Robert M. Shrum is the Director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics and the Carmen H. and Louis Warschaw Chair in Practical Politics at the University of Southern California, where he is a Professor of the Practice of Political Science in the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. He is a former political strategist and consultant who served as senior advisor to the Kerry-Edwards campaign in 2004 and to the Gore-Lieberman campaign in 2000. The Atlantic Monthly described him as “the most sought-after consultant in the Democratic Party.”

Mr. Shrum served as speechwriter to New York Mayor John V. Lindsay from 1970 to 1971, speechwriter to Sen. George McGovern’s 1972 Presidential campaign and speechwriter and press secretary to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy from 1980 to 1984 and political consultant until 2009.

Internationally, he was a senior adviser to the campaign of Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel and to the British Labour Party in the 2001 Parliamentary campaign.

Mr. Shrum’s book, No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner, was published in June 2007 by Simon and Schuster.