The Clinton Campaign Team Plots a Return to Bolivian Politics

The last Bolivian politician who put his fortunes in the hands of Bill Clinton's political advisors now sits in unofficial exile in suburban Maryland, fighting both a criminal indictment in Bolivia and a multi-million dollar civil case in the U.S.

In 2002, a collection of consultants from Mr. Clinton's former A-team – James Carville, Stanley Greenberg, Jeremy Rosner, and others – headed south to the Andes to work a lucrative contract aimed at putting a staunch U.S. ally, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, back in office after a five year time-out required by the Bolivian constitution. As political achievements go, they did a helleva job. They took a President widely hated for his leading role in a decade of Washington-driven privatizations and maneuvered him through a field of stronger opponents to a razor thin 2% point win.

Both the campaign and its disastrous aftermath were documented close-up in award-winning documentary, "Our Brand is Crisis," by U.S. filmmaker Rachel Boynton.

In Search of a Sequel

Now apparently the former Clinton team is fishing around for a Bolivian sequel. Last month the political consulting firm of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research posted a job announcement for an "International Campaign Representative" in Bolivia. The firm, which bills itself as, "a global leader in public opinion research and strategic consulting," announced that:

[We are] seeking a highly professional individual to work in-country as part of a political campaign in Bolivia as our on-the-ground representative. Applicant must have substantial experience in politics and/or campaigns, preferably including political organizing and communications strategy, and fluency in Spanish. Contract would begin as soon as possible. Contract likely for a few months, possibly longer. Requires very long hours and ability to multitask, deal with senior-level officials, and operate in a high-stress setting.

All this raises the obvious question – who is the mystery candidate that Mr. Greenberg and Mr. Rosner hope to sweep into power this time. If Bolivians approve, as expected, a new constitution in the upcoming January 25 vote, a new round of Presidential elections will be held in December 2009, with Evo Morales newly enabled to seek re-election.

The 2002 Goni Strategy, Overt and Covert

The 2002 Goni campaign was really a textbook case of how to apply a math equation to politics and make it work. After exhaustive polling and focus group research, the Carville/Greenberg/Rosner team came back to the former President with three basic realities (delivered, quite remarkably, on camera, thanks to Ms. Boynton):

1. He had a solid base of popular support among something just shy of 25% of the Bolivian electorate.

2. The remaining 75% would never vote for him under almost any conditions. They hated him.

3. The only way to have a chance at winning was to maintain that support among a quarter of the nation and then do whatever was necessary to make sure that no other candidate won more than 25% either.

And in 2002 that candidate was the fresh-faced former Mayor of Cochabamba, Manfred Reyes Villa, a politician known for completing a series of flashy public works across his city, and managing to make himself quite wealthy in the process. His name seemed always to be associated with the slogan, Roba, pero cumple – he steals but he delivers.

Polling by the U.S. experts also told them that the key to driving down Manfred's numbers was hammering him on two things, the cloudy corruption charges that seemed to follow him around and reminding voters of Reyes Villa's deep military past, in a nation still wary of soldiers turned politicians.

A barrage of advertising orchestrated by the men from El Norte filled the Bolivian airwaves with images of Manfred's multiple homes on two continents and of a young Captain Manfred in uniform. That drove Reyes Villa's once-high numbers down into Goni territory, but still not low enough.

The act that finally cut Reyes Villa off at the political knees, and won the Presidency for Sanchez de Lozada, was one that also came from the U.S., but this time not from the consultants but directly from the U.S. Embassy.

Just weeks before the Bolivian vote, Ambassador Manuel Rocha, an appointee of President Clinton, surprised most everyone with a highly publicized public rant against Evo Morales, a candidate trailing badly in third place. He also made a threat, "If you elect those who want Bolivia to become a major cocaine exporter again, this will endanger the future of US assistance to Bolivia.”

The political impact was swift. Overnight thousands of voters, angered by such overt U.S. interference in their elections, switched their allegiance to Evo, nearly doubling his support in the polls (he eventually finished second, less than 2% behind Goni). And where did that support come from? As Morales' support leapt, Manfred's collapsed. The two shared a core political base, Cochabamba. And it was by no means a coincidence.

If your political strategy in 2002 was to pull votes away from Reyes Villa you have to give those voters somewhere else to go. That somewhere else was never going to be Goni, but it could be Evo, and Rocha's rant did the trick, overnight.

I once asked a source with connections to the campaign if it seemed plausible if Carville, Greenberg and company might have cooked up the winning scheme and paid a visit to the man who owed his Ambassadorship to their former client. "No," I was told. "They weren't strategic enough to do that." Then I asked if perhaps the attack on Evo had been set-up by Goni's own in-house Machiavelli, his long-time aid, Carlos Sanchez Berzain. "Oh yeah, he would have done it."

Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada fled Bolivia in October 2003, as protests swelled across the nation following his government's killings of dozens of citizens. It turned out that "crisis" wasn't so much the firm's brand, but its product.

The firm’s site also includes a lovely fictional account of Sanchez de Lozada’s final bloody days. Principal Jeremy Rosner writes, “Protests organized by opposition leaders in October 2003 resulted in scores of deaths and Sanchez de Lozada’s resignation.” Mr. Rosner fails to mention that troops under the command of his paying client fired the bullets, including at children.

Fleeing with Goni was his now-co-defendant in both the criminal and civil cases arising from those killings, Carlos Sanchez Berzain. Soon afterwards Mr. Berzain joined a Miami law practice with an old colleague of his from Bolivia, the former U.S. Ambassador, Manuel Rocha.

So, What is Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research Up to Now?

Now back to that question – who is the mystery candidate who Team Goni 2002 will seek to guide into office in 2009? Is it Carlos Mesa, Goni's former Vice-President who left his own inherited presidency early in the face of other protests in 2005. The historian-turned-politician has been making a lot of new political noise recently. In the current edition of the Bolivian magazine Tal Cual, Mesa calls for the construction of a new political opposition to Morales, and criticizes the existing opposition as "never representing a significant, genuine leadership."

Is it Manfred Reyes Villa, who up until the moment of the lopsided vote that ended his Cochabamba governorship in August, was declaring his candidacy for President. In his silent exile (in Tiquipya or Miami, we don't know) has he been cutting a deal with the team that cost him the Presidency six years ago?

Is it a dark horse? Perhaps the Vice-President of PepsiCo, a Bolivia-U.S. dual citizen who dropped into the country for a couple of weeks in 2005 to see whether running for the Presidency that year might be a suitable promotion. He opted to stay in Manhattan, but given the financial turmoil in the U.S. maybe Bolivian politics is looking like a better career move now.

As another ex-President (one I respect a good deal), Eduardo Rodriguez said in the same article in Tal Cual, Bolivia does need a solid political opposition. Rodriguez, the former head of the nation's Supreme Court explained:

"Political equilibriums are essential to guarantee democratic plurality and all fundamental liberties. Without the presence of a democratic opposition the tendencies toward totalitarianism and hegemony are very big. What is fundamental is to preserve democratic liberties."

I agree with that assessment, in Bolivia, in the U.S. and in general about democracy.

But it seems unlikely that Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research is assembling a Bolivian team with the pure-hearted intent of helping create democratic balance in a nation they little-understand. More likely someone has some money to spend and some big ambitions. And he or she hopes that a little magic polling from those gringos who put Goni back in power once-upon-a-time might just do the trick.

But let's not forget how high the price was, in blood and fire, last time the firm came flying into town, a bill owed to the Bolivian people that has still not been paid.

Note: We invited the press office at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research to offer a comment on their new Bolivian plans, but they simply let us know that the position had been filled, with no other comment. If members of the press would like to try their luck and seeing what the firm is up to now in Bolivia, its press liason is Jaclyn Macek at: jmacek@gqrr.com.