WHO IS SCOTT REED?
REES, MATTHEW
Who Is Scott Reed? by Matthew Rees San Diego SCOTT REED WAS ONE OF THE most powerful people here, but hardly a soul among the 20,000 others in town for the convention would have known who he...
...So was Reed’s experience with Jack Kemp...
...The unknown giant of the Dole campaign won’t be able to remain in the shadows for long...
...Perhaps the most self-effacing and least-known campaign manager in post-Watergate presidential politics, Reed is the anti-Carville...
...This was no small gesture: Lacy, a longtime Dole adviser, had not only recruited and hired Reed to join the campaign, he was also Reed’s close friend...
...In 1988, he notoriously left a group of out-of-favor advisers on an airport tarmac in Florida...
...by Matthew Rees San Diego SCOTT REED WAS ONE OF THE most powerful people here, but hardly a soul among the 20,000 others in town for the convention would have known who he was if his golf cart had rolled over their feet...
...This time around, Dole needed to silence the talk that he is a mean SOB, so he couldn’t go around leaving people on tarmacs—even people running presidential campaign efforts that seemed to be going nowhere...
...That negative reputation has inadvertently benefited Reed...
...In the constellation of Dole campaign advisers, Reed stands out in one simple respect: He still has his job...
...In two previous runs for president, Dole distinguished himself not by his performance in the primaries, but by his shabby treatment of campaign aides...
...After unexpectedly tying Phil Gramm in an Iowa straw poll last summer, and then failing to meet expectations in a Florida straw poll a few months later, Dole only narrowly won the Iowa primary and placed second in New Hampshire and Delaware...
...Reed owes at least some of his success with the notoriously unmanageable Dole to having spent four years with someone as undisciplined as Kemp...
...The Dole/Reed relationship is as strong as it’s ever been—indeed, in a rally the day after the convention ended, Dole specifically praised Reed, in part, he said, because Reed hadn’t received enough attention—but there have been conflicts...
...Reed played his trump card in the same conversation, telling his candidate the move sent a signal “that you have no confidence in me and your whole campaign team...
...And that’s bad— not for me—but we go back to the old Dole...
...According to Bob Woodward’s account of the episode in The Choice, Reed told Dole the reversal was “a terrible, terrible mistake” that was “a blemish on your character...
...Coincidence or not, Dole began chalking up victories soon after the shakeup...
...Prior to signing on with Dole, Reed spent two years as chief of staff to Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour, where he was one of the engineers of the Contract with America...
...Reed was a field director in Kemp’s disastrous 1988 presidential campaign and served as his chief of staff at HUD...
...Scott understood from the beginning that a staff trying to manipulate Dole is bound to fail,” says a top campaign aide...
...The secret to Reed’s success has been his low-key, unthreatening approach with Dole...
...Instead, Reed convinced Dole to allow him to demote chief strategist William Lacy...
...That effort, national in scope, involved coordinating hundreds of congressional campaigns and was ideal training for Reed’s job as campaign manager for Dole...
...We’ll see whether he can keep a lid on Kemp, and whether he is prepared for the gargantuan task of running a general election campaign...
...But after a successful vice-presidential selection and convention week, he’s in a stronger position now than at any point since signing up with Dole in January 1995...
...It seemed a change was needed at the top— but it was not Reed who was changed...
...Many times in the past year the long knives have been out for Reed, and political writers have been at the ready with his professional obituary...
...Last year, it was Reed who decided—without Dole’s knowledge—to return a $1,000 campaign contribution made by a group of homosexual Republicans, only to have Dole reverse the decision a few months later and criticize his staff in the process...
...Reed prods his candidate to act when necessary, but mostly he just lays out the relevant information and leaves him to make the final decision...
...He spent convention week almost entirely absent from public view, holed up in the campaign’s office at the Hyatt, poring over Bob Dole’s speech...
Vol. 1 • August 1996 • No. 48
