interesting article inside the Clinton Campaign, (Mark Penn should NEVER be hired again)

[JI7]

these things are always fascinating to read after elections. i look forward to hearing from more people including the Obama campaign. it does make you wonder how things would have been if she had fired or never hired Mark Penn.


<Insiders say control over the campaign resided with a small clique of loyalists close to Sen. Clinton but at odds with each other. Ultimately, however, she relied on an inner circle of two -- her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and their longtime pollster, Mark Penn -- whose instincts often clashed with those of the campaign veterans around them.

As Sen. Clinton's presidential campaign took shape amid her easy Senate re-election race in 2006, she wanted Mr. Penn to serve as both chief strategist and sole pollster. Virtually no one else in the campaign did. Since his work on Mr. Clinton's 1996 re-election, current and former associates have criticized Mr. Penn as too data-driven, more comfortable with centrist general-election campaigns than Democratic primaries, socially awkward and not a strategic thinker.

Advisers point to a missed opportunity. Veteran Iowa organizer Steve Hildebrand had sought a job with Sen. Clinton in mid-2006. In a 45-minute interview, the senator talked about congressional elections but never mentioned the coming presidential race, Mr. Hildebrand says. Months later, he signed on as Sen. Obama's deputy campaign manager and oversaw his Iowa push.

Mr. Ickes, a rules expert, had long argued against the strategy. Last June at a meeting at the Penn home, Mr. Penn suggested Sen. Clinton would get all 370 state delegates when she won California's primary, attendees say. Mr. Ickes, they say, mocked him: "The vaunted chief strategist" doesn't know that party rules aren't winner-take-all?

Mr. Penn calls the account "totally false."

Then and later, others say, Mr. Ickes would lecture that the rules give each candidate delegates in proportion to their share of the vote. He argued that Sen. Clinton should compete even in caucuses she'd lose to limit Sen. Obama's delegate gains. "Even if you lose, you win," these people recall Mr. Ickes saying. But he failed to press the matter, they say.>

more at

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121252558317842545.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[C_U_L8R]

1. Penn - the one they lied about firing

Well what can you say... they earned every bit of what they got

[eridani]

2. Funny that they never mentioned Penn being an amoral sociopath n/t