Backstabbing Goes Public!

The Washington Post reports that the Clinton campaign is going even more public with their internal political backstabbing even in the wake of Tuesday's victories. Anyone who couldn't see the Clinton campaign lining up Mark Penn as the fall guy had Tuesday been a disaster wasn't paying attention. But even in the wake of the wins, senior advisors are still going after Penn – and even more publicly than they had been before the Texas and Ohio primaries.

For the bruised and bitter staff around Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Tuesday's death-defying victories in the Democratic presidential primaries in Ohio and Texas proved sweet indeed. They savored their wins yesterday, plotted their next steps and indulged in a moment of optimism. "She won't be stopped," one aide crowed.

And then Clinton's advisers turned to their other goal: denying Mark Penn credit.

With a flurry of phone calls and e-mail messages that began before polls closed, campaign officials made clear to friends, colleagues and reporters that they did not view the wins as validation for the candidate's chief strategist. "A lot of people would still like to see him go," a senior adviser said.

The depth of hostility toward Penn even in a time of triumph illustrates the combustible environment within the Clinton campaign, an operation where internal strife and warring camps have undercut a candidate once seemingly destined for the Democratic nomination. Clinton now faces the challenge of exploiting this moment of opportunity while at the same time deciding whether the squabbling at her Arlington headquarters has become a distraction that requires her intervention.

Many of her advisers are waging a two-front war, one against Sen. Barack Obama and the second against one another, but their most pressing challenge is figuring out why Clinton won in Ohio and Texas and trying to duplicate it. While Penn sees his strategy as a reason for the victories that have kept her candidacy alive, other advisers attribute the wins to her perseverance, favorable demographics and a new campaign manager. Clinton won "despite us, not because of us," one said. 

Actually, I think the unnamed source of that quote is correct. Clinton pulled it out on Tuesday because of Obama's spectacular unforced error with the Canadian-NAFTA story. With his huge stumble on that one – which was actually more of a pratfall – the true believers noticed that the messiah, who they thought could walk on water, had gotten his pant legs wet. And had clay feet.

But do read the whole thing (warning, it is a long piece). The story makes it clear that there is a strong move afoot to drive Penn out despite the wins. Frankly, I think they anti-Penn faction is probably right, though. I said that Clinton needed a miracle to pull off wins on Tuesday. She got one when Obama made the first major misstep of his campaign. Counting on lightning striking twice is not much of a strategy.