Clinton was brain behind the war room

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) was the original impetus behind the Senate Democratic “war room,” a legacy the candidate does not mention on the campaign trail but one that has significantly changed the upper chamber.

The war room is the name for the communications center that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) created after the disastrous 2004 election, when Democrats lost four Senate seats, including the seat held by former Democratic leader Tom Daschle (S.D.).

{mosads}The war room has been credited for revolutionizing message strategy in the Senate but also criticized for creating a permanent campaign atmosphere in a chamber that has long prided itself on collegiality and across-the-aisle relationships.

Clinton was one of the first and most forceful advocates of establishing a campaign-style communications center in the Senate. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, pioneered the use of a rapid-response campaign center during his successful 1992 run, chronicled in the 1993 D.A. Pennebaker documentary “The War Room.”

Clinton first proposed a Senate war room while Daschle was the Senate Democratic leader, but the soft-spoken South Dakotan declined to implement her idea, said Ross K. Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University who on Friday finished a five-month stint as a guest observer working in Reid’s leadership office.

Daschle did not respond to several requests for comment.

Creating a campaign-like war room was controversial. Daschle created special communications operations to push specific bills, such as the patients’ bill of rights, but stopped short of establishing a permanent war room.

Reid, however, embraced the idea immediately after Clinton suggested it to him during his campaign for Democratic leader in November 2004.

Some Democrats, such as Sens. Ron Wyden (Ore.) and Jack Reed (R.I.), asked for committee assignments when Reid called to solicit support for his leadership race.

Reid recounts the experience in his new book, “The Good Fight.”

“Hillary Clinton, who is as tough and smart as any senator I’ve seen, told me that we needed to establish a ‘War Room’ to combat the Republican noise machine and take our message to the country.

No more Swift Boats,” Reid writes in reference to a Republican-allied political advocacy group that damaged the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. John Kerry (Mass.), with harsh political attacks. “This was excellent advice born of hard experience.

“We would act on Hillary’s suggestion quickly,” Reid writes.

Many Democrats felt like the war room was needed after the 2004 elections, claiming Democrats were not as tough as Republicans. Reid, a former boxer, wanted to make sure that when Republicans attacked, Democrats would counter.

In her run for the White House, Clinton has noted that she has battle scars from her political fights with Republicans. But she has mostly touted her bipartisan work in the Senate, claiming that she could bring the parties together.

Jim Manley, Reid’s senior communications adviser, said the war room was chiefly Reid’s creation.

“She [Clinton] had been pushing for a war room but it was Sen. Reid’s idea,” said Manley, who oversees the war room. “She was a proponent of it, but in the end it was Sen. Reid’s idea.

“He recognized there was a rapidly changing media environment and he needed a communications center that would deal with all forms of media, including online media and outreach to Hispanic media,” said Manley.

Clinton’s spokesman referred a query to Reid’s office.

The war room that Reid established after the 2004 election eventually swelled into an operation staffed by 25 to 30 aides.

{mospagebreak}The strategic maneuver revolutionized communications strategy in the Senate.  

At times it has become embroiled in controversy. In 2006, Reid apologized to 33 GOP senators after his communications shop issued a 27-page statement that accused lawmakers by name of ethical lapses. Republicans accused Reid’s shop of slinging mud in the clubby Senate.

But Republicans have also tried to imitate his tactics.

{mosads}“Everyone now has a war room; everyone has different labels for it,” said Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist who served as former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s (R-Miss.) press secretary and as chief of staff for the Senate Republican Conference, the Senate GOP’s communications arm.

Six months after Reid established the war room, then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) created a special task force to overhaul the party’s message strategy. In January of 2006, after a year in which many Republicans felt they had lost the communications battle with Reid, Frist launched a new communications center.

The Republican counterpunch has yet to match the war room. Senate Republican leadership aides say they have never built a messaging center as fully staffed as the war room.

“We don’t have anything approaching that,” said Don Stewart, communications director for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).  

“We provide a robust, member-centric communications effort focused on helping Republican senators communicate our agenda, both nationally and in their home states,” said Stewart, who argued the Republican message center is less political. “This is an effort that includes radio, TV, print and new media.”

The rise of Senate war rooms has changed the Senate and fueled partisanship.

“I think the concept of Republican and Democrat war rooms changed the way the Senate functions by putting a focus on the communications effort,” said Bonjean.

Bonjean said the rise of partisanship in the Senate is mostly a reflection of the growing partisan divide in American politics. But the war room has added to the mix, he said.

“It does reinforce the partisanship, it can have the effect of reinforcing that partisanship,” he said.

Former Sen. Richard Bryan (D-Nev.), Reid’s home-state colleague, said the creation of the war room was a response to Republicans’ partisan maneuvers. Bryan cited Frist’s decision to travel to South Dakota to campaign against Daschle in his tightly contested race against now-Sen. John Thune (R), who ultimately triumphed.

A Senate leader had never before campaigned so openly against his counterpart.

“That broke all kinds of precedent,” said Bryan.  

“He was forced to become more aggressive,” said Bryan of Reid.

Bryan said that the Senate has become increasingly partisan in recent years.

“I regret it, because I think the institution has been damaged because of this increased lack of collegiality,” he said.

Bryan cited a Republican campaign ad in 2002 that juxtaposed former Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.), who lost three limbs in Vietnam, to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden because he opposed a homeland security proposal that would have limited federal workers’ organizing rights.

Bryan, who left the Senate after the 2000 election, said that Reid has maintained good relations with Republicans even though some may object to some of his tactics as Democratic leader.

“Sen. Reid is a consummate insider and he has perfected the art of the deal,” said Bryan.