Mark Penn’s Conflicted Interests

…finally catch up to him.

Clinton loyalist and Hillary’s chief political strategist Mark Penn stepped down from his position on Sunday night due to conflicting interests through his PR firm Burson-Marsteller. Clinton campaign loyalists are breathing a sigh of relief, though there is some doubt that the damage Penn did by crafting Clinton’s weak campaign strategies can be rectified in time to allow Mrs. Clinton a realistic shot at the Democratic nomination over her rival Barack Obama.

The conflict came to a head last week when Penn met with the Columbian ambassador the the U.S. in his role as Burson-Marsteller chief executive overseeing a PR campaign to help secure passage of a “fast-track” bilateral trade treaty with the US. In her role as Senator from New York, Clinton is officially opposed to the treaty along with other members of the Democratic Party leadership. Penn’s PR firm also represents clients such as the country’s largest mortgage lender Countrywide Financial, and the Blackwater Worldwide mercenary outfit blamed for many civilian deaths in Iraq.

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Filed under Campaigns, Diplomacy, Hillary Clinton, Hypocrisy, Marketing, Party Primaries, Presidential Candidates | Comment (0)

Texas, Ohio, Vermont, Rhode Island…

AAARRRRRGGGGH!!!!!

Well, John McCain locked up the Republican primary last night, and his only remaining rival Mike Huckabee good-naturedly dropped out as expected.

But alas, neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton managed to lock up anything – though God knows they should probably think about locking up their most rabid supporters, who aren’t the least bit shy of ravaging the Party while lobbing nasty epithets at each other.

I’d say it’s a problem with our primary system, which does have many problems, but I don’t really think it’s that. I think people are just too emotionally involved with personalities, and not very well-versed on how politics actually work in this country. Where “Machines” generally run the show and the best any candidate can do is hope to contribute to the policy platform come convention time.

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Hate: When is Enough Enough?

On the last day of November, 2007, a tense standoff in Rochester, New Hampshire occurred when a man walked into Hillary Clinton’s local campaign headquarters, claimed he had a bomb strapped to himself with duct tape, and took two campaign volunteers hostage. It lasted for hours before he finally allowed the hostages to leave and walked out to unstrap the “bomb” to turn himself in.

There has been quite a lot of talk in the political blogosphere about how hate speech in the ‘normal’ course of politics as usual can incite unstable people to commit terrible crimes. And as people living near the economic edge begin to fall off, we aren’t seeing any slowdown of bizarre acts and mass murders. But in politics, the hate is just getting warmed up.

On the right (RedState and FreeRepublic) the denizens were hoarding popcorn and speculating that Clinton had arranged for this attention-grab herself, liberally (ha!) salted with the usual right-wingnut hate speech we’re so used to from that corner. Fox’s Bill O’Reilly has of course embraced “The Politics of Hate” as his theme for the election season.

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Filed under Barack Obama, Campaigns, Hate Speech, Hillary Clinton, Media, Party Primaries, Politics of Hate, Presidential Candidates, Racism, Religion | Comment (0)

Hillary’s Crew Jumping Ship Again

I know, I know. We’ve heard it all before. The news of Hillary Clinton’s political death may be slightly exaggerated, so take it with a large chunk of salt. But campaign manager Patti Solis has indeed stepped down after complete Obama sweeps in last weekend’s caucuses. Where it sort of looked like Hillary wasn’t even running (for all the action on the ground coming from her camp). Can she challenge him with something better than just the same old same old DLC-type machinery? If not, Obama’s highly motivated youth movement might make her a relic.

Seems Solis was hiding the campaign’s lack of cash on hand from Mrs. Clinton, who apparently figured it out for herself clearly enough to donate $5 million of her own money to the cause. What the heck have they been buying with all the millions raised? Answer: expensive dinosaurs – campaign advisors, chairs and managers. They cost a whole heck of a lot, but they know nothing about current reality and why Obama’s eating their lunch. Check out campaign chair Terry McAuliffe on Tweety’s show last week…

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The Health Care Plans: Worthless

Now that I’m over my disappointment in the sudden withdrawal of John Edwards from the nomination race, I’m back to officially “undecided.” I’ve reservations about both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, beginning on the policy side with health care.

Since both Clinton and Obama developed their plans while taking large campaign contributions from insurers, it’s not surprising that their plans are “insurer-friendly.” Both involve mandates requiring citizens to purchase health insurance from an insurance company. Both avoid highlighting problems with the way insurance works as the reason our system is in such outrageous disarray.

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Filed under Barack Obama, Campaigns, Class War, For-Profit Insurance, Health Care, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Party Primaries, Presidential Candidates, SCHIP, Universal Care | Comment (1)

Fun and Games in Nevada and SC

Wow. I’m beginning to think this extended primary season has wreaked some havoc on the whole system, making mincemeat of the “old wisdom” about who wins what early primary being a shoo-in to the respective convention nomination.

On the Democratic side, between Clinton’s rejected lawsuit to block culinary workers at Las Vegas and Reno casinos from caucusing (the union had endorsed Obama) and her campaign’s lengthy list of dirty tricks and voter intimidation tactics in Nevada, one might wonder how the heck she managed to ‘beat’ Obama (though Obama got one more delegate out of the deal than Clinton did).

Clinton knows she won’t win South Carolina next Saturday. She might get second, but Edwards may place strongly and beat her once again. SC’s Republicans went strongly for McCain, which has Huckabee claiming Thompson stole his margin of victory and Thompson thinking about quitting. Since it’s South Carolina that has the Reconstructionist subculture wanting to secede from the union and declare itself under Sharia… er, Biblical law, one would have guessed Huck would show much better. Looks like even serious southern Republicans have more sense than they’re given credit for. Especially since they overwhelmingly rejected – with their votes – Huckabee’s disgusting defense of the Confederate battle flag.

Can’t wait to see what SC does on the Dem side, this primary circus could get even more interesting in the next few weeks (through February 5). My own personal take is that McCain is the only reasonable candidate Republicans can run. He has enough cross-over value to independents and centrist Dems to make up for the Bush deficit going in. None of the other Republicans have that.

Widespread Cheating & Vote Supression by Clinton Campaign in Clark County, NV

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