No Country For Mark Penn

The Washington Post's Peter Baker and Anne Kornblut have written the most comprehensive insider account I've seen of the internal sparring inside the Clinton campaign. Unlike most articles of its kind, it does not blame one side or the other, and it manages to evince some sympathy for chief strategist Mark Penn.

Big takeaways:

**No one inside the campaign likes Mr. Penn. He does not seem to care.
**Clinton White House aide Bruce Reed was responsible for the "Change you can Xerox" line.
**There were plenty of Clinton aides (Guy Cecil, Harold Ickes) who warned against ceding the caucuses, but the Clintons themselves were too burned by Iowa

Comments

where are the clintons tax returns. what are they hiding?

Posted by jay | March 6, 2008 8:53 AM

More "liberal media" fun. The obama camp is in the middle of a melt down so the "liberal media" rehashes their same old hash. Lots of un-name sources, "one aide", "a senior adviser", "Many of her advisers." The "liberal media" playing dumb is par for the course but do we have to be their rubes?

Oh and where are obama's tax returns? Why won't he release them? What is he hiding?

Posted by hadenough | March 6, 2008 9:10 AM

No one outside the campaign likes Mark Penn either.

Posted by Jayhawk Max | March 6, 2008 10:03 AM

The Clinton campaign staff is a powerful argument against a Clinton cabinet.

Snickering at Jayhawk's post....If Penn's fired, then he's a mad loose cannon who may know where the bodies are and needn't feel any restraint about trashing his former associates....that campaign staff is becoming a fascinating microcosm. I expect Mark Henry (name?), the staffer who sprinted out the door after Solis-Doyle, is counting his blessings for getting out early.

Posted by Deborah | March 6, 2008 10:31 AM

Hillary's campaign staff must not have any Star Wars fans.

Posted by Myron | March 6, 2008 11:00 AM

No Marc: the article confirms that the main reason the Clinton Campaign didn't compete in the caucus states was because they didn't have the money to do so. They had to husband resources and (justifiably, IMO) focused on the bigger high-delegate primaries. In essence, they've been in survival mode since losing Iowa. Counter-factual: how would the media have covered the Super Tuesday results if Clinton had lost California but won the Nebraska and Idaho caucuses (or simply had not been blown out by 20-30 pts? In all likelihood, her campaign would have ended before Potomac Tuesday.

Posted by dry_fish | March 6, 2008 11:55 AM

Penn SHOULD be fired! No one can be that boneheaded. He was scared to have the ickiness of failure stuck to the bottom of his shoe, he jumped the gun, and he flipped on the camp and literally bit the hand that was feeding him. What an idiot! And, what a Benedict Arnold!

Blackballing Penn from ANY FUTURE POLITICS is a must.

Personally, I think a public stoning would be too kind to him. But, hey - that's just me. But in the event one is held - I'll be in the front row.

Posted by Susan Churchill | March 6, 2008 4:24 PM

Isn't this about setting up a fall guy for the negative campaigning once the nomination is decided? Whether Hillary ends up endorsing Obama or just courting his erstwhile supporters, she's going to have some 'splaining to do. It would be helpful, in that case, to have someone to blame.

Posted by baudelairien | March 6, 2008 8:24 PM

"Oh and where are obama's tax returns? Why won't he release them? What is he hiding?"

Catch up on your reading, dude. Obama's returns have already been released.

Posted by purplehawk | March 6, 2008 8:39 PM

Obama did release his tax returns. Clinton acts like 2006s aren't done and we know they are. They also wont release a lot of documents from when she was first lady. The problem with that is that she claims this as experience...going so far as to claim she helped to negotiate peace in Ireland. That claim is refuted by a high ranking Irish official..he was named too!!! I just don't happen to remember it right now. She has played the victim so long and so well that people really do buy it. In fact, I think she might buy it.

Posted by day | March 8, 2008 10:44 AM

When did Obama release his earlier tax returns? I read that so far he just released his current return, and not prior years.

Posted by yellowdog | March 8, 2008 8:42 PM

When did Obama release his earlier tax returns? I read that so far he just released his current return, and not prior years.

Posted by yellowdog | March 8, 2008 8:42 PM