Clinton: Penn still 'in the loop'?
Posted: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 9:03 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Wow, talk about your leaks. Apparently, an employee of Burson-
Marsteller allowed a re****ter for the Huffington Post to listen in on
a conference call led by Mark Penn, who explained his new role with
Clinton and with the company. "[H]e confirmed that while his title
with the campaign had changed -- and his work load would undoubtedly
decrease -- he still would play a direct advisory role for Clinton. 'I
think you've heard that I made the decision to step down as chief
strategist of the Clinton campaign. Penn Schoen and Berland is going
to continue to poll for it and I'll continue to play a role advising
Senator Clinton and former President Clinton as well as the rest of
the leader****p of the campaign,' he said."
More: "Told that junior staff members were wondering why he would risk
the appearance of a conflict of interest, the Burson CEO responded by
saying the meeting was merely a 'courtesy call,' and indicated that he
had held similar meetings before. 'It's an interesting question,' he
said. 'As I said, it was someone I worked for -- remember, we had the
contract for a year before it was even about the free trade agreement,
and periodically, maybe, I would have a check-in breakfast every six
months. So it did not catch - it's interesting, because somebody
working on the account was well versed in politics and it just didn't
occur to anybody. I would have to say that it just didn't get
flagged.'"
"Hillary Clinton's political guru may have been pushed from the top
spot in her campaign, but he didn't land in the grave. Despite
embarrassing the White House hopeful by consulting for the Colombian
government on a U.S. trade agreement she opposes, Mark Penn remains
'very much in the loop,' a Clinton source said," per the New York
Daily News.
The New York Times looks at how things might change under new chief
pollster, Geoff Garin. "Inside the Clinton team, Mr. Penn advocated
increasingly sharp attacks on Mr. Obama as Mrs. Clinton's best option.
Long before he joined the campaign, Mr. Garin argued that her route to
success lay more in presenting her strengths than in assailing her
opponent. 'The sweet spot a campaign needs to hit is the intersection
between what makes the candidate special and what the voters feel they
need,' he explained, praising Mrs. Clinton's values, spunk and
resilience."
Politico re****ts Glover Park Group -- whose partners have a lot of
ties to Clinton -- has a contract with the Colombian government to
push for the passage of the trade agreement. Of course, the firm's
most prominent Clinton person, Howard Wolfson, took a leave from the
firm to avoid conflicts just like this one.
Roger Simon wonders whether the drama of the Clinton campaign can be
used against her with voters, who might think how she runs her
campaign is how she'll run her White House. "And while she says she is
ready from Day One to be president, she is at something like Day 430
into being a presidential candidate and her campaign seems to be going
from bad to worse to train wreck. Mark Penn, who just got booted as
her chief strategist, is only the latest problem in a campaign that
has been heavy on drama and light on results."
"'None of these folks have ever run anything, other than Hillary
running a health care task force,' David Axelrod, Obama's chief
strategist, told me Monday. "But these campaigns are big, complicated,
pressure-filled enterprises, and it is an im****tant proving ground."
The Obama campaign is going to tell voters it is proving itself every
day. It says it had a calm and deliberate strategy that it has
executed well: Win Iowa (I will write more about this in my next
column) and then aggregate delegates."
The New York Daily News: "Powerful union bosses, including a key
backer of Hillary Rodham Clinton, urged her to sack chief strategist
Mark Penn just days before she axed him, it was revealed yesterday.
Clinton backer Gerald McEntee, who heads the powerful AFSCME union of
government workers, says he told her that Penn needed to go. 'I talked
to her on Saturday and asked her to do something about this Mark Penn
fellow,' he said."
|
