Raymond Strother

Raymond D. Strother (October 18, 1940 – October 1, 2022) was a nationally known Democratic political consultant, originally from Port Arthur, Texas.

Background Reared in a politically active lower-middle-class home, Strother graduated in 1958 from Thomas Jefferson High School in Port Arthur, renamed in 2002 as Memorial High School. Strother won a track scholarship to Northwestern State University, then Northwestern State College, in Natchitoches, Louisiana. After two years, the administration asked him to leave NSC because of his political activities. He transferred to Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. There he became the advertising director and then the editor of The Daily Reveille student newspaper. While in Baton Rouge to complete his Master of Arts degree in journalism, Strother was a night reporter and photographer for the Associated Press. His 1965 thesis at LSU correctly predicted that in the future the outcome of political campaigns would depend more on media coverage and advertising than on traditional political organization.

Political life Strother's first campaign management role was on behalf of the Democrat Mary Evelyn Parker, who was elected for the first time on February 6, 1968, as the Louisiana state treasurer in a lopsided race against the Republican candidate Allison Kolb. In time, Strother became a consultant to U.S. Senators Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, Russell B. Long, John Breaux and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, John Stennis of Mississippi, Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, Gary Hart of Colorado, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Al Gore of Tennessee, and many others. He worked for gubernatorial candidates Bill Clinton of Arkansas, John McKeithen, Edwin Edwards, and Buddy Roemer of Louisiana, Mark Wells White of Texas, Bill O'Neil of Connecticut, Rudy Perpich of Minnesota, and Roy Barnes of Georgia. His 2005 autobiography is entitled Falling Up, How a Redneck Helped Invent Political Consulting.

In 2000, Strother was an analyst on the Public Broadcasting Service for the Cheney-Lieberman vice presidential debate. He wrote essays for the Atlanta Constitution, The New York Times, Newsweek, and the Washington Post. Campaigns and Elections magazine called Strother "the poet of democracy."