Mark Penn: (1) The Postman Always Knocks Twice; & (2) The Pigs Get Fat, and the Hogs Get Slaughtered.
From The Wall Street Journal:
While the Obama campaign so far hasn't publicly exploited Mr. Penn's controversy, and a spokesman again declined to comment last night, the strategist's actions pose a double-barreled threat the Clinton campaign had to address. First, free trade is a controversial issue in the struggling manufacturing state among working-class Pennsylvania Democrats, as it was in Ohio's primary last month.
Moreover, the disclosure that Sen. Clinton's chief strategist is advocating privately for a trade pact she opposes publicly raises questions of the candidate's credibility, a trait where polls already show her weak. Sen. Clinton won last month's Ohio contest by a big margin, in part due to her attacks on Sen. Obama's sincerity in his criticism of free-trade pacts. The Clinton criticisms of her rival were based on reports that his economic adviser had met with Canadian officials and reassured them that Sen. Obama's campaign rhetoric was harsher than his real beliefs about the North American Free Trade Agreement.
From the start of the Clinton campaign 15 months ago, other advisers have complained that Mr. Penn kept the Burson-Marsteller job. It not only held distractions from the campaign, they said, but had the potential for conflicts of interest between the firm's clients and Sen. Clinton's political stands. Previous reports have noted the firm's work for subprime-mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp., and for security firm Blackwater, the focus of congressional investigations into private contractors' responsibility for civilian deaths in Iraq. As a candidate, Sen. Clinton has been an outspoken critic of both companies.
For months before the Colombia controversy, many Clinton campaign operatives had sought Mr. Penn's demotion or ouster. He and senior adviser Harold Ickes barely speak, aides say, and Mr. Penn has clashed also with media strategist Mandy Grunwald.
Campaign insiders, as well as many Clinton supporters and donors, had privately hoped for Mr. Penn's departure.
In Ohio, Sen. Clinton had mocked Sen. Obama for what she called his "wink-wink" approach to Nafta, the 14-year-old trade agreement with Canada and Mexico -- criticizing it on the campaign trail, even as his economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, had agreed to meet with a Canadian official concerned about future U.S. adherence to the pact. While Bill Clinton cites Nafta as a top achievement of his presidency, both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama have said they would seek changes to toughen labor and environmental protections.
Reflecting her sense that the media treats Sen. Obama more kindly than it treats her, Sen. Clinton at one point during the Ohio campaign challenged a large group of reporters in regard to the Goolsbee matter, "I would ask you to look at this story and substitute my name for Sen. Obama's name and see what you would do with this story... Just ask yourself [what you would do] if some of my advisers had been having private meetings with foreign governments."
While the Obama campaign so far hasn't publicly exploited Mr. Penn's controversy, and a spokesman again declined to comment last night, the strategist's actions pose a double-barreled threat the Clinton campaign had to address. First, free trade is a controversial issue in the struggling manufacturing state among working-class Pennsylvania Democrats, as it was in Ohio's primary last month.
Moreover, the disclosure that Sen. Clinton's chief strategist is advocating privately for a trade pact she opposes publicly raises questions of the candidate's credibility, a trait where polls already show her weak. Sen. Clinton won last month's Ohio contest by a big margin, in part due to her attacks on Sen. Obama's sincerity in his criticism of free-trade pacts. The Clinton criticisms of her rival were based on reports that his economic adviser had met with Canadian officials and reassured them that Sen. Obama's campaign rhetoric was harsher than his real beliefs about the North American Free Trade Agreement.
From the start of the Clinton campaign 15 months ago, other advisers have complained that Mr. Penn kept the Burson-Marsteller job. It not only held distractions from the campaign, they said, but had the potential for conflicts of interest between the firm's clients and Sen. Clinton's political stands. Previous reports have noted the firm's work for subprime-mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp., and for security firm Blackwater, the focus of congressional investigations into private contractors' responsibility for civilian deaths in Iraq. As a candidate, Sen. Clinton has been an outspoken critic of both companies.
For months before the Colombia controversy, many Clinton campaign operatives had sought Mr. Penn's demotion or ouster. He and senior adviser Harold Ickes barely speak, aides say, and Mr. Penn has clashed also with media strategist Mandy Grunwald.
Campaign insiders, as well as many Clinton supporters and donors, had privately hoped for Mr. Penn's departure.
In Ohio, Sen. Clinton had mocked Sen. Obama for what she called his "wink-wink" approach to Nafta, the 14-year-old trade agreement with Canada and Mexico -- criticizing it on the campaign trail, even as his economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, had agreed to meet with a Canadian official concerned about future U.S. adherence to the pact. While Bill Clinton cites Nafta as a top achievement of his presidency, both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama have said they would seek changes to toughen labor and environmental protections.
Reflecting her sense that the media treats Sen. Obama more kindly than it treats her, Sen. Clinton at one point during the Ohio campaign challenged a large group of reporters in regard to the Goolsbee matter, "I would ask you to look at this story and substitute my name for Sen. Obama's name and see what you would do with this story... Just ask yourself [what you would do] if some of my advisers had been having private meetings with foreign governments."
posted by Sid Cottingham | 11:03 PM
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