Panetta's Lament: They Had No Plan
The argument that the constant carping about Hillary Clinton’s campaign has been a function of an Obama-friendly, process-obsessed media is well and good. But how, then, to explain the deeply held dissatisfaction of an old Clinton loyalist like Leon Panetta?
In an interview with The Observer, Mr. Panetta compared Mrs. Clinton’s top strategist, Mark Penn, to Karl Rove, suggested that the Clinton campaign had totally underestimated Barack Obama’s appeal, and complained about the overall lack of planning that he said had characterized the former First Lady’s bid to return to the White House.
Mr. Panetta, who served as chief of staff in the White House from July 1994 to January 1997, and who has contributed $2000 to Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign, complained that Mr. Penn “is a political pollster from the past.”
”I never considered him someone who would run a national campaign for the presidency,” he said.
He asserted that Mr. Penn “comes from an old school, like Karl Rove—it’s all about dividing people into smaller groups rather than taking the broader approach that was needed.”
Referring to Barack Obama, he said, “I think he really captured early on this deep feeling in the country about needing change in Washington. And people have underestimated how deep that sense was, just how much people felt the need for change.”
Mr. Panetta added that “for the money they brought in” the Clinton campaign “should have done a much better job.”
On the now-deposed campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, Mr. Panetta said, “Solis was someone who was obviously close to the [former] First Lady and had good relations with her, but again she didn’t have the experience that you need.”
Mr. Panetta served for 16 years in Congress prior to taking up his Clinton White House position and is now a director of the Panetta Institute, a nonpartisan center for the study of public policy at California State University.
Aside from his criticisms of specific people at the top of Mrs. Clinton’s team, he also asserted that the campaign in general had neither created an efficient ground operation nor shown tactical wisdom in its deployment of available resources.
“It seems to me like they rolled the dice on Super Tuesday, thinking that would end it,” he said. “And when it didn’t end it, they didn’t have a plan. And when it came to the caucus states, they did have a plan—which was to ignore them. I think those were serious mistakes.”
Mr. Panetta’s former boss, the 42nd president, has faced criticism in some quarters for the role he has played in his wife’s campaign. In particular, questions have arisen as to whether his irascibility has proved a damaging distraction.
Last month, Mr. Clinton derided Mr. Obama’s claim to have consistently opposed the Iraq war as a “fairy tale,” blew up at a reporter who asked him about a court case relating to the Nevada caucuses, and invoked Jesse Jackson’s successes in South Carolina two decades ago in what many observers—including some of Mrs. Clinton’s African-American supporters—saw as an attempt to marginalize Mr. Obama’s candidacy.
Though Mr. Panetta spoke cautiously about Mr. Clinton, he suggested that Mrs. Clinton’s advisers might have acted more prudently to neutralize the former president’s uneven temperament.
“I know from talking to him that he really does want to try to help her win,” Mr. Panetta said. “That’s what he has been trying to do. But he tends, like all of us, to sometimes have quick reactions to things.
“In the White House, if there was something important coming up, we would prepare him and engage him about what questions he might expect. And sometimes,” Mr. Panetta added with a rueful laugh, “that would let him get things out of his system while he was just with us.”
As for Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Panetta suggested that her apparent failure to connect with the public had been, at least in part, a consequence of the settings in which she had been placed by her campaign advisors.
“On television, they could have made her someone who came across as more genuine,” he said. “She comes across more that way when she talks to smaller groups, but they didn’t do that in an effective way.”
Asked about Mrs. Clinton’s closing statement at the Feb. 21 CNN debate in Austin, Texas, where she spoke of being “absolutely honored” to be sharing the stage with Mr. Obama and expressed concern for the nation’s future, Mr. Panetta said, “I think that was her strongest moment, and I would have recommended taking that kind of approach a long time ago. I think that idea of talking about the country and showing some emotion is much more effective.”
By contrast, Mr. Panetta was unimpressed by the former First Lady’s sharpest attack on Mr. Obama, in which she accused him of plagiarism and, in a mocking reference to his campaign slogan, asserted, “That’s change you can Xerox.”
“There should be much less of those kinds of moments,” he said.
In recent days, much speculation has centered on whether Mrs. Clinton’s campaigns is on its last legs. Mr. Panetta, for his part, suggested she could still win the nomination. His words, though, seemed suffused more with hope than with expectation.
“I think everybody felt she was in a very strong position” at the outset of the campaign, he said. “Obviously she is now someone who is the underdog. Everybody is still hoping that she might run the table, but it is a much tougher mountain to climb.”
- Poll
- Obama (D)
- McCain(R)
- Spread
- RCP Average
- 46.9
- 43.3
- Obama +3.6
- Candidate
- Favorable
- Unfavorable
- Spread
- Obama
- 52.6
- 34.4
- +18.2
- McCain
- 51.2
- 34.2
- +17.0
Dear Editor:
As our Mayor Cory Booker campaigns for Senator Barack Obama , here in Newark we would like you to know that our city is not one of change that Booker also ran on ,but one of more of the same old same old! Booker as you will see is great orator and has charm all of his own,but here in Newark we know crime is out of control(although he will tell you it is down skewed statistics-by the way he accused Sharpe James the previous Mayor of doing it now he is) neighborhood services that don't work garbage litters our streets and doesn't get picked up on regular times, hundreds of layoffs,hospital closings that he claims he was not aware that they were in such a critical condition and has not been a real advocate of our public schools.
So there you have it only a brief synopsis of some of the problems that our Mayor of change was supposed to help cure! Oh also our Mayor loves to leave our city and spends time going all over the country and our neighboring towns to promote himself! Many feel this position is just a stepping stone for a bigger office like senator! Well ,there you have it the only thing our Mayor surely has changed and that is Area codes last week he was in in the 512 area code Austin,Texas campaigning for Obama this week he will be in the 614 Columbus ,Ohio area code usually he is the 212 or 646 area code in NYC or 908 central New Jersey area code by the way if you could ask him when he plans on being in the 973 Newark area code being our full time mayor he promised us he would be - we here would all appreciate that. I guess it was "Just Words" and not really about change!I So much for change! It makes you wonder is this what Obama is all about too after all he does have Booker campaigning for him.
Steve Sacco
Newark,NJ 07107
pobrecita
Comparing candidates because they happen to share ethnicity is more of the same. There is a long line of great orators who also happen to have been great Presidents and/or politicians/activists. Turn the page on these kinds of comparisons, please. It doesn't work for white candidates who happen to share the same ethnicity and/or backing either. Martha Stewart went to jail and she is a Hillary Clinton supporter. What does THAT tell us? Nothing. Ridiculous. Turn the page.
Leon Panetta KNOWS Hillary Clinton should not be President, which is why he and others will begin speaking out, now that their DEBT is paid. They too want what is best for the Nation. Temperment is important. Both Clintons have demonstrated a temperment problem. Ditto, the petulant and elitist George W. Bush. Turn the page on DYNASTIES and the elites who feed off of them for generations -- at OUR expense.
Of course they had a plan. However, you can't sell a candidate no one likes!!
Wonder how long before Mark Penn is on Fox News as a commentator?
You can blame Mark Penn if you want,...he has not helped for various reasons as mentioned in your article. To deny Obama's appeal is one thing, but to underestimate the people's will on how sick and tired we are of Bush and his war was a serious mistake. She's been way too centrist on many of her positions including her position with Iran over the last few years. We want someone who's anti-establishment, plus there are a few more skeletons in her closet that don't appeal nationally despite her experience.
Steve,
I went to see Cory Booker on one of his speaking engagements and the audience loved him. I agree with you that he was long on promises and short on performance. Newark is a mess and it will take a long, long time to straighten out. Unfortunately, Cary Booker had to allow Sharpe James to leave office peacefully rather than expose Sharpe James' rampant corruption and abuse of office practices.
The FBI set up an anonymous 800-number hotline in Newark a few years back and they got 5,000 phone calls in one day. Needless to say the FBI disconnected the hotline after one day since they really had no intention of handling the rampant corruption in NJ.
George W Bush has made federal corruption almost legal. It will be be difficult for Obama to straighten out the rampant corruption that George W Bush allowed in the military contracting business and various other areas in the federal government.
Personally, I would love to see the public hanging of any public official that is caught stealing more than $10 million of public funds. A number of Bush and Cheney Family members would fall into that category. Our public officials would straighten up real quick when they saw their fellow colleagues go to the gallows for corruption.
I hate to disagree with Mr. Panetta... one of the more agreeable members of Team Clinton from the 1990s... but he is precisely wrong about this. Hillary did indeed HAVE A PLAN... it was just a terrible plan that insulted voter's intelligence, and in case of Obama voters, insulted them directly (as if they were a bunch of hysterical girls cheering the arrival of the Beatles).
Hilary's plain & simple plan was to RAM HER NEO-CON (Joe Lieberman/Zell Miller) agenda down _Democratic_ voters' throats with vague PLATITUDES. #1. She voted to give Bush authorization for his attack & invasion of Iraq, which even a 12 year old could see was a total fabrication of lies. (Hello?! The UN inspectors WERE ON THE GROUND, going ANYWHERE in Iraq the US intel. agencies directed them to go with just 24 hours notice. Hello?! The US "Manhatten Project" Hanford, Washington, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, nuclear enrichment plants were MASSIVE facilities that gobbled up as much as 10% of the entire US WWII electricity production. YOU CAN NOT PACK UP and HIDE those kind of facilities in 24 hours, much less keep the experts who run them hidden from view if inspectors are inspecting every hint of such a program.)
#2. Hillary doubled-down on her worst mistake, AGAIN giving Bush the authorization to attack ANOTHER country (Iran), in the Kyle-Lieberman bill.
#3. Hillary voted for the "Credit Reform" bill, aka the "LOAN SHARKS ARE US" bill. I just got a bill from Bank Of America "amending" my credit card terms.. to _27.29% interest_!! THANKS, Hillary! (I cut some of my other cards up, and transferred their balances to one BOA Visa card, to simplify my bill paying. That is a credit No-No, but I was taken in by BOA's helpful service at their branch offices. I will soon be transferring that account to zero, and will never use "Loan Sharks of America" again, but others will not be able to escape BOA's predatory lending extortion.)
#4. WHERE has Hillary voiced ANY concern about ELECTION SHENNIGANS and the Dieboldization/Katheine Harris-ization of America's voting process?
#5. Hillary is trying to MAKE FRIENDS with... RUPERT MURDOCH, the treacherous swine who blasts American union organizers as "He's a COMMUNIST!".... even as he gets cozy with the real dictator Communists in China! (Murdoch's satellite deal with China effectively broadcasts China's state-run propaganda for fun and profit.. just as Murdoch broadcasts right-wing propaganda on his Fox "news" empire.)
The above is only the SHORT LIST.. the common denominator is that Hillary is a far LESS skillful politician than her husband, and he REPEATEDLY gave his Right-Wing enemies the ammunition they needed to trash him with for eight straight years. Since then (departing office in 2001), Bill has been.. cozying up to Bush Sr., the very epicenter (Bush family and minions) of the Hate-Clintons right! Hillary WOULD RATHER DEFER to the RIGHT-WING juggernaut, than confront it, plain and simple.
The record of HER ACTIONS (or, more accurately, actions NOT taken) speak for themselves: TORTURE, lies-to-war, looted treasury, Purge-gate, Diebold and stolen elections, gross, in-your-face contracts fraud and war/rebuilding corruption... On each and every one of these issues (that would see a Democratic president IMPEACHED in a New York minute) Hillary and her fellow DLC Senators are AWOL.
Good piece... A comment: is the "underdog" not the one who is challenging the champ, the establishment? To call sen. Clinton "the underdog" at this point is simply not correct - we used to call that "the loser".
What Mr. Sacco may not be noticing is that people who apply noticeable effort to the winner's campaign usually gets rewarded with significant good will. Cory Booker is off campaigning for Obama for one big reason: it helps bring Newark closer to the top of the federal TODO list. While it's a sad fact that one needs to serve their liege just to get help with a malfunctioning city, Mr. Booker is playing the game set in front of him, and appears to have made the correct choice.
Overall, I've observed Booker to be a competent mayor for a run-down city. Not because he's a superhero, but because he knows that he's not a superhero and it's not beneath him to reach out to the public -- both for public relations and to ask for assistance and good will.
It would appear that Mr. Sacco's comments outline a modern-day deficiency in the expectations of constituents. It has apparently become requisite that leaders not just manage the normal progress of the affairs of city (or state), but to also be the sole talent and sole actor. Obama's detractors cite his short history of legislative bulldogging, but never his long history of relationship building with distant friends and close opposition.
It would appear people do not realize the President is not the solitary source of the billions of man-hours that go into federal projects. He or She is the chief coordinator, ensuring that the massive efforts of the executive branch are applied to affairs of State and citizen (and the defense of both), and not applied to misappropriation, corruption, nor waste. Any other skills and talents are just bonuses that make the President's job easier.
Fare thee well and good riddance, O House of Clinton, Republican-lite to the end.
The difference that most Americans have seen in these two candidates is pretty easy to define.
Hillary Clinton in her own words was "In it to win it."
Hillary Clinton, under the guidance of Mark Penn is running to win.
Barack Obama is running to lead.
This was evident to voters, from the get-go.
Hillary: Are we at the "fun part" yet???
Panetta is nearly as tone deaf as Hillary herself. The reason that she chose an "old school" strategist such as Mark Penn to run her campaign is that she is a graduate of and a professor in that very same school. And the reason that she failed to appreciate the public's disgust with the political establishment is that she a card carrying member of that establishment, something that she could not conceal with her laughable claim to be an agent of change. Coming from the mouth of the ultimate insider, such a claim was immediately dismissed by anyone who was not already a fan. If Hillary's campaign is floundering, then she has no one to blame but herself.
Mr. Anonymous
Clinton has a very sizeable support base. Obama, no matter how many votes he is getting now, is not getting them all. It would do Obama supporters well to remember this.
Whatever it is you/he will try to do, you/he won't be able to do it alone.
What I would like to know is how Obama can keep saying that Hillary should get out of the race now? The man is black and for years we have heard how the black voters have been disenfranchised. The candidate of change is now fighting to disenfranchise all of the voters in Texas, Ohio, VT, PA and RI. Guess he feels THEIR votes do NOT Count.
Does this sound like a uniter? Does this sound like someone that will look out for ALL Americans? Sorry, but it sounds hypocritical to me.
Obama says all of the superdelagets should back the candidate that won their states. If he trully believed his own words and he were an honorable man, he should tell Senator Kennedy and Senator Kerry that they should be endorsing Hillary now because SHE won their state.
Obama is not a person we can trust. Would you vote for Louis Farakahan? Obama used words from one of his speeches to tear Hillary down. Bamboozle and hoodwink were atleast two words Farakhan used in a speech. Obama's church made Farakhan man of the year and evidently Obama must have enough admiration for the man to repeat his words.
Young people that are supporting Obama that are probably too young to remember Louis Farakhan should goole him and read some of the racist things he has said about whites and jews.
i am an obama voter, however i am also a woman, and i feel very bad for what Penn, who is supposed to be such a brain, and the rest of them in hillary's campaign have done to Hillary in choosing the tactics..They clearly did not have her or the country's best interest at heart!!!..i know it was easy to choose some of her husbands people to work for her, but as i look on this whole thing, i don't believe Penn or Bill Clinton wanted her to win..Bill Clinton has a huge ego, it is always about him, and he has a legacy to protect.. i believe she totally out shines Bill..she is so smart in so many ways compared to him..Bill wouldn't have liked that..He was still talking about himself again in texas today...
I also think it is past the time for politics as usual, and clearly they all need to wake up to this fact and stop missing the point here..The country is totally ready for change, big change and i believe Obama can bring us this change with all of this country helping him..He is extremely smart, and gracious...He has never shown Hillary disrespect in his campaign..He by far, on every speech always includes this country in his white house..We now feel a part of our government and it's ideas...something this country has not felt, it seems in like a lifetime..i understand what Michelle Obama meant when she talked about really feeling proud of this country..We were shamed and disgraced in the Clinton administration and wound up with nothing but thugs in the bush administration
I have always considered HRC to be a very smart, highly intelligent woman. I can see no way that she would have been fooled by Bush's intentions vis-a-vis Iraq. She made a very calculated decision to cement her hawkish credentials in order to shore up support among centrist and right of center voters. Had all gone well and had it ended after the "purple finger" elections, she would be running unopposed. However, as happens sometimes in life, not just in politics, she miscalculated. Badly. Her inability to accept that miscalculation early and then compounding it and staying the course with her vote on the Kyl-Lieberman resolution basically doomed her candidacy. Even if she becomes her party's nominee, there's not going to be a Hillary in the White House come January 2009.
"Anonymous says:
Clinton has a very sizeable support base. Obama, no matter how many votes he is getting now, is not getting them all. It would do Obama supporters well to remember this.
Whatever it is you/he will try to do, you/he won't be able to do it alone."
You are absolutely correct. Obama is not getting them all.
But he is bearing down on 1,000,000 donors to his campaign, the most in American Presidential history. How many does Hillary Clinton have? I bet not one-third as many. Not even one quarter.
Obama implored his supporters from the beginning that the transformation that he wants to bring to America involves the efforts of everyone. In his words he never used the word "I," it was always "we" or "you."
At the beginning of the campaign when she was the inevitable juggernaut, Hillary Clinton constantly referred to what "I," that is she, was going to do for America. She never used the word "you." Now that her campaign has suffered eleven losses in a row, her language has changed -- but the song remains the same.
Tiredofit needs to stop rummaging through Sean Hannity's trash.
For the record, Senator Obama is not calling for Clinton to step out of the race. Plenty of pundits are asking the question, but Obama has never said he wants her to withdraw. Is your purposeful misinformation supposed to represent some serious concern for the democratic process? "Sounds hypocritical to me..."
So now "bamboozle" and "hoodwink" are Farrakhan's words??? Wow.
Regarding superdelegates... you are misstating Obama's position here. Clinton did not win ALL of Massachusetts delegates. Obama earned 38 to her 55. As Senators, Kennedy and Kerry represent the WHOLE of the state, not small districts. Obama received 41% of the vote, so at least one of them could vote his conscience and still represent the voters of that state. Notwithstanding super delegates prerogative to vote as they wish, analysis indicates that Clinton delegates have pledged against constituents more than Obama SDs.
Once I learned the Mark Penn was brought into the White House as a protege of Dick Morris, I was given one more reason to question the judgment of Hillary Clinton. After voting for Bush's war in Iraq, after voting for the bankruptcy bill benefiting large credit cards companies at the expense of working families, after voting to effectively invade Iran, after her complete mismanagement of the health care plan in 1993-94, I lost faith in the sincerity and competence of Hillary Clinton. Now, with this news about Penn---and how much trust she places in him---I have yet another reason to distrust Ms. Clinton.
You know, gang, this ain't over yet. The race is still quite close, and there's still plenty of data to suggest that HRC can win. Is it an uphill battle? Sure. But the funny thing about unexpected things is that they are unexpected. There's still plenty of time left on the clock for HRC to capitalize on a BHO mistake, scandal, etc.
Hell, even old Mittens thinks he still has a chance at the Republican nod.
Once a certain overweight female vocalizes there'll be plenty of time to do post-mortems, etc. Let's let the good people (the Democrats, any way) of Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc. have their say. Then we add it all up and we'll have a winner.
How about prison time at least commensurate with a grand theft of that magnitude?
If Hillary Clinton performed in the presidency as well as she is performing in her campaign we'd all be in huge trouble. With every day that passes, every time she opens her mouth, she reminds us how unfit she is to run a campaign, let alone run a country. Her judgement, strategy, and tactics are fatally flawed. She's no more presidential timber than is George W. Bush.
Panetta nails it exactly on the head. The sad thing is, all of Hillary's campaign staffing decisions, starting with Mark Penn, highlight her inability to surround herself with the right people with the right expertise at the right time. We cannot afford those kinds of missteps any longer.
The focus of these pieces is always on what is wrong with the Clinton campaign. What if the result of this primary is simply because Obama is a better candidate who ran a better campaign?
J Snow is guilty of embezzlement as well. This post is obviously just an attempt to cover his tracks.
“I think he really captured early on this deep feeling in the country about needing change in Washington. And people have underestimated how deep that sense was, just how much people felt the need for change.”
What "people" might that be?