Dick Morris

Dick Morris (born November 28, 1948 in New York City) is an American political author, newspaper columnist, and commentator who previously worked as a pollster, political campaign consultant, and general political consultant. Morris attended Stuyvesant High School in New York City, where he was active on the debate team. Morris graduated from Stuyvesant in 1964, then attended Columbia University where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, graduating a year early, in 1967. Morris first worked with Bill and Hillary Clinton during Bill Clinton’s successful 1978 bid for Governor of Arkansas. Morris is credited by many with engineering Clinton’s re-election to the Arkansas governorship after a humiliating defeat at the end of Clinton’s first term. As a result, Clinton turned to Morris after the mid-term elections of 1994, when Republicans gained control of the U.S. House and Senate and Clinton’s own chance for a second presidential term seemed remote. From the early months of 1995 until August 1996, Morris was a principal architect of the Clinton-Gore re-election strategy. In his 1997 book Behind the Oval Office, Morris wrote that, following an argument in the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion, 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 only behaved such 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 ‘92 campaign; Clinton’s side of the story is not known. Morris was featured on the cover of Time magazine on September 2, 1996, as “The Man Who Has Clinton’s Ear.” Morris has also consulted for candidates in other countries of the western hemisphere, including the campaigns of Fernando de la Rua for President of Argentina (1999,) Jorge Battle for President of Uruguay (1999,) Vicente Fox for President of Mexico (2000,) and Raphael Trotman for President of Guyana (2006.) Since leaving the Clintons’ employ in 1996, Morris has said he has become profoundly “disillusioned” with the actions of the Clintons in the late 1990s. He has now formed a career as a political commentator and critic of the Clintons (particularly Hillary), primarily appearing on Fox News programs such as Hannity & Colmes and the O’Reilly Factor, and on various local and nationally syndicated radio talk shows. Morris is also a regular columnist and Pundits Blogger for The Hill, a nonpartisan daily newspaper based in Washington, D.C., and for NewsMax.com, a conservative online news website. He currently lives in Redding, Connecticut, and has a popular website at www.dickmorris.com.