Penn Thrown Under Bus
Not that he didn't deserve it, mind you, but the Clinton campaign has finally thrown Mark Penn under the bus. Frankly, he exercised an appalling lack of judgment by meeting with Colombian officials who had hired his firm to lobby for passage of the free trade deal. (Clinton has been opposed to that deal because she is courting the unions.) But I'm surprised he has lasted this long, given the terrible performance of the campaign to date.
Mr. Penn, who has been associated with Mrs. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton for a dozen years, has come under withering criticism for continuing to consult with clients as chief executive of Burson-Marsteller, the international lobbying and public relations firm.
He has also been held responsible for the flawed electoral strategy considered partly responsible for Mrs. Clinton’s difficult political position, trailing Senator Barack Obama by more than a hundred delegates and with a very narrow path to winning the Democratic nomination.
In a terse statement, Maggie Williams, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager, 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.”
His polling firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, will continue to provide polling and advice to the campaign, the statement said.
Geoff Garin, the newly hired pollster, and Howard Wolfson, Mrs. Clinton’s longtime communications director, will coordinate the campaign’s strategic message team going forward.
Campaigns that start firing senor members are generally well down the road to ruin before they do so. Had Clinton been ahead at this point, she probably would have figured out a way to keep him in his position. With her behind and with an obvious problem with the unions over Penn, all she could do was throw him overboard.
By Mockinbird, Monday, 7 April , 2008 @ 12:44 pm
Boy, she’s some chief executive!