A Footnote

At the end of a pretty long post Marc Ambinder reports "Penn's mistake notwithstanding, he still retains the confidence of the Clintons and will still play a major role in the campaign. What does that tell you about the quality of advice the Clintons believe him to impart?"

To me, this has always been the Penn issue, and it's really not an issue that firing -- or pretending to fire -- Penn can resolve. At the end of the day, Hillary Clinton is the kind of person who has looked at Mark Penn's work in US politics over the past 10-15 years and deemed him to be a valuable source of insight. Someone who thinks that can (and does) easily pass the "better than John McCain" bar, but it still makes her a poor choice to lead an attempted revival of progressive politics in the United States.

Comments

And while we're in Bush comparison mode, wouldn't it be great to have another president who doesn't know a bad advisor (or, say, Defense Secretary) when he or she sees one?

Posted by Brent | April 7, 2008 12:25 PM

The whole Penn thing certainly does cut against her whole "Ready On Day One!" schtick.

Posted by Jake | April 7, 2008 12:33 PM

Valuing personal loyalty over competence--how could that possibly go wrong?

Posted by DTM | April 7, 2008 12:37 PM

Well, isn't this a pretty dangerous line of approach to take for a strong Obama supporter.

For example, aren't some of the biggest complaints made against Obama based on the ideological backgrounds of his own advisers, particularly those on the economic front?

And wasn't there some "Reverend" fellow---I can't quite remember his name---who was extremely close to Obama for almost twenty years, probably longer than Penn's been close to Hillary?

Posted by RKU | April 7, 2008 12:38 PM

RKU,

It is only dangerous if you don't make reasonable distinctions.

For example, I suppose Reverend Wright has been a spiritual "adviser" to Obama, but that is not quite the same thing as the person who was your top political strategist (and who appears to be continuing as a close political advisor regardless of any recent title changes).

Posted by DTM | April 7, 2008 12:49 PM

And wasn't there some "Reverend" fellow---I can't quite remember his name---who was extremely close to Obama for almost twenty years, probably longer than Penn's been close to Hillary?

Indeed, and yet, strangely, Obama shows no evidence of having been adversely affected by the man. Zip.

As for Hillary and Penn? I think the record so far speaks for itself.

Posted by Jake | April 7, 2008 12:51 PM

Matt,

You should write the definitive "why Mark Penn sucks" post. Just exerpting your own fine work over the past year should get you most of the way there.

Posted by ann | April 7, 2008 12:56 PM

RKU - yawn. Rev Wright can in no way be considered an advisor to the Obama campaign. Wright's misjudgements have been roundly condemned by Obama--using one of the most admired political speeches in recent years to explain precisely why the Rev Wright was wrong and why Obama repudiates his controversial opinions/philosophy/judgements and he has been dropped from his minor role in the campaign.

Pen's misjudgements are nowhere near as egregious (which is why the comparison is silly) but he remains in no way repudiated by HRC. This just looks like extremely poor judgement.

Obama is so right about how the body politic has been poisoned. That this kind of thing has to be explained over and over and over...

Speaking of which, are Penn and Rove really in such different leagues. I would have thought that they have been learning from each other, mutually refining and adapting the dark arts for the modern news cycle.

Posted by Chris Dornan | April 7, 2008 12:58 PM

Well, here's the difference between assessing Hillary and Obama.

It's pretty reasonable to assume that a Hillary presidency would just be run by the same bunch of political hacks who dominated the Clinton terms, perhaps somewhat modified by the different political landscape (e.g. strong Democratic control of congress and a much more "populist" economic climate, plus a total Republican disaster in Iraq).

But with Obama, there's really no track record, so he's basically a blank slate, which has its political positives and its political negatives.

Since he's never made economic decisions, people just look at his leading economic advisers---not entirely fair, but what else can you do?

And on racial/ethnic issues, can *anyone* point to an individual who's been more influential in his thinking over the last 20 years than our friend Wright? I haven't read his autobiography, but maybe someone here who has can provide a few names.

Obviously, a candidate who's running very heavily on "racial issues" must have had SOME mentor or adviser on those matters, someone who shaped his ideas, either Wright or someone else.

Here's a piece of advice for the Obama backers. Politics and media abhor a vacuum. If you can't---quickly!---find someone who obviously helped form Obama's views in that area, the Republicans and their TV ads will just say "Wright", and since he'll be the only name out there, his name will probably stick.

Posted by RKU | April 7, 2008 1:18 PM

Is Penn the fat one or the guy who doesn't talk?

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 7, 2008 1:27 PM

RKU,

First, I find that most people complaining about Obama's economics advisers tend not to actually know much about them.

Second, Obama isn't "running very heavily on 'racial issues'." In fact, when he discusses race, he generally makes a point of stating that he thinks very few issues are truly limited to people of any particular race.

Finally, for Obama's actual political mentors, I'd nominate the late Paul Simon, also a Senator from Illinois.

Posted by DTM | April 7, 2008 1:35 PM

DTM:

Well, Sen. Paul Simon would be a perfectly respectable name to use as Obama's mentor, if some plausible case can be made for that role.

Look, I haven't read Obama's autobiography. But Steve Sailer (boo! hiss! hiss!) HAS read it, and claims that a very large portion of the part dealing with Obama's adulthood focuses on Wright and his role in shaping Obama's thinking. I don't have a clue whether this is accurate or not.

If it turns out that Obama devoted 30 pages to Sen. Paul Simon and his role in shaping Obama's life and beliefs, then that should be put front-and-center NOW. But if Obama barely even mentioned Paul Simon's name...well, someone needs to come up with a different "talking point" and FAST...

Posted by RKU | April 7, 2008 1:50 PM

Matt,

Did you see this? Penn was back on the campaign conference call, acting as the voice of the campaign.

It looks like the whole "Penn firing" thing never really happened. They must have done it to try to cover for a couple of gaffes over the weekend.

Posted by ben | April 7, 2008 2:25 PM

Well it explains why Hillary defended lobbyists against Obama and Edwards. Lobbyists help everyday people, like the Columbian government!

My guess is that Penn knows deep down in that black heart of his that Hillary's not going to win, so he was just making cash on the side for the time being. Cynical, but hey, that's the Clinton coterie for you.

RKU, you are so wrong in many different ways. I don't know where to start. You a Hillary fan? Or a McCain fan? Obama's record is better than either of those two.

Hillary's campaign has had so many gaffes it's funny. Even her attempt to go all "Tonya Harding" on Obama was kind of funny. Her administration would certainly be fun to watch, although I bet McCain would beat her. Why go with Republican lite when you can get the real thing with McCain?

Soundbites about 9-11 & Reverend Wright are all the Republicans and Hillary backers can respond with and fortunately it doesn't look like it will be enough.

Posted by Peter K. | April 7, 2008 3:23 PM

RKU: Perhaps you'd care to specify exactly what you think Obama's stated attitudes about race and/or his connections with Wright would actually mean in terms of his actions as President.

All this "what do we know about Obama" stuff begins to sound like a fear that Obama will somehow turn into...what? Malcolm X? ...after he's elected. That doesn't seem too likely to me.

Or is it a fear that he will spend all his time pushing some race issue that render his entire administration useless because he's fighting some race war with Congress or the press instead of dealing with other issues...like Clinton with the health care fiasco? That doesn't sound too likely to me either.

Or are you simply concerned that the Republicans will make these arguments? I think we can assume they will. Nothing is beneath them.

I'm not going to accuse you of anything, but this sort of vague "concern" stuff can easily start sounding like a cover for another agenda.

So, what's your point - specifically?

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 7, 2008 5:57 PM

RKU,

Obama does indeed discuss Paul Simon in The Audacity of Hope, describing his friendship with Simon and Simon's influence on him. There and elsewhere, Obama has praised Simon's empathy, honesty, and ability to "disagree without being disagreeable", and has noted that while Simon was generally known as a liberal, he was able to consistently win the votes of many conservatives in Downstate Illinois.

By the way, this is all pretty well-known among people who knew Paul Simon, since Simon was supporting Obama's primary run before his untimely death (even cutting an ad which aired after his death), and Simon's daughter Sheila has continued to be an active supporter. I gather you think it is Obama's fault that you are commenting so much about Obama without knowing any of this, but I would tend to disagree.

Posted by DTM | April 7, 2008 7:07 PM

Oh, and David Axelrod managed Paul Simon's upset victory to win his Senate seat in 1984, and then also worked on Simon's 1988 presidential campaign.

Posted by DTM | April 7, 2008 7:15 PM