The Problem Wasn't The Money, It Was Mark Penn

Mark Penn decided to grace the Op-Ed page of the New York Times yesterday to offer his own 'inciteful' analysis of what went wrong with Hillary Clinton's campaign. He was the senior adviser for the crucial portion of the campaign, so he should know best looking backwards, right?

From Mark Penn in the NYT:

Perhaps the most frustrating part of losing a close race is thinking about what else you could have done to win. You replay the campaign over and over again in your head. As an adviser to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, I sure do.

But the endless armchair chatter often obscures what actually needed to be done.[...]

Are there a lot of other things the campaign could have done differently? Of course. We should have taken on Mr. Obama more directly and much earlier, and we needed a different kind of operation to win caucuses and to retain the support of superdelegates. From more aggressively courting young people earlier to mobilizing the full power of women, there are things that could have been done differently.

While everyone loves to talk about the message, campaigns are equally about money and organization. Having raised more than $100 million in 2007, the Clinton campaign found itself without adequate money at the beginning of 2008, and without organizations in a lot of states as a result. Given her successes in high-turnout primary elections and defeats in low-turnout caucuses, that simple fact may just have had a lot more to do with who won than anyone imagines.

In between those two sets of paragraphs Penn "breaks down the myths" that critics have charged Senator Clinton with. He says that Clinton had more than just a message of experience. Thats right, but it was her main message and everything else she said was all over the place and therefore her message remained inconsistent. Though for the most part, once she fell behind in the pledged delegate count in February, her message was one that attacked Obama and remained mainly negative of him and the press that supposedly cushioned him and offered him pillows. The reality of how the press treated both candidates was actually far different.

Penn also mentions that she was both a warrior and warm by campaigning with her mother and daughter. If Penn thinks anyone is going to buy that line, he clearly doesn't understand the nature of the American electorate. That, and the fact that he did not map out a full primary campaign past February was the real problem. It wasn't about not having enough money as Penn claims, it was that there was no real grassroots movement behind Clinton. Sure, 18 million people voted for her but Obama was running a strategy that involved all 50 states, not just the most populous. His message reached out to all 50 states and his organization was unmatched. If Penn had taken all of this into consideration, then maybe things would have turned out differently.

Penn Makes It Official, He's Still In Clinton's Camp

I don't know who bought the story from the Clinton campaign about Mark Penn's resignation last night, but if there are still any believers in that crap tonight's news should dispel that notion. In order to stem the damage from Penn's hypocritical relations with the Colombian government (since Clinton opposes free trade agreements between the U.S. and Colombia, at least publicly). Regardless of the resignation, it looked like it was only a title change and Mark Penn said as much tonight on the nightly conference call.

From The Huffington Post:

Peppered with questions from colleagues -- one mentioned her "pretty panicked client," another asked bluntly, "Ultimately did you think that it was the best thing for the company [to work for Clinton's campaign]?" -- Penn insisted that "the situation has played itself out."

But he confirmed that while his title with the campaign had changed -- and his work load would undoubtedly decrease -- he still would play a direct advisory role for Clinton.

"I think you've heard that I made the decision to step down as chief strategist of the Clinton campaign. Penn Schoen and Berland is going to continue to poll for it and I'll continue to play a role advising Senator Clinton and former President Clinton as well as the rest of the leadership of the campaign," he said.

Later, he added: "The title, the position of chief strategist tended to be one that drew a tremendous amount of attention. And, number two, yes, I will have more time. We will continue - Penn and Schoen will continue to do the polling and I will be advising, but the net of it will still be that I will have more time than I otherwise would have had so that definitely is going to be the case."

So Mr. Chief Strategist will now just be a chief strategist, if that makes any difference to anyone. He clearly wanted to make that known to all of the "important" people around him, namely those who can drive clients his way or that has anything to do with people getting rich from his PR and polling business. What a joke, Penn believes that this is over in the media and he can go back to business as usual, what an arrogant a**hole!

The NAFTA Gig Is Up Hillary

Senator Clintin, what exactly were you claiming about your opponent concernin NAFTA? Something about an aide doing a wink and a nod? Last time I heard, wink and nodder Mark Penn still worked for you.

Hillary's Mark Penn Hearts Exelon

In the last couple debates Hillary has tried unsuccessfully to tie Obama to a nuclear company called Exelon. Now Obama notes that this is not a direct connection and the Baltimore Sun backed him up on what the connection meant to Obama's campaign promise to not go the route of nuclear energy. Now those words Hillary used are coming around to bite her from behind.

From The Huffington Post:

This past week, Burson Marsteller, Penn's powerhouse consulting agency, was paid more than $230,000 by Exelon to help renew a nuclear energy license in New Jersey, the Huffington Post has learned. The payment was for work that took place over several months, and Burson is still employed by the company.

"They did some work for us in New Jersey between June and November," said Craig Nesbit, vice president of communications for Exelon Generation, a subsidiary. "That bill was invoiced on December 12 and it just took that long to pay these things... We still are paying them a little bit but it is ramping down."

It has been public knowledge that Exelon is a client of Burson. But news of the recent payment comes less than two weeks after the Clinton campaign, and Penn himself, took Obama to task for what they implied was preferential treatment for the company.

Some people (i.e. Penn/Clinton) really need to watch what they say when trying to trash their opponent. Since this work occurred in New Jersey, I wonder how the Clinton campaign will try and spin their way into saying that it doesn't matter, since New Jersey didn't caucus and went for Hillary?

The Beginning Of The End For Hillary?

Iowa delivered a third place finish to Ms. Inevitable Thursday night, but could that really start a chain of events that could unhinge one of the most impressive campaigns ever built? Hillary has plenty of money, dozens of super-delegates and an amazing ground operation in many states along with the polls to back it all up. Yet those super-delegates can disappear in a moment's notice and it could all be from getting one less delegate in tiny little Iowa. Of course, there's much more to it, and that "more" is exactly why she is at the bottom of my list of choices for the nomination.

From Time:

There are senior officials within the campaign — notably, outside advisers say, media consultant Mandy Grunwald and adviser Harold Ickes — who have been worried for months that Clinton was missing the fundamental shift in the electorate. However, their entreaties have gone nowhere. Bill and Hillary Clinton have put enormous faith in Penn, and given him veto power, aides say, over every word that goes into her television ads and every line in her mailers. "He had her and the President's trust very deeply," says one adviser who is close to the campaign. Adds another: "He's a one-man shop."

If Clinton also loses New Hampshire to Obama, Penn's future with the campaign may well be in jeopardy, strategists say. But that may be wishful thinking on their part. For one thing, there is no obvious candidate to replace him. Hillary's advisers and Bill's have never gotten along — and she has been particularly suspicious of his team. "Who they both trust — that's a very small group," says one former Clinton aide. "She is going to be very, very resistant to all of the white boys coming back."

Another problem is that some of those who might potentially be brought in have already been sidelined. Former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, for instance, is running a 527 organization called the Fund for America and is forbidden by law to even consult with the campaign.

Basically she built a very strong house with a foundation that was set in a swamp. The house may look mighty from the outside, but if there is a tremendous groundswell in the electorate, the money, the strategists and the hype all means nothing when a message of change can sweep people into another candidate's lap. If Obama takes New Hampshire on Tuesday, this thing might just be game, set and match.

Edwards Reveals His Third Grade Ambitions

Kids are ambitious little creatures. Being one not too long ago myself, I remember wanting to be in a whole assortment of professions, from sports to politics and beyond. Well so did the candidates who are now running for President. As the jokes are flying around about Hillary's campaign using Obama's kindergarten paper saying he wanted to be President as evidence to refute that he hadn't always had dreams of running the free world, you know everyone is going to jump in on this.

Edwards was no exception:

The biggest laugh of the afternoon came when Edwards mocked an attempt by one of his rivals, Hillary Clinton, to cast doubt on the truthfulness of another, Barack Obama. Edwards noted reports that after Obama said he hadn’t always wanted to win the White House, Clinton’s campaign countered with news that when he was in third grade, Obama wrote a theme saying he wanted to be president.

Edwards grinned as he recounted the Clinton campaign’s allegation. “I want to confess to all of you right now,” he told his audience, “in third grade, I wanted to be two things: I wanted to be a cowboy, and I wanted to be Superman.”

Hmm, sounds like a machismo thing to me. Forget policies, positions and principles, if a guy wants to be Superman as a kid, then clearly he is not capable of being President, the world needs more superheroes, not politicians.

Hillary's Pathetic Attacks On Obama

HotLine TV discusses Hillary's bad poll numbers, how her negative campaigning tactics are ultimately hurting her and what will happen from here on out for the Hillster:

"Lobbyists Are People Too" From Pakistan

Hillary's memorable words about lobbyists at YearlyKos continue to haunt her three months later. She definitely loves those influence peddlers that roam the halls of Congress, "people" being paid by all sorts of corporate and national entities, including the government of Pakistan. So when Hillary said that lobbyists were people too, maybe she meant the representatives of a military dictator with nuclear weapons.

From The Huffington Post:

Like others in the race for the White House, Hillary Clinton has strong words for Pakistan, but has yet to propose the United States seriously consider limiting its aid to the country. But unlike the other leading Democratic presidential hopefuls, Edwards and Obama, she has accepted tens of thousands of dollars from Pakistan's lobbyists, Cassidy & Associates. Its founder, Gerald Cassidy, long ago maxed out his donations to her.

According to the Foreign Agents Registration Act website, Pakistan recently hired Cassidy and Associates for a one year, $1.2 million/year contract. The Cassidy contract with Pakistan makes for good reading. For the $1.2 million, "target audiences will be identified for critical message reception," and Cassidy will inventively move beyond pushing pieces in the mainstream media, also focusing on blog outreach. In other words, Cassidy will shill and propagandize for one year, and use its contacts in Washington--presumably including Clinton--to ensure that the billions in aid are not diminished, regardless of what the government does to its citizens and its elections. According to The Hill, Pakistan's lead lobbyist is Robin Raphael, who served in the Clinton administration.

While not prohibited by law, accepting such a donation necessarily raises questions about the effect this relationship--and similar ones--will have on her policies in the White House towards Pakistan should she win the 2008 contest, or in the US Senate should she not. The influence of money is never straightforward, of course. Joe Biden, the other democratic Presidential candidate to receive money from Cassidy, has called for cutting off support to Pakistan if it does not change course.

I'm glad to see that Hillary is such a people-person.