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He followed Carter into the White House where he had tremendous influence. For the 1984 campaign, he was hired by Gary Hart and helped shape his image as a fresh face and political outsider in contrast to former vice-president Walter Mondale. For 1988, he signed on with Joe Biden, which was quite a coup for the still-young Delaware senator. He followed that up by working with California’s Jerry Brown in 1992.

This was the heyday of Caddell’s career, which coincided with very difficult times for the Democratic Party. He represented upstarts and long-shots, and he did better than most Democratic consultants of that era. With the exception of Biden’s campaign, which flamed out due to both self-inflicted injuries and a major health scare, Caddell’s clients did much better than anyone expected. But that does not mean that he was universally admired.

By 1987, his preference for style over substance had become grating enough to inspire our now editor-in-chief Paul Glastris to include him on a Washington Monthly list of Five Washington Insiders the Next Democratic President Shouldn’t Hire.

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Caddell was a two-trick pony. His candidates ran campaigns light on substance and heavy on cynical attacks on the Establishment. It’s not hard to understand why attacking the Establishment seemed like an evergreen strategy to Caddell. Throughout his entire career, conditions for American workers deteriorated with every presidential cycle. Yet, with our current president, we finally see a kind of triumph of Caddellism. It’s a political philosophy so devoid of values that it can serve a McGovern or Carter and then be utilized without many edits to elect a Donald Trump.

Just as Glastris worried might happen with Joe Biden back in 1987, Trump was elected with a nebulous mandate to disrupt and drive change, but premised on unrealistic promises and unarticulated plans. It was, and is, a recipe for disappointment.

Pat Caddell still belongs in the hall of fame, but his record isn’t one future pollsters and consultants should follow. He catered to the disaffected, but his main accomplishment has been to increase their number.