Sept. 10 issue a story in which an expensive Washington, D.C., prostitute, Sherry Rowlands, said she had carried on a year-long relationship with advisor Dick Morris. Worse, she alleged he had shared with her drafts of campaign speeches, and let her listen in while he conversed on the telephone with President Clinton.
"What I most feared was an externality--and we just had one," the Washington Post quoted Deputy Campaign Manager Ann Lewis as saying the morning the story broke.
According to newspaper reports, Clinton officials acted quickly to address the problem--forcing out Morris, and issuing a statement on Morris' resignation to a press rabid for information on the scandal.
PR Pros Comment
PR executives contacted by PR NEWS said that Clinton's campaign staff handled the media crisis reasonably well.
"I thought they did the correct thing," said Peter Roussel of Neumann Roussel Public Relations, Houston. "They handled it in an open and prompt way. They didn't hunker down. When you have [a crisis], I think that's the way to approach it," said the executive, who served as a deputy press secretary on the White House staff under Presidents Reagan and Bush.
Victor Kamber, president and CEO of Washington, D.C. public affairs firm, The Kamber Group, agreed that the handling was done well.
Unlike a corporation that may be mired in a crisis, political campaigns, especially presidential campaigns, tend to generate new stories, which can make even a high-profile scandal like the Morris episode fade quickly.
Reflecting something that Clinton officials certainly hope, Kamber said the Morris episode was "a two-day or three-day story." Roussel added: "My thesis is that 24 hours is an eternity in a presidential campaign." As proof, he pointed to last week's news of the U.S. shelling of Iraq, ordered by President Clinton, which already seems to have displaced the Morris story.
(Kamber Group, 202/223-8700; Neumann Roussel Public Relations, 713/877-8686)