Don't Ask the Yankees to Wear Diamonds, or Tell the Red Sox to Wear Pearls, Mr. Penn

Please look thru this round-up of DU threads discussing Mark Penn, the current chief campaign "strategist" (for lack of a better term) for Senator Clinton's campaign.

Interestingly, Penn's name is popping up in multiple DU threads as a suspect in the Obama whisper campaign flap.

I think Novak is a shrewd, heartless, and - after the Scooter Libby debacle - extra cautious raconteur. I wouldn't share a beer with this man.

But the DU threads about Mark Penn are revealing. The comparisons to Karl Rove are insulting to Rove: Rove has had a consistent client list over the years (adhering to a core set of principles, of sorts), and Rove never predicted 360 Electoral College votes were in the bag for Bush, like Penn has for Clinton. It's sort of hard to insult Karl Rove, but I'll be damned if these comparisons in the DU threads don't manage to do it.

Those who are unswervingly mindless in their support of "all things Hillary" will say:

1. Novak made the whole thing up, to cause dissent in the ranks.

2. OK, maybe Novak does have high-ranking sources, but they're not campaign surrogates.

3. OK, maybe they're campaign surrogates, but they were freelancing when they said this.

4. OK, maybe they were acting with the campaign's knowledge, but not the inner sanctum's.

5. OK, maybe it was the inner sanctum, but it wasn't Mark Penn.

6. OK, so what if it was Mark Penn?

7. Why are you anti-Hillary?

I'm not. Questioning Mark Penn's tactics, his datasets, his history with other Democratic candidates (including his firing by Vice President Gore), and his "stategeric thinking" on how to find 270 Electoral College votes (let alone 360) is not anti-Hillary.

It's no less "pro-Hillary" to be asking these tough questions during the intramurals of the primaries than it was "pro-Bill" to ask tough questions about Dick Morris during the '96 re-election.

In 1996, facing the feeble token candidacy of Bob Dole, Bill Clinton could afford a late-game change to his inner sanctum line-up two months before the general.

In 2008, neither we as a country, nor Hillary as a nominee, can afford that luxury or run that risk.

For a candidate who likes to have it both ways, this should not be the time for her to choose either/or. This should be the *one* time when she really does demand to have it both ways: a brilliant AND principled chief campaign strategist is the ticket for the ticket.

After all, having it both ways is what we've come to expect from the candidate whose motto could be: "Don't ask the Yankees to wear diamonds, or tell the Red Sox to wear pearls," thanks to the poll-driven mechanics and machinations of the illustrious Mr. Penn.

- Dave

gee, candidates talking trash about each other

what a surprise

If Mark Penn doesn't know where the boundaries are, and crosses the line during the general, it could boomerang in a way that affects us all for four years starting on January 20, 2009.

- Dave

His brand is Fascism.

There is a certain nationalistic/jingoistic element missing, I think.

- Dave

A Few Degrees of Separation From Hillary Clinton's Top Adviser

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Tuesday, February 20, 2007; Page A11



Mark J. Penn is a man who wears many hats: high-paid political and corporate pollster, chief executive of an international communications and lobbying company, and chief strategist to New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Enough connections for you?


Well, there are more. Penn's firm, Burson-Marsteller Worldwide -- with 2,000 employees and $300 million a year in revenue -- owns BKSH & Associates, the major lobbying firm chaired by Charles R. Black Jr. That's right, Black, counselor to Republican presidents, reports to Clinton's top strategist.

The connections get even more entangled. Burson-Marsteller is a subsidiary of WPP Group, a London-based advertising and PR giant that owns many of the biggest names on K Street. These include Quinn Gillespie & Associates, Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates, Timmons & Co., Ogilvy Government Relations Worldwide (formerly the Federalist Group), Public Strategies Inc., Dewey Square Group and Hill & Knowlton.

To be more precise, Penn's parent company employs as lobbyists and advisers an ex-chairman of the Republican National Committee (Edward W. Gillespie), a former House GOP leader (Robert S. Walker), a top GOP fundraiser (Wayne L. Berman), and the former media adviser to President Bush (Mark McKinnon).





http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/19/AR2007021900972.html

WE NEED CHANGE IN THIS COUNTRY-NOT BUSINESS AS USUAL!

... make me a match, find me a find, catch me a loophole.

- Dave

standards you would choose as chief strategist?

Isn't it Time for Mark Penn to Leave Burson-Marsteller?
Posted November 12, 2007 | 11:18 AM (EST)


My colleague at The Nation, Ari Berman, has done more than any journalist to shine some light on how pollster-strategist Mark Penn, head honcho at PR giant Burson-Marsteller, and perhaps the most important figure in Hillary Clinton's campaign, poses a real dilemma for the candidate. Penn heads a firm that has represented everyone from union busters to big tobacco, and more recently Blackwater. (According to a Marsteller spokesperson, it was a subsidiary, BKSH & Associates, run by GOP operative Charlie Black, which helped Erik Prince prepare for congressional hearings after his employees killed civilians in Iraq).It would seem difficult to find a more controversial client than Blackwater but Penn's firm has just been retained by Spin Master.

Who is Spin Master? It turns out that Spin Master distributes Aqua Dots, a toy that was recalled last week because it contains a glue ingredient that when ingested is broken down by the body to make GHB, the "date rape" drug, which can cause unconsciousness and even death. (The Consumer Product Safety Commission says the number of children sickened by Aqua Dots has risen from two to nine in the past week.)

Penn has repeatedly stated that he has no direct contact with controversial clients like Blackwater or unionbusters. But what about the good old-fashioned American principles of responsibility and accountability -- principles which his candidate likes to invoke on the campaign trail? As Ari Berman has pointed out, the dilemma for Clinton is that Penn's firm represents many of the interests whose influence she has vowed to curtail. But as kids get sick from poisonous toys, how can Clinton keep in her corner, as her chief strategist, a man who has even limited involvement with a firm like Burson-Marsteller? Isn't it time that Clinton ask Penn to choose: my campaign to make this a safer country or a PR firm which has too many clients undermining that agenda?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/katrina-vanden-heuvel/isnt-it-time-for-mark-pe_b_72206.html

... absolutely not: I would not choose someone who views me as just another brand to hawk, position, spin, and damage control. I would want someone who shared a passion for figuring out where public opinion on important issues is malleable, and how to strike it in such a way to bend it to progressive solutions. I wouldn't want a pollster to tell me "this is the package we have to slap on you to make you sell in the current market."

Leaders lead, and they surround themselves with others who share a vision and a core set of principles.

In answer to the question posed about its being time for Clinton to ask Penn to choose: long past due, and now may be too late. He's a liability.

Surely, even his phantom data sets show that.

- Dave

they're on the side that pays them the most

and while you're getting in an uproar over the repugs

how about the Democrats

WPP's Democrats are just as well known. They include an ex-aide to President Jimmy Carter (Anne Wexler), an ex-aide to President Bill Clinton (Jack Quinn), an ex-Cabinet officer for Clinton and Bush (Norman Y. Mineta), and a former top presidential campaign adviser for Al Gore and John Kerry (Michael J. Whouley).



is Norman Mineta some kind of Repug plant?

Polling Czar



After the 1994 election, Democrats had just lost both houses of Congress, and President Clinton was floundering in the polls. At the urging of his wife, he turned to Dick Morris, a friend from their time in Arkansas. Morris brought in two pollsters from New York, Doug Schoen and his partner, Mark Penn, a portly, combative workaholic. Morris decided what to poll and Penn polled it. They immediately pushed Clinton to the right, enacting the now-infamous strategy of "triangulation," which co-opted Republican policies like welfare reform and tax cuts and emphasized small-bore issues that supposedly cut across the ideological divide. "They were the ones who said, 'Make the '96 election about nothing except V-chips and school uniforms,'" says a former adviser to Bill. When Morris got caught with a call girl, Penn became the most important adviser in Clinton's second term. "In a White House where polling is virtually a religion," the Washington Post reported in 1996, "Penn is the high priest."

Penn, who had previously worked in the business world for companies like Texaco and Eli Lilly, brought his corporate ideology to the White House. After moving to Washington he aggressively expanded his polling firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland (PSB). It was said that Penn was the only person who could get Bill Clinton and Bill Gates on the same line. Penn's largest client was Microsoft, and he saw no contradiction between working for both the plaintiff and the defense in what was at the time the country's largest antitrust case. A variety of controversial clients enlisted PSB. The firm defended Procter & Gamble's Olestra from charges that the food additive caused anal leakage, blamed Texaco's bankruptcy on greedy jurors and market-tested genetically modified foods for Monsanto. PSB introduced to consulting the concept of "inoculation": shielding corporations from scandal through clever advertising and marketing.

In 2000 Penn became the chief architect of Hillary's Senate victory in New York, persuading her, in a rerun of '96, to eschew big themes and relentlessly focus on poll-tested pothole politics, such as suburban transit lines and dairy farming upstate. Following that election, Penn became a very rich man--and an even more valued commodity in the business world (Hillary paid him $1 million for her re-election campaign in '06 and $277,000 in the first quarter of this year). The massive PR empire WPP Group acquired Penn's polling firm for an undisclosed sum in 2001 and four years later named him worldwide CEO of one of its most prized properties, the PR firm Burson-Marsteller (B-M). A key player in the decision to hire Penn was Howard Paster, President Clinton's chief lobbyist to Capitol Hill and an influential presence inside WPP. "Clients of stature come to Mark constantly for counsel," says Paster, who informally advises Hillary, explaining the hire. The press release announcing Penn's promotion noted his work "developing and implementing deregulation informational programs for the electric utilities industry and in the financial services sector." The release blithely ignored how utility deregulation contributed to the California electricity crisis manipulated by Enron and the blackout of 2003, which darkened much of the Northeast and upper Midwest.

Burson-Marsteller is hardly a natural fit for a prominent Democrat. The firm has represented everyone from the Argentine military junta to Union Carbide after the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India, in which thousands were killed when toxic fumes were released by one of its plants, to Royal Dutch Shell, which has been accused of colluding with the Nigerian government in committing major human rights violations. B-M pioneered the use of pseudo-grassroots front groups, known as "astroturfing," to wage stealth corporate attacks against environmental and consumer groups. It set up the National Smokers Alliance on behalf of Philip Morris to fight tobacco regulation in the early 1990s. Its current clients include major players in the finance, pharmaceutical and energy industries. In 2006, with Penn at the helm, the company gave 57 percent of its campaign contributions to Republican candidates.

-snip
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070604/berman

... who used many of the same smoke and mirror tactics (and maybe some of the same hallucinogens when reading the omens): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythia

I'd wager Penn has at least one item of memorabilia from his hero: P.T. Barnum.

- Dave

... and all the rest. Penn sure has raked it in on that invisible data loom of his.

- Dave

... and one I've taken to heart in speaking out on this issue: "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind" -- Dr. Seuss

Best,

- Dave

but I would still go with #1 as the most likely source for this rumor.

... is that as soon as the dust settles, Novak will find a weasel way to name who it was, or to provide just enough of a clue to say, "Oops. My goodness, everyone figured it out. How clever of the American public."

If that were to occur at just the right point, it would have the campaign on its heels. Far better to be the bearer of your own bad news in this sort of thing.

I always enjoy your very thoughtful insights.

: )

- Dave

my gut feeling tells me that you don't mess with Ms. Clinton. She has already declared open warfare on the right wing smear machine. Something tells me she has drawn Mr. Novak into her web, not the other way around. That is my sincere hope anyway. I hope you have plenty of popcorn at the ready Dave!

:popcorn:

... but I think/fear this movie turns out differently than you're hoping.

: /

Mind if I ask your thoughts on Mr. Penn?

- Dave

and I know he plays dirty, I'm just skeptical about the whole thing, especially where Novak's concerned. I just don't see the Clinton camp dealing directly with him. I would hope they're smarter than that.

... were you caught flat-footed when Carville and Matalin announced their engagement?

:rofl:

; )

- Dave

:rofl:

... with a friend.

: )

- Dave

If anything, he'd be one of the last people you'd leak or try to start something with unless you want it to backfire. Not only is Novakula all but discredited with most people (especially inside the beltway now...burnt too many bridges) and his influence since Plamegate has all but vanished. Most people inside the beltway know not only that Novakula's a political operative, but he's also a snitch...giving up sources to save his own ass.

If Penn was so devious, surely he'd find another way to plant a story...there's so many ways to do it out there. Plenty of young pups looking for a fast byline or to give their blog 15 minutes of fame. The trick to a good sliming is to confuse or distort where that rumor may be coming from...Novakula's too easy a target to both attack and discredit.

If anything, if Novakula is used, it's as a diversion. And as far as Penn...so how does he affect the future policies of this country? How does a paid consultant somehow decide policy? You seem to think this guy is the ultimate evil...so what's the real agenda here...how does he turn this into world domination?

That headline alone guarantees top-shelf attention. So much for the theory that nobody would use him now.

"And as far as Penn...so how does he affect the future policies of this country?"

By getting a Republican elected through his arrogance and poor judgment.

- Dave

Sure the headline gets attention but for what purpose? If its disclosed that Penn and Hillary's people are sliming Obama, it'll get major corporate media play that would backfire badly. It's the kind of slip-up the corporate media has been hoping Clinton would make so they could roll out all the old chestnuts and a few new ones...again, makes no sense to use Novakula who could and would easily finger a Penn or other Democrat to make sure all look bad in this situation. That's sure not a smart tactic for a person hell-bent on sliming another candidate.

Again...how does Penn affect policy? What influence does he have in getting troops out of Iraq or fixing health care or improving the economy. Also, ever heard of Morton Blackwell? If you can find ties to Penn and Novakula's buddy Blackwell then you're hitting at the heart of the GOOP slime machine.

Now who would benefit from a story that could backfire on Clinton? Me thinks the Ghouliani campaign has Novkula on speed dial moreso than Penn.

"That's sure not a smart tactic for a person hell-bent on sliming another candidate."

Just to be clear, I'm not accusing Mr. Penn of knowing what a smart tactic looks like.

For example: don't put out a campaign memo saying that there are 360 Electoral College votes in the bag. Those who can run circles around his numbers-crunching abilities will sit up and take notice of such an implausible "outlier" data point.

When a lab does labwork, there are certain ranges beyond which they just flat out know that the test was botched or tainted. Rather than reporting the result back to the doctor's office, they report that the test needs to be re-taken.

"Again...how does Penn affect policy?"

Do you mean: how has he affected it in the past? Or do you mean how are his polls driving which issues the candidate raises, which ones she glosses over, and which ones she avoids altogether? Or do you mean how will his advice affect the prospects of her winning the general, should she get the nomination? I think we can agree that losing the White House in 2008 would have at least a small impact on domestic and foreign policy.

If you're a fan of Penn, his tactics, or his strategy, I'm open to changing my mind.

- Dave

I've followed your threads and others on Penn and done my own reading...and he's not a guy I'd hang with and I'm not crazy about his clients, but I still see no connection between his firm and the policies of a possible Clinton presidency. Where's his influence? What's his agenda? Other than money? Sadly there are other Democrats who have and continue to work with Repugnicans in lobbying and consulting firms...double dipping as it were.

So far I haven't seen many issues Senator Clinton is avoiding...with all these debates, how can she? You have a corporate media gunning for her...hoping she slips up to fit their narratives. Doesn't seem like Penn is doing much to drive the agenda here other than to do polling...again...how does a pollster affect policy? And how does a pollster ensure Clinton loses the general election? He's one consultant among many...and somehow I don't see Senator Clinton as being a Manchurian candidate the way our current manchild is.

I brought up Blackwell's name to see if you're familiar with it...and to see if there's a connection to Penn. If there is, then we both would have very serious concerns here.

Cheers...

Let's be clear about his role in her current campaign (leaving aside his role in campaigns past). He's the "chief campaign strategist," for lack of a better term.

When he walks in with his oracular pronouncements on what issues are testing which way, you don't think that has an effect on how his client frames the issues? I'm not saying that she's a mindless slave to his polling, but I am saying that - as a disciplined candidate - there is a certain amount of trust she's got to be able to repose in the data he's giving her. Otherwise, she'd have to run the standard deviations for herself.

As for Blackwell, I didn't ignore that. Thanks for the finger to the nose on that.

Best,

- Dave

It's been a while since I had the links, however, during the Gannon/Gunkert "scandal" a bunch of us did some digging on his "journalistic" background and found a connection to both Blackwell and Novak as well as Arthur Finkelstein and a lot of big money from Texas. These are the same folks that brought you the purple band-aids at the RNC convention (Blackwell took credit) and the connection between all these operatives and people like Rove, DeLay and others helped fuel many a slime campaign...and also know how to play the corporate media game.

Now I'd be curious if there is a Penn connection here...which surely would raise some major red flags. I'm more circumspect of this story being planted to hurt Clinton since Blackwell is a very close pal of a certain former NYC Mayor whose only chance to win is to drive up Clinton's negative to offset his own.

Now I'd be curious how he's determining her strategy...honestly...how he's influencing the current primary or how his work would affect a general election still 8 months off? From all I see is that Penn is one pollster among many...part of a large campaign operation ($40 mil buys you a lot of strategists). Again...if there's more information to share, I'd appreciate following along.

Cheers...

... and have no doubt that we'll see attempts at mischief-making (a la swiftboating) from GOP operatives.

"Now I'd be curious if there is a Penn connection here"

I'll keep my eyes and ears open, and do some research. Unfortunately, it would be Penn-esque to start with the end goal in mind (i.e., establishing a connection between Blackwell and Penn), and then filling in the data points in between. Human nature wants to connect those dots (it's why humankind has all those different constellations drawn in the sky). If it's there, it's there, but I suspect you're a skeptical, rational sort like I am.

"From all I see is that Penn is one pollster among many"

No, he's her right hand. Please don't misunderstand his role in the current campaign.

- Dave

Just for the sake of argument, let's assume you're right: his campaign conspired with Novak, Novak agreed to falsely claim that his source(s) came from the Clinton campaign, and the whole thing was meant to cause two of the leading candidates in Iowa to take the gloves off and get personal.

Within one news cycle, the two campaigns calm the waters, much to the chagrin of the tricksters.

But one unintended consequence may have emerged: the guessing game of whodunnit causes Democratic primary voters to take a closer look at Mark Penn, and send a clear message to Senator Clinton that she has an opportunity to improve her line-up early enough to make a critical difference for the general election, should she win the nom.

Years from now, the post-mortem analysis could actually view this as having backfired on the GOP. History may decide that: many believe that had Clinton not retooled her top campaign staff at that point, she would never have embraced the policy discussions that eked out the general election victory.

- Dave