HRC's campaign takes a big hit as Mark Penn quits

mark penn is not a nice man... however, even with his resignation, the fact that he will "continue to provide polling and advice to the campaign" tells me that the resignation is purely cosmetic...

A top campaign aide to Sen. Hillary Clinton, under fire for meeting with a Colombian diplomat to discuss a free trade deal that the presidential candidate opposes, quit his post on Sunday, the campaign said.

"After the events of the last few days, Mark Penn has asked to give up his role as chief strategist of the Clinton campaign," Clinton's campaign manager Maggie Williams said in a statement.

She said Penn would continue to provide polling and advice to the campaign.

News of Penn's March 31 meeting with Colombian Ambassador Carolina Barco Isakson, in which they discussed a free trade deal, first surfaced on Friday.

Penn apologized for the meeting, which he held in his separate role as chief executive officer of Burson-Marsteller Worldwide, a lobbying firm hired by the South American country to help win the approval by the U.S. Congress of a free trade agreement with the United States.

[...]

The controversy prompted an angry reaction from Colombia, which took offense at Penn's statement in which he called the meeting "an error in judgment."

The Colombian Embassy in Washington announced it was ending its contract with Burson-Marsteller, which had been hired a year ago.

however, whether penn is still helping hrc or not, hrc's credibility, already circling the drain, is going to take another hard blow with this, and rightfully so...

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When I read stuff like this from a so-called "liberal-progressive," I want to cry

what is it going to take from some people to get it...?

clammyc at daily kos, writing an open letter to senator chuck schumer...

Allowing for retroactive immunity in a FISA bill that had no business even being brought to the floor is not progressive. Folding to Mister Bush on Iraq over and over and over when the vast majority of the country is on your side is not progressive. Sending a big "F-You" to MoveOn.org on the Senate floor is not progressive. Allowing extremist appointment after extremist appointment by Bush is not progressive. Caving to an unpopular President and an even less popular Congressional minority is not progressive. Allowing non-progressives to continuously set the tone of the debate is not progressive.

[...]

I sincerely hope that we can recruit more progressives for the Senate, and win more seats. However, we also expect more from the lion’s share of the current Democratic Senators – on the very issues that we were promised results on. Blaming republican obstruction is part of it - but we know better. There is much more that you and your colleagues could have (and still can) accomplish if you were to keep your promises made to us back in 2006.

You can do better. We did our part for you. Now it is time that you and your colleagues really do what you promised us. If I can't trust the DSCC and who it represents to keep up your end of the deal, then you'll have to excuse me while I work for and donate money to true progressives.

No hard feelings, though...

i completely understand the value of courtesy, especially when couched in articulate and intelligent writing, but, clammyc, in all seriousness, the time for that is long past... what we are witnessing here is criminal complicity, nothing more and nothing less, and i'm thinking of the fisa votes of the "better" democrats tester and webb as i type this... what we have here is a system so rotten to the core that even brand new "better" democrats are betraying us... scratch that... they are betraying their COUNTRY...

who are we to trust...? i was beginning to warm to obama, to "catch the wave," so to speak, but, ya know what, i simply can't get past zbigniew brzezinski as one of his chief policy advisors any more than i can get past mark penn as hillary's campaign chief...

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Glenn Greenwald discovers the REAL Bill Clinton

and about damn time, too...

I've thought most of the criticisms of the Clintons' campaign, including the role played by Bill, have been overblown. Given the standard level of campaign rhetoric, and particularly considering the bile that will be launched towards Obama from the currently pro-Obama right-wing noise machine if he's the nominee, most of the "controversial" comments have been rather mild, standard election fare, generating interest primarily because it was coming from the Clintons.

Beyond that, it seemed most of the efforts to inject dramatic racial conflict into the contest were media-driven rather than an intentional Clinton strategy. And all of the grave concern over how Bill Clinton is sullying the majestic glory of his status as an ex-president -- all because he is, as anyone would, actively and aggressively campaigning for his spouse -- has struck me as silly and slightly pompous.

But the last few days have changed my view on those matters substantially. The Clintons' strategy has become increasingly trashy, even ugly, and yesterday's remarks by Bill Clinton -- in which he pointedly compared Obama's candidacy to Jesse Jackson's and thus implicitly (though clearly) dismissed South Carolina as a state where the "black candidate" wins, followed up by the Clinton campaign's anonymous branding of Obama as "the black candidate" -- reeked of desperation.

when bill clinton was running for his first term, i had an immediate and visceral gut reaction when he first began to appear as a strong candidate on the national scene, and it was not a positive reaction... to this day, i still can't put it into words or make real sense out of it... terms like "slick willy," and "too smooth" come to mind, but still don't really capture it... however, i was convinced by my first cousin's husband, an accomplished attorney and a southern democrat, that clinton was the man to support, and i reluctantly jumped on the bandwagon...

life during the 8 years of bill's reign was at least ok, if not great, but i remained uncomfortable and there remained a strong underlying suspicion that, at some level, the american people were being sold out just as effectively as we were under george h.w., altho', in grand democratic tradition and in contrast to the r's, there was at least no sand in the vaseline...

hindsight is a wonderful thing... as i look back on bill's tenure, i now see clearly the many ways that he took america to the cleaners, from nafta to the quiet and inexorable seizing of ever more executive power... i see how we were craftily led down the economic and financial rabbit hole, a descent that is paying its horrible dividends today... and, as if to cement my concerns, i've watched in fascinated horror at the blooming, but, i suspect, far from new, love fest between bill and george h.w...

given bill's role in his wife's campaign, and given his wife's noxious roll of national security and foreign policy advisors, to say nothing of her despicable campaign manager, mark penn, i believe the only thing worse for the united states than a hillary presidency would be another republican president... bill and hillary are a team aligned with dark forces and, as a country, we are long overdue in recognizing that fact...

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Time for a re-post on Mark Penn, HRC's Karl Rove

as hrc seems to be taking a hard turn toward the nasty, now hurling both ridicule and accusation - mostly in obama's direction - i think it's time to repost the item i put up back at the end of this past april that provides a wee bit of detailed background on the man i increasingly think of as hrc's karl rove, mark penn...

from the wapo...

In the four months since Clinton officially became a candidate, [Mark J. Penn] has consolidated his power, according to advisers close to the campaign, taking increasing control of the operation. Armed with voluminous data that he collects through his private polling firm, Penn has become involved in virtually every move Clinton makes, with the result that the campaign reflects the chief strategist as much as the candidate.

If Clinton seems cautious, it may be because Penn has made caution a science, repeatedly testing issues to determine which ones are safe and widely agreed upon (he was part of the team that encouraged Clinton's husband to run on the issue of school uniforms in 1996).

If Clinton sounds middle-of-the-road, it may be because Penn is a longtime pollster for the centrist Democratic Leadership Council whose clients have included Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.).

If Clinton resembles a Washington insider with close ties to the party's biggest donors, it may be because her lead strategist is a wealthy chief executive who heads a giant public relations firm, where he personally hones Microsoft's image in Washington.

And if some opponents see Clinton as arrogant, her campaign a coronation rather than a grass-roots movement, it may be because of the numbers wizard guiding her campaign and the PowerPoint presentations he likes to give on the inevitability of his candidate.

markos, atrios, david sirota, and many other bloggers working feverishly for the grassroots/netroots/unwashed masses have cited case after case of the stupendously arrogant, elitist, inside-the-beltway, dlc-anointed, democratic campaign consultants that are so pathetically out of touch with the real democratic/progressive base... today's wapo offers up the quintessential profile of one of those very folks, and then tries to make it look like hillary is passively acquiescent while he calls all the shots... i say bullshit... he's there because she wants him there... the first part of the article talks about how gore fired him from his 2000 campaign for all of the same reasons hillary apparently wants him...

fine, hillary,,, you're the candidate... you're the one that wants to be president... you choose the campaign staff you want... just don't come calling on me to vote for you...

p.s. penn's firm, penn, schoen & burland, is owned by burson-marsteller, and guess who's burson's ceo...? and guess what's featured on burson's home page...?

Burson-Marsteller CEO Mark Penn discusses the Internet's affect on U.S. campaign politics on Council of PR Firms' podcast [mp3]

from penn's burson-marsteller bio...

Mark Penn is worldwide CEO of Burson-Marsteller and President of Penn, Schoen and Berland. As CEO of Burson-Marsteller, Mr. Penn oversees a global network of 94 offices and 1600 employees that brings world-class public relations to companies around the world. As President of PSB, a position he has held since 1975 when he was an undergraduate at Harvard, Mr. Penn focuses on providing research-based communications strategy to political figures, corporations and crisis situations.

Mr. Penn has been called "Master of the Message" by Time Magazine; "The king of polls" by the London Times; and an "incandescent intellect" by the New York Times. On his wall are notes saying "you were brilliant" from Tony Blair after his historic third win and "thanks" from Bill Clinton after his impeachment acquittal along with photos of Penn working with CEOs including Bill Gates and Bill Ford, Jr. The Washington Post, in "Politics and Policy by the Numbers" summed up his influence in the White House and the corporate boardroom as a "unique vantage point: adviser to the preeminent innovator of the past decade in the realm of politics, Bill Clinton, and the preeminent innovator in the realm of business and technology, Bill Gates."

just the kind of guy to be advising hillary about how to relate to the electorate in the 2008 campaign, the most critical presidential election in the history of the united states...

hrc sold her soul a very long time ago... whether mark penn holds the marker is immaterial... she has a person like mark penn working for her because she's that kind of person herself... period...

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Mark Penn, the behind-the-scenes, DLC, Washington insider that runs Hillary 2008

read this and then guess yet ANOTHER reason why i wouldn't vote for her...

In the four months since Clinton officially became a candidate, [Mark J. Penn] has consolidated his power, according to advisers close to the campaign, taking increasing control of the operation. Armed with voluminous data that he collects through his private polling firm, Penn has become involved in virtually every move Clinton makes, with the result that the campaign reflects the chief strategist as much as the candidate.

If Clinton seems cautious, it may be because Penn has made caution a science, repeatedly testing issues to determine which ones are safe and widely agreed upon (he was part of the team that encouraged Clinton's husband to run on the issue of school uniforms in 1996).

If Clinton sounds middle-of-the-road, it may be because Penn is a longtime pollster for the centrist Democratic Leadership Council whose clients have included Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.).

If Clinton resembles a Washington insider with close ties to the party's biggest donors, it may be because her lead strategist is a wealthy chief executive who heads a giant public relations firm, where he personally hones Microsoft's image in Washington.

And if some opponents see Clinton as arrogant, her campaign a coronation rather than a grass-roots movement, it may be because of the numbers wizard guiding her campaign and the PowerPoint presentations he likes to give on the inevitability of his candidate.

markos, atrios, david sirota, and many other bloggers working feverishly for the grassroots/netroots/unwashed masses have cited case after case of the stupendously arrogant, elitist, inside-the-beltway, dlc-anointed, democratic campaign consultants that are so pathetically out of touch with the real democratic/progressive base... today's wapo offers up the quintessential profile of one of those very folks, and then tries to make it look like hillary is passively acquiescent while he calls all the shots... i say bullshit... he's there because she wants him there... the first part of the article talks about how gore fired him from his 2000 campaign for all of the same reasons hillary apparently wants him...

fine, hillary,,, you're the candidate... you're the one that wants to be president... you choose the campaign staff you want... just don't come calling on me to vote for you...

p.s. penn's firm, penn, schoen & burland, is owned by burson-marsteller, and guess who's burson's ceo...? and guess what's featured on burson's home page...?

Burson-Marsteller CEO Mark Penn discusses the Internet's affect on U.S. campaign politics on Council of PR Firms' podcast [mp3]

from penn's burson-marsteller bio...

Mark Penn is worldwide CEO of Burson-Marsteller and President of Penn, Schoen and Berland. As CEO of Burson-Marsteller, Mr. Penn oversees a global network of 94 offices and 1600 employees that brings world-class public relations to companies around the world. As President of PSB, a position he has held since 1975 when he was an undergraduate at Harvard, Mr. Penn focuses on providing research-based communications strategy to political figures, corporations and crisis situations.

Mr. Penn has been called "Master of the Message" by Time Magazine; "The king of polls" by the London Times; and an "incandescent intellect" by the New York Times. On his wall are notes saying "you were brilliant" from Tony Blair after his historic third win and "thanks" from Bill Clinton after his impeachment acquittal along with photos of Penn working with CEOs including Bill Gates and Bill Ford, Jr. The Washington Post, in "Politics and Policy by the Numbers" summed up his influence in the White House and the corporate boardroom as a "unique vantage point: adviser to the preeminent innovator of the past decade in the realm of politics, Bill Clinton, and the preeminent innovator in the realm of business and technology, Bill Gates."

just the kind of guy to be advising hillary about how to relate to the electorate in the 2008 campaign, the most critical presidential election in the history of the united states...

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