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“There were concerns on the route that it goes over, it needs to go on a new route, that needs to pass an environmental review and if it does pass … he will approve it. And I think some people in his own base will get very angry with him,” he said.

Indeed. The pipeline has become a contentious, albeit largely symbolic issue for U.S. and Canadian environmental activists. The most extreme believe it would spark development in the oilsands that would ultimately destroy the planet.

Mr. Shrum said the president’s approach is more moderate: Mr. Obama is a leftist, but he’s pragmatic. Fossil fuels will be part of the energy mix for a long time to come.

His words carry some weight: the veteran consultant is a regular columnist for The Daily Beast and Slate; he teaches at New York University in Abu Dhabi; and his speechwriting and political consulting credentials stretch back to the 1970s.

What he doesn’t have is a solid track record of being correct. He worked on eight presidential campaigns, from George McGovern and Michael Dukakis to John Kerry and Al Gore — and all of them lost, leading some in Washington to suggest there is a “Shrum curse.”

“Some people who don’t like me stuck me with it. I don’t particularly care about it,” he said.

“When I was a speechwriter for George McGovern, I was hardly in charge of that campaign, and if I was, we would have lost anyway.”

As for Mr. Gore, he “did get elected. He just didn’t get inaugurated.”

Regardless, his time advising potential presidents is well behind him now. It’s time for the Democrats’ next generation to take over, although Mr. Shrum is not eliminating the possibility of a 2016 presidential run by Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden.