Suggest a title for Shrum's new book

Shrum-Di-Dum-Dum:Liberal To UnveilMysteries Of ’04

By Ben Smith

Robert Shrum, the political consultant whose words and ideas have helped define the Democratic Party for 40 years, has signed a contract to write his first book.

At age 62, Mr. Shrum has been a writer for most of his career, and is, in his way, one of America’s best-known. Phrases like “Come home America” and “The dream shall never die”—both part of the political lexicon—are his. But beginning with a stint as a speechwriter for John Lindsay (a Republican who became a Democrat in the early 1970’s), Mr. Shrum has given and sold his words to others. The only books he’s taken credit for writing are a series of debate manuals that he wrote for the American Enterprise Institute to help pay the bills at Harvard Law School.

The new volume, sold for six figures to Simon & Schuster and expected to be released in the spring of 2007, will be all his.

“It’s about politics and what I’ve seen, the lessons I draw from it,” Mr. Shrum told The Observer in a
telephone interview, adding that he didn’t think the book would fit into the usual categories of political publishing. “I don’t know how you separate the fabric of your experience from the vision you have of where the party is or where the party ought to come out.”

Mr. Shrum declined to discuss the book in any further detail, though it was sold based on a thick partial manuscript, according to his agent, Flip Brophy.

So far, possible suggested book titles include:

"My Life As A Loser"
"The Pied Piper of a Desperate Party"
"Overweight and Out of Touch"
"How to Profit From Failure"
"Candidates I Have Loved and Failed"

Suggest your own...