Day One, Take Two!
Hillary Clinton’s Poll Czar Mark Penn Went Down, But How Far? ‘Mark, Mark, Mark,’ Said Geoff Garin, ‘A Decision Has Been Made’; But Who’s Running the Show Now, And Is There a Show to Run?
is ushered from Clinton cockpit by
steward Harold Ickes, mechanic
Howard Wolfson.
On a conference call among high-level Clinton staffers on the morning of April 7, longtime adviser Mark Penn was arguing about a proposed advertisement for Hillary Clinton.
“Mark, Mark, Mark,” said Geoff Garin, a pollster who had taken over some of Mr. Penn’s duties as chief strategist, as Mr. Penn continued to press his point. “A decision has already been made.”
The mighty Mark Penn had been shot down.
The exchange, recounted by a campaign source who was on the call, was perhaps the first concrete indication of a post-Penn era of sorts in the Clinton campaign. Before Mr. Penn was officially stripped of his title as chief strategist on the evening of April 6, he was the one aide with an effective veto over the message-related and tactical ideas of other top advisers, several Clinton staffers said in interviews. Now, they say, he is relegated, at best, to co-equal status with all the other aides called upon regularly to offer their two cents.
“He’s just a voice among many voices, and that’s not a bad thing for the campaign,” explained one of the few remaining Penn sympathizers within the campaign.
For what seems to be a very heavy majority of Clinton supporters and staffers, Mr. Penn’s public dressing-down was cause for unalloyed joy—a clean end to an era in which a man they loathed, professionally and personally, had free reign over the public direction of the presidential bid.
“He was already on fairly thin ice within the campaign, where his effective role had already been largely diminished,” said Hassan Nemazee, one of the campaign’s national finance chairmen. “There is a general rule that also applies to business and life: ‘If you give good advice, you are on solid ground. If you give bad advice, you are on very thin ice or you are not around anymore.’”
Certainly, the campaign staffers who professed to be happy that Mr. Penn’s apparent removal insisted that their bête noire had been well and truly neutered.
“Every little ad and direct-mail and radio spot and speech had to have Mark’s approval on it—he could look at everything he wanted,” said one. “That’s no longer the case.”
Of course, there are other channels to Mrs. Clinton, and given Bill Clinton’s close relationship with Mr. Penn, the only people who know for sure how gone he really is right now are the candidate, the former president and, presumably, Mr. Penn, who lost his title as chief strategist after it was revealed that he had met with Colombian officials, in his capacity as the chief executive of the global public-relations firm Burson-Marsteller, to push a bilateral free trade agreement that his other client, Mrs. Clinton, opposes.
He is still officially polling for and advising the campaign, and, the Clinton campaign says, is still on the payroll. But Mr. Penn’s participation on the morning internal conference call the day after his sentence was curtly pronounced, via press release, by campaign manager Maggie Williams, was minimal and enfeebling. According to one Clinton aide with knowledge of the day’s conference calls, he did not participate in any of the calls on April 8.
The irony is that in recent weeks, as the campaign was forced to concede the race for elected delegates and endured a slow leak of undecided superdelegates to the Obama camp, Mr. Penn actually sought to minimize his role in bringing Mrs. Clinton to this point. And his few allies maintained that the problem with the campaign was that a campaign-by-committee atmosphere diluted his authority. It was up to others, like longtime Clinton confidante and Penn rival Harold Ickes, to point out that Mr. Penn was, in fact, running the show.
“It’s pretty plain for anyone to see that he has shaped the strategy of the campaign. He has called the shots,” Mr. Ickes told The Observer on Feb 28.
“Mark Penn,” he said, “has dominated the message in this campaign. Dominated it.”
Numerous Clinton aides interviewed for this story insisted that that arrangement has been rendered inoperative by this week’s developments, and expressed hope that Mr. Penn’s relative absence would clear the way for others—particularly communications director Howard Wolfson and Mr. Garin, the pollster—to take the fading campaign in another, more unapologetically liberal direction.
“This is a victory for Howard personally. They were both competing to be the message person; it was frustrating to him to the point of him going nuts,” said one staffer. “I see it as a win for the progressive wing of this campaign. You work on this campaign and you become branded as centrist because Mark was a centrist.”
“This opens up a vacuum in the campaign that will be filled with people who I think have a vision for what the campaign needs to be doing and where it needs to be going right now,” said another staffer. “People who realize that the strength-and-experience box, while an important one, has been checked, and that it’s also important for voters to know what motivates Senator Clinton.” Next Page >
- Poll
- Obama (D)
- McCain(R)
- Spread
- RCP Average
- 46.4
- 41.6
- Obama +4.8
- Candidate
- Favorable
- Unfavorable
- Spread
- Obama
- 55.7
- 32.7
- +23.0
- McCain
- 52.4
- 34.7
- +17.7
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Hillary Colombia ties don't stop with Penn
HRC Colombia ties don't stop with Penn
By EAMON JAVERS |4/7/08
Clinton is using an anti-trade message to win over working class voters in Pennsylvania.
Mark Penn isn’t the only Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter on the wrong side of the Colombia trade agreement.
The Democratic-leaning advocacy firm the Glover Park Group, former home to Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson, signed a $40,000 per month contract with the government of Colombia in April of 2007 to promote the very agreement that Clinton now rails against on the presidential campaign trail.
That means Glover Park Group was arguing the same position on the free trade agreement as has Penn, the contentious Clinton strategist and Burson-Marsteller chief executive who lost his campaign job over the weekend after The Wall Street Journal revealed that he’d met with Colombian officials to plot strategy on the pact.
Several other Glover Park employees have deep connections with the Clintons, including founding partner Joe Lockhart, who served as the White House press secretary under President Bill Clinton, and Joel Johnson, who was a senior communications adviser in the Clinton White House.
Six employees of Glover Park Group contributed a total of nearly $20,000 to Clinton’s campaign in 2007, according to data kept by the Center for Responsive Politics.
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Wow! the comment about the Glover Park Group and the unmasking of Mr. Penn really substantiates, for me, that Senator Clinton is the establishment candidate.
Astonishing that she would keep Penn on in any capacity. Bad enough she has Wolfson on the payroll and a husband who has made hundreds of thousands of dollars speaking on his support for the Columbian trade deal.
I'm not buying into it. There is something more to this then meets the eye. Blind faith isn't going to cut it this time.
I don't understand why he wasn't fired outright. If Clinton wanted to make a strong statement that his lobbying on behalf of the Columbian trade agreement while working on her campaign was unacceptable, she should have fired him outright, instead of just demoting him. She criticized Obama for not firing an unpaid advisor who may have said something objectionable in a routine meeting with the Canadians, but keeps Mark Penn on despite a clear conflict of interest.
He hasn't left the campaign... so I don't get the dancing on grave bit..
It's basically a lie to say he has been fired. He's still right there...
The truth of the matter is that Senator Clinton would contradict herself in two breaths, and try to rationalize that. She would make stuff up and rationalize it.
She would be fuming then be sweet and then rationalize it.
This is all very very disturbing about a potential president who does not know what one side of the brain is thinking.....Do we need another 8 years of nightmares? I think not, and I hope not!
Here it is: Clinton feels very comfortable saying NO to lobbyists if she doesn't agree with what they are peddling: Comfort with saying NO, clearly and DECISIVELY. That is why I trust Hillary to be commander in chief. She is decisive and you know where she stands on things. Obama does not have a decisive bone in his body. He shapes himself to fit the mold that he believes will advance his career. Notice I didn't say "contort" himself to fit the mold. I don't think Obama is uncomfortable with having no clear stance on anything and then oozing himself into what he thinks people will like. Present votes in the Illinois senate, loudly proclaiming he accidentally misvote in the Illinois senate on six occasions after voting for controversial bills, a 1996 policy questionnaire that he disavowed etc... He is a flim flammer of the first order.
AEParsons has clearly lost his/her mind!!
Paul v. Clinton
Paul v. Clinton is a civil suit filed in 2004 and currently being held in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The plaintiff Peter Paul, alleges that President Bill Clinton and his wife, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, deceived him into paying for the Gala Hollywood Farewell Salute to President Clinton, during Hillary Clinton's first Senate race in 2000, by making a promise that the President would work for Paul's company, Stan Lee Media, after his Presidential term was over. Paul alleges that the President broke his promise and stole his business partner, causing his business to crumble and, further, that his contributions to Hillary Clinton's campaign were falsely reported to the Federal Election Commission.[1] Besides the Clintons, three other individuals who were involved in fundraising or the gala, are named as defendants in the suit.[2]
In April 2006 the judge in the case dismissed all charges against Hillary Clinton,[2] for lack of evidence[2] and due to a California law that broadly protects political activities.[3] Paul filed an appeal of the decision to dismiss her from the case. A hearing was held on September 7, 2007;[3] on October 16, 2007, the appeal was denied by California's Second District Court of Appeal, which upheld the lower court's opinion and said that Hillary Clinton could recoup her legal costs.[4] After the ruling, Paul said he would considered a further appeal to the Supreme Court of California.[4] Most but not all of the charges against President Clinton have also been dismissed by the court, on procedural grounds.[3]
[edit] References
1. ^ Complaint for Paul v. Clinton. Retrieved 2007-09-24.
2. ^ a b c Josh Gerstein, "Judge Drops Senator Clinton From Lawsuit", The New York Sun, 2006-04-10. Accessed 2007-09-24.
3. ^ a b c Emshwiller, John. "For Clinton, 2000 Fund-Raising Controversy Lingers", The Wall Street Journal, 2007-09-14. Retrieved on 2007-09-24.
4. ^ a b Greg Risling. "Court Says Clinton Should Not Be in Suit", Associated Press, 2007-10-16. Retrieved on 2008-01-10
Off topic but Politico has a good article about Hillary's managerial incompetence:
"Clinton leadership a study in missteps"
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9478.html
Very good point.
Log on the Los Angeles Superior Court site and look in the CIVIL Column, then Click on CASE SUMMARIES and enter these numbers in the box BC304174. It is an active case and has been since January. Sen. Clinton he has not disclosed it. Actually she has a court appearance real soon.
Log on the Los Angeles Superior Court site and look in the CIVIL Column, then Click on CASE SUMMARIES and enter these numbers in the box BC304174. It is an active case and has been since January. Sen. Clinton he has not disclosed it. Actually she has a court appearance real soon.
To pretend that senator Clinton is a victim in all of this basically insulting. If her hands were clean, Mr. Penn would no longer be on the payroll. She however, knows that if Penn goes down entirely, he is going to take her with him.
To pretend that senator Clinton is a victim in all of this is basically insulting. If her hands were clean, Mr. Penn would no longer be on the payroll. She however, knows that if Penn goes down entirely, he is going to take her with him.
Sorry about typos
Part of Sen. Clinton's problems with her association with Penn are Penn's association with other unsavory clients such as Ahmad Chalabi whom his company aided in selling cooked intelligence to the US government in promoting the Iraq war. Additionally, Mr. Penn's associate, Charles Black, is a prominent staffer on Sen. McCain's staff. This gives Burson-Marsteller and its companion firm, BKSH & Associates, an inside track in both political parties' Presidential campaigns. Or at least, so they may have calculated before the Obama phenomenon.
I completely agree!!!!!
Oh now come on, there must be some way to blame Obama for this!
The difference between these incidents, Clinton/Penn and Obama/Goonsbee is that Goonsbee was speaking as a representative of the Obama campaign. Penn was not speaking as a representative of the Clinton campaign. Goonsbee was not fired, why should Penn be fired? Once again, the bias is evident towards Hillary in this report. It is amazing to see such blind faith in what Obama does. I sometimes think that I want him to win the nomination and presidency, just to say I told you so when he makes things even worse. Shudder the thought!
No. The difference in this is the Canadian Prime Minister admitted that the newspaper account about Goolsbee was a complete lie. Yet, Hillary insists on spreading the lie at every opportunity. Goolsbee did not tell the Canadians that Obama was just posturing to get elected. In fact, the Canadian Parliament became angry about Canadian Conservatives' attempts to influence U.S. elections and PM Harper had to say he would have the incident investigated (although it will probably come to nothing since it would mean the prime minister will be investigating his own administration).
Michele, you are either grossly misinformed or are making a Clintonesque misstatement. In either case, that will not fly in a place where people do their own due diligence.
Of course, you are likely a republican shill, ditto-head or some other type of baiter, given the way you've misspelled his name.
Barack Obama cast over 4,000 votes in the Illinois State Legislature. Of those 4000 votes, about 100 were "Present" votes. This is not exactly evidence of being a flim-flam artist, as others might think.
This Columbian trade deal issue in the Clinton campaign is, however, evidence of her management style. Whatever you may say about her policies, she simply has no knack for managing people. She has no integrity, no honesty, and no real self. She is the flim-flam artist, just like her husband.
And for those of you who want Obama to win just so you can gloat about him "making it worse"...you should be ashamed. This is the behavior of a 7th grader with ego issues...and you need a course in logic.
Penn should be fired because he was putting money in his pocket by working on a trade deal that his candidate doesn't want...it's a conflict of interest. Simple stuff.
I have been on the other side of Bill and Hillary since 1991. After growing up in the state next door, I know all about Bill's history in Arkansas. The local joke was that Arkansas was electing him to POTUS to get him out of the state. I remember seeing posters, shirts and bumper-stickers that read "Slick Willy for POTUS"!
I am opposed to them because they lack integrity. They demonstrate an unhealthy will to power that pushes everything else aside...friends, policies, and the nation. I don't mind being led by a woman, and I'm not sexist...but I will never vote for Hillary simply because she lacks integrity. End of story.
I hope that this bitterness between the two campaigns heals before November. Barack Obama would make a great POTUS who can help to heal this country in a number of ways. I can't imagine living in a country that would elect John McCain after 8 years of this bush nonsense...
Or maybe...just maybe...you could have read up about the Canadian government formally apologizing to Obama for the story about Goonsbee NOT being true, when in actuality it was the Clinton campaign telling the Canadian government to take what she was saying with "a grain of salt". I'm amazed, though I shouldn't be, that while throughly debunked this story is still being given any amount of veracity.
Clinton said she oppose the deal with the Columbian trade agreement and vote again it, I wish she had oppose the WAR just as strongly. And she will urge the congress to reject Colombian Trade agreement. Does this sound famliar? yes it does. When she said she was going to urge congress to approve Social Health care when she was First Lady and then the sentor of New York. No change. She's losing and the cut off day has passed and she still don't want to quit. I believe if she had work this hard to stop or change the out come of going to war, adding to that Social Health care. What do you think??? Here is why she want in the white House.http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6470450895164255089&pr=goog-sl
Clinton said she oppose the deal with the Columbian trade agreement and vote again it, I wish she had oppose the WAR just as strongly. And she will urge the congress to reject Colombian Trade agreement. Does this sound famliar? yes it does. When she said she was going to urge congress to approve Social Health care when she was First Lady and then the sentor of New York. No change. She's losing and the cut off day has passed and she still don't want to quit. I believe if she had work this hard to stop or change the out come of going to war, adding to that Social Health care. What do you think??? Here is why she want in the white House.http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6470450895164255089&pr=goog-sl
Colombia trade deal splits Clintons
WASHINGTON (AP) — The presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that her husband, the former president, supports a free trade agreement with Colombia that she strenuously opposes.
The acknowledgment adds new hurdles to the New York senator's bid to woo Democratic voters in Pennsylvania and elsewhere who believe free trade agreements have eliminated thousands of U.S. jobs. On Sunday, she demoted her chief campaign strategist for his role in promoting the Colombia pact.
. . .
Read the entire article at USATodaydotcom:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-04-08-clintons-t...
I'll try that again:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-04-08-clintons-t...
One last shot:
http://www.usatoday.com/
news/politics/election2008/
2008-04-08-clintons-trade_N.htm
(piece it together if it isn't chopped off again)
It amazes me that the union pukes would support either Hillary or Obama. They both support NAFTA, Obama's people told Canada that they weren't serious about abrogating the treaty. Both prima donnas are in the pockets of lobbyists.