Sunday, April 6, 2008

Clinton Fires Penn

Mark Penn has been the chief political strategist for the Clinton campaign for the length of the campaign. That is no longer the case, as Ben Smith of the Politico reports. This is largely because of Penn's private work consulting for Colombia. 

What strikes me as interesting about all this is the Clinton machine was supposed to be political juggernaut. The hiring of Mark Penn represents yet another strategic misstep in a series of missteps. This campaign was supposed to crush all other democratic competition in the primary long ago. Yet they failed to organize properly in Iowa, then they took their positive momentum from New Hampshire and squandered it in South Carolina. Then after fighting Feb. 5th to a tie, her campaign was caught flat-footed and lost 11 straight contests in the month. And even now in continuing to fight for Michigan and Florida delegations, despite the fact those states broke the rules, the Clinton campaign continues one dominating trend. 
Rather than finding a compelling positive narrative for her presidency, the campaign continues to look for flaws in the opposition, and poking at national wounds. Americans want a reason to vote for someone, not against someone else. That history is as old as American politics and yet somehow her campaign and Mark Penn, managed to miss it. 

No comments: