During the 2004 presidential primary season Bob Shrum was Kerry's media adviser. I don't actually know if he was hired directly or through Greenberg Carville Shrum. But, in any case, at that time a close associate of Carville's was in Kerry's camp, and during that time Carville was a regular on Crossfire, as well as being quoted repeatedly in newspapers about the primary campaign, generally labelled as a "political consultant" or "democratic strategist."
Carville was pretty negative about Dean through this period. I can't verify this anecdote - so take it with a grain of salt - but someone once told me that in the Iowa press area after the "Dean scream" the first words out of Carville's mouth were "put a fork in him - he's done" to a room full of typing journalists.
Now I'm not accusing Carville of any sort of "pay for play," that anything he said in the media was based on any financial considerations, but the point is these kinds of intersections between money, business, colleagues, friendship, and those in the media are pretty much standard in Washington. "Standard" doesn't mean "right" and these kinds of relationships in the lobbying/consultant/media world are crying out for some more press attention.
Generally, "political strategists" are quoted all of the time in the media, or have spots on cable news, and miraculously they never seem to have any clients. Or, more to the point, we are never told who their clients are. Perhaps they just stand on a soap box on the corner and announce their strategy to Washington pedestrians. Still, one assumes that they do have clients and that what they say is indirectly or directly motivated by that.
This kind of thing comes into play mostly during the presidential primary season, when people choose up sides, but that's quite a long season.
