Mark Penn: The Problem Wasn’t the Message — It Was the Money

Like his salary perhaps? Had nothing to do with his inept way of running Clinton's campaign? Phew, good to know. :eyes:


The Problem Wasn’t the Message — It Was the Money

By MARK PENN
Published: June 8, 2008


Perhaps the most frustrating part of losing a close race is thinking about what else you could have done to win. You replay the campaign over and over again in your head. As an adviser to Hillary
But the endless armchair chatter often obscures what actually needed to be done.

The conventional criticisms of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign are these: she had no message; she ran just on experience; she should have shown more of her warmer side; she was too negative; President Clinton’s campaigning hurt her; and she presented herself as inevitable. It is amazing she got any votes at all.

So let’s take on a few of the myths. Even schoolchildren got the message that Mrs. Clinton was ready to be president on Day One. As a result of her campaigning and ads, people saw her as a strong commander in chief, a good steward of the economy and a champion for people who needed one.

As the primaries came to an end, she had built a coalition of working-class voters, women, older voters and Latinos, and it held together — and even strengthened — as Barack Obama gained enough superdelegates to put him over the top. Nearly 18 million people responded to her message with their votes. But she went from a lead of 120 superdelegates in early February to a deficit of 40 before last Tuesday.

Experience was a major part of the campaign message, but far from the only one. She talked about the strength it takes to make change happen. Her campaign plans were bold: universal health care, universal preschool, new retirement accounts, a strategic energy fund. She was the first to jump on the housing crisis. She showed a relentless focus on substance and issues, which appealed to working-class and middle-class voters.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/opinion/08penn.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The quasi endorsement of McCain over Obama, the embellishment of stories that would have stood on their own, the boilermakers with the blue collar boys, the constant hawkishness, the mixed message of free trade reform while YOU were lobbying for more unfair trade deals, and the general adherence to the advice your cadre of tone deaf DLC campaign "handlers" doled out.

Let's hope Clinton is the last good candidate your bunch of lobbyists turned campaign experts gets to ruin. Let's hope the DLC gets shunted off to the side permanently this time, able to advise but unable to enforce.

To be fair to Mr. Penn, there was one thing about this campaign he couldn't control, and that was her IWR vote. Many people could never have voted for Hillary based on that alone. But even after you put that aside, you still have...

1. The trumpeting of McCain's qualifications over Obama's (which just broke the rules of party loyalty sixteen ways come Sunday)

2. The attempt to reinvent herself as a down-home hero of the "hard-working people, white people"

3. The willingness to "obliterate Iran"

4. The nastiness and ubiquitousness of Bill

5. "He is not a Muslim, as far as I know"

6. Trying to play both sides of the gender fence: implying great toughness on her part/weakness on her opponent's part and even adopting sexist compliments comparing hers to that of men ("testicular fortitude"), while at the same time whining about sexism when it worked against her (Bill: "I guess it's OK to pick on the girl").

Mark's just trying to salvage his own reputation with this editorial. The truth is, he's got it all wrong. He seems to equate "success" with "getting the message out successfully," not with "crafting the right message and getting it out successfully to enough people to affect their vote." I mean:

1. What difference does it make that "Even schoolchildren got the message that Mrs. Clinton was ready to be president on Day One" if nobody believed it was really true that just because she'd been married to a president she was more ready to be one?

2. Maybe "people saw her as a strong commander in chief, a good steward of the economy and a champion for people who needed one"--but how many people was that? Not enough, I guess.

3. So what if "she had built a coalition of working-class voters, women, older voters and Latinos, and it held together" if it wasn't enough to put her over the top?

4. So what if she ran on experience, the strength it takes to make change happen, and had bold plans? Apparently that didn't matter enough to people who wanted something new. True, that was something he couldn't do anything about, either. You promote the candidate you have, not the candidate you wish you had. But that wasn't enough.

5. Maybe she did show both her "warm side" and her "warrior side" and win primary after primary against the odds. But so what--it wasn't enough.

6. So what if Bill helped her? He may have harmed her as much as he helped.

7. So what if he believes "nothing they said was ever intended to divide the country by race" and thinks "Any suggestion to the contrary was perhaps the greatest injustice done to them in this campaign"? I guess a lot of people did not agree with him.

8. Finally, the money. Whose fault is it that the campaign ran out of money? Isn't the way they went about raising money part of the reason they went broke so fast? And that kind of problem actually detracts from a campaign's image and turns into a vicious cycle--when people hear in the media that a campaign is broke, it makes them wonder how the candidate would manage the country fiscally at all, and results in fewer people being inclined to support the candidate, which means less money coming in, which means...

Face it, Penn. You blew it. On lots of fronts.

BECAUSE it is a key factor?

EVERYONE feels BETRAYED by the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq. Why do some few powerful people seem incapable of recognizing that fact?

Perhaps this War just doesn't really mean that much to them, so they are incapable or recognizing what it means to others.

That bit of misinformation caused him to assume Hillary would blow away the competition on Super Tuesday, which of course she didn't, and so he never planned the campaign beyond that date.

Thank heaven this staff will not get a chance to screw up the country.

their own mistakes.:puke:

That is not from dues but PAC money. Maybe if she had fired Mark Penn after his trade fiasco was made public, that would have helped too.