LIVING POLITICS
Howard Fineman
What Was Hillary Thinking?
Picking Mark Penn to run her campaign speaks volumes.
Mark Penn has his uses. Running Hillary Clinton's campaign wasn't one of them. He was the wrong person at the wrong time for the wrong job. But, in fairness, he didn't choose himself. Hillary picked him—and stuck with him. That she did so speaks volumes about why she may well lose the race to Barack Obama.
At a time when voters clearly wanted change—big change—in Washington and in politics, Hillary chose as her "chief strategist" a multimillionaire corporate consultant who was the epitome of the D.C. lobbying and PR game of the Clinton and Bush II years.
Penn is who he is and makes no apologies for it. But what was Hillary thinking? Clearly, as the campaign began, she thought that she was on her way to a triumphal Restoration, and that having a capital courtier as guide was a proper prelude to coronation.
Only one problem: we don't generally do Restorations in America. This is not England, and the Clintons are not the Stuarts, or the Adamses or even the Bushes. Americans tend to look forward.
And voters tend not to like a candidate who insults their intelligence. Did Hillary think they wouldn't notice that her anti-corporate campaign was being run by a corporate guy?
Penn is an utterly brilliant fellow, but one who sometimes seems to understand America primarily through numbers. Though he wanted to be a political journalist when he was at Harvard, he was drawn to polling-based political consulting instead. Perhaps he found it easier to deal with people in the aggregate. In private he is a warm and considerate family man. But in business he can be brutally dismissive of anyone he thinks lacks his brains or data—which means almost everybody. He sometimes behaved as if he didn't even have to bother trying to explain things to the cretins around him.
Like many students of politics, Penn was oblivious to his own political profile. And again, it must be said, Clinton was equally blind—or arrogant—about what Penn's preeminence would signal. How else do you explain the decision to let him remain as Washington boss of Burson-Marsteller, one of the world's largest PR and lobbying firms, while, in effect, running the campaign? What planet were they on?
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Member Comments
Posted By: eddiewhere @ 04/12/2008 5:53:38 AM
Comment: Hillary's camPaign can no longer compete with Obama's. I feel bad for Hillary because she listened to misguided consultants. THEy come from a culture where lying is second nature. They have lied so much that they shot themselves in the foot. I really believe that Hillary's nasty camPaign has left a bad taste in the average person's mouth. It is going to be a tough Pill for Hillary to swallow because she has to come to terms that her campaign beat themselves. INspired by negative attack style, the Clinton campaign has been done in by their own tactics.
FIRST BOSNIA AND NOW PENN. THIS IS EXACTLy HOW WASHINGTON WORKS. HAVE pEOpLE BELIEVE yOU ARE AGAINST a SpECIFIC TRADE AGREEMENT just to get their vote AND THEN change faces and negotiate for the very same agreement you claimed to be against..
Posted By: Ganpat @ 04/11/2008 1:05:13 PM
Comment: Pivcking a rabid racial demagogue like Wright for your spiritual percepto and pastor to you and your children speaks a thousand times more volumes.
Posted By: paul962 @ 04/10/2008 8:26:58 AM
Comment: Howard, "How else do you explain the decision to let him remain as Washington boss of Burson-Marsteller, one of the world's largest PR and lobbying firms, while, in effect, running the campaign? What planet were they on?"
More & more parallels between "W" and Hillary are cropping up as we go along. It would appear as though we have a strong "decider" in Hillary. Unfortunately, no one takes responsibility at her campaign.
Then there is the apparent effect that former senator Lincoln Chaffee alluded to when, during the 2000 transition the vice president elect responded to Chaffee's questions concerning specific policy proposals for implementing "W's" campaign promises to which the VP elect famously said "the election is over now". Your quote directly addresses this pending effect of a Hillary administration. (I am pro labor until January 21, 2009 than I am pro death squad).
Then, there is the realization being cemented that Hillary, like "W" values loyalty above all else.
I will add that there is also a strong correlation between Hillary & "W" when telling the truth to the American people will be sacrificed to advance a policy position or narrative.
There are many other similarities that arisen between "W" and Hillary that I will not enumerate here today. What troubles me is that all of these are added to the aspects she shares with her husband, Bill Clinton. I had hoped that in Hillary Clinton democrats might have found a candidate that was the "spine of steel" from Bill's years while using her and her staffs superior knowledge & intellect concerning policy and political nuance to demonstrate her superiority to "W".
Unfortunately, it now appears as though there is far more negatives to go with her positives.