Mark Penn: Issue or Non-Issue?

[Colobo]

You decide.

[LWolf]

1. How could he NOT be an issue?

Only if the party is corrupt beyond redemption.

[jgraz]

5. Parts of our party ARE corrupt beyond redemption

And sadly, that likely includes our "inevitable" nominee.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[LWolf]

11. Great quote. n/t

[MonkeyFunk]

2. It's a silly non-issue

that 99% of Americans will never hear about, much less give a shit.

[Mojorabbit]

7. We will know soon

if it has legs or not I guess.

[movonne]

24. but I don't understand, why to you it is a non-issue?? does this

remind you of bush backers..everything bush did was a non-issue...is you love for hillary that great?? will you stand by her no matter what she says or does??

[MonkeyFunk]

29. as I've said

very very few Americans even know what Blackwater is, and the link between Clinton and Blackwater here is so tenuous, it might as well be a attempt to link Blackwater to Kevin Bacon.

There IS no "link" there.

[movonne]

39. And as I asked...why is it a non-issue to you??? don't you care??

[MonkeyFunk]

52. It's entirely a non-issue to me

because the degrees of separation are ridiculous.

PR firms and law firms always have clients you or I may not like - that's their job.

Clinton has no control over Penn's client list, so trying to smear her with this is just stupid.

[Ken Burch]

55. It's NOT an issue that a DEMOCRATIC presidential candidate has a right-wing unionbuster on staff?

The fact that people haven't heard about simply means its been covered up, not that it doesn't matter.

[Hippo_Tron]

57. Americans don't give a shit about a lot of things that happen to be important

The only reason we still have that silly Cuban Embargo is because of apathy on the part of most Americans.

[hisownpetard]

3. K&R!! n/t

[oasis]

4. A pathetic attempt by the Edwards camp to derail the Hillary bullet train.(eom)

[PurityOfEssence]

45. followed by the puerile sneering of a fawning toady in awe of raw power

Her love is power, too; you've got a lot in common, including the high plane of discourse.

She wouldn't give you the time of day, though. That is, unless you're one of the "quality" people.

Machaivelli was a creampuff.

[oasis]

47. I don't seek the "time of day" from my elected offcials. Competent, effective government

is good enough for me. That's my goal.

However, I'm sypathetiic toward those on the quest for that elusive messiah who will heal the world of its ills.

[PurityOfEssence]

48. Well, thanks for taking the timex

You took a licking and kept on ticking.

I don't think she's effective or competent (which are the words that seem to be endlessly bandied about about her) for ANYTHING but self-promotion. Her ability to be elected has only been shown against two stiffs in a pretty bright blue state.

The very act of endless positioning and parrying makes for rather flaccid and contradictory policy and overly cautions status-quoing. This is one of my major beefs against Senator Clinton: she, like her husband, is so obsessed with being liked and currying the favor to obtain and secure power that she is of little value to the rest of us; we're merely spear-carriers in her grand pageant.

I'm dead-serious about this: she is a maneuverer; her very fiber is bent toward position and power, not change or boldness. I don't trust her. I don't trust her on a deep level, and beyond that, think that her focus on the evasive tai-chi she uses to swirl her way into unassailability is such that the very concept of her standing and fighting is alien to her.

Nice of you to deflect this back to constructive discourse, but the very rancor of sweeping triumphalism like in your prompting post sets many of us on edge for just this reason: there's no there there. There's not even a concept that there SHOULD be a there there. The presumption that her ascension to the lofty perch of power will suddenly change her personality and ingrained habits doesn't pass the sniff test. To pursue a policy path that's favorable to wage earners and the rest of the world would be such a betrayal of her backers that she'd need to skip from hidey-hole to hidey-hole faster than you can say Jack Kennedy, and that just doesn't sound in character.

I'm tired of the blatant misrepresentation. She's an ultramoderate and a mega-appeaser, and even if the economic model we're following was viable, I still wouldn't want her at the helm.

Triumphalism is based on black and white. If she gets nominated, election will be INCREDIBLY hard, if not outright impossible, and a lot of it will come from the lassitude and reluctance of people like me. Yeah, we'll slog in and cast the dutiful vote, but our hearts won't be into it to the degree of canvassing and actively promoting her to waverers and reactionaries; our hearts just won't be in it even if we can choke back the disgust.

It's just a dreary and demoralizing display: the frenzied support of a hollow and cynical opportunist with endless enemies from every faction imaginable. Big deal. Big Silver Streak. Wow. The Twentieth Century Incredibly Limited. The Train They Call The City of New Orleans (right after Katrina). The Wabash Rollerball. The Little Engine that Couldn't. The Golden Spite.

Notice the real disgust. It's not just anger at her. It's not just Clinton-fatigue. It's not just misogyny. It's real, true revulsion of an apparatchik.

[killbotfactory]

6. He's a son of a bitch

But, you know, Hillary remains the frontrunner so who cares if the guy busts unions. :eyes:

Hillary will have to lose the primary before people realize what a shit heel Penn is.

[emilyg]

9. Not an issue for me.

[Ken Burch]

56. NOTHING is an issue to you. For that matter, ISSUES aren't an issue to you.

You just want someone to win power-in-name as a Democrat.

Your posts, with all due respect, embody the off-putting arrogance that is a hallmark of HRC's supporters. We can only hope and pray that, should she be nominated, she can transcend the ugliness of her supporters and treat the progressive majority of the party and the things we fight for with the respect and support we deserve.

[jgraz]

12. Non-issue to Hillary supporters, issue to everyone else

Once you've decided that Hillary is your candidate, what's one more moral outrage?

[Colobo]

13. Hehehehe...

[AtomicKitten]

14. Whether it is an issue or not is completely subjective.

I would suspect Hillary supporters think it's no big deal.

I'm of the "the company you keep" camp and think those they surround themselves with reflect on the candidate, and in this case: ewwwwww.

[sandnsea]

15. Of course it's an issue

One would have to be bathing in the river of denial to not know this is an issue. How many scandals does it take before people can admit they've been had.

[Taverner]

16. An issue, but not worth voting 3rd party over

Unless you are a childish and selfish bastard - in which case you don't belong in a democracy. Democracy is about making a better decision, not the *BEST* one.

[durrrty libby]

17. This is only an issue for drooling Hillary Haters. The more

she dominates the greener their spittle.

[jgraz]

19. "drooling Hillary Haters"

In other words, anyone who wishes to choose a different candidate. :eyes:

[durrrty libby]

20. "In other words" No

[jgraz]

22. You can't have it both ways, as much as you'd like to

Your contention is that anyone who has a problem with this is a "drooling Hillary hater".

Really? Anyone? Every DU poster who raises an objection to this guy is "drooling hater"? Have you spent your morning taking a survey of the posts? Do you really want to add anyone who raises this issue to your list of "haters"?

Or is the real objective to shut down debate on this topic as quickly as possible before it does any more damage to your amoral candidate?

[durrrty libby]

23. That's not what I said. That is what YOU said.

[Mojambo]

30. Well, there's still time to clarify your ridiculously broad brushed statement...

If you'd like to.

[durrrty libby]

31. If you are not a drooling Hillary Hater it does not apply to you

Pretty fucking simple. So simple,even a bird brain should get it.

But apparently...not

[Mojambo]

32. It's an issue to me. Does that make me a drooling Hillary hater?

Is that not what your post says?

Some of you Hillary supporters are so full of shit I don't want to get near you without wrapping myself in toilet paper.

[durrrty libby]

33. " Does that make me a drooling Hillary hater?" You get to define yourself

So from your post you seem more like a feces mop

[jgraz]

34. There's the sterling rhetoric we've come to expect

Thanks for never disappointing.

[Forkboy]

28. This isn't an issue but Obama stinking in the morning is imoportant to them.

They're gone past the point of no return. :)

[jgraz]

35. Don't forget Edwards' house and his haircut

Maybe if he got the haircut from the same guy that did Suharto's hair, it'd be OK.

[gateley]

26. Not true. I don't dislike Hillary, and actually like her somewhat. But I would

would look with caution at any candidate who did business with a company that has such a reputation.

I would look with caution at MY candidate if he were to do so.

It just doesn't leave a good taste in my mouth -- I'm sorry to hear she hooked up with this guy.

[lumberjack_jeff]

53. Rush? Is that you?

[JackORoses]

18. What more do you expect from Corporate Shillary?

[Mojambo]

21. DEAL BREAKER. n/t

[gateley]

25. Issue. I would think less of my candidate if he were to utilize the services of

a PR firm that has the rep of being the go-to company for sleaze bags. Sleaze bags with money, but sleaze bags nonetheless.

Who you associate with says a lot about YOU.

[Forkboy]

27. Penn has been an issue for me all along.

The fact that he doesn't bother Hillary supporters (or at least the vocal ones) says a lot about their beliefs and values to me.Or lack thereof.

[calteacherguy]

36. Only with bloggers, DU, and the like. It won't be an issue for the average voter.

And therefore it's effect on the race will be nil.

[Bullet1987]

38. If he didn't have ties to Blackwater, I don't think it would be as big of

an issue with people that it is.

[jgraz]

40. Well, thank god we'll be able to keep the average voter in the dark

:eyes:

[wndycty]

37. Non-issue the same f'ed up standards we hold other candidates to can come back. . .

. . .and bite us in the ass.

[zulchzulu]

41. Keep Mark Penn in the Clinton campaign

:rofl:

As long as some think it's an issue and the Clinton Team is on the defensive, I say we should give Mr. Penn a chance.

I personally don't care one way the other. There is MacAuliffe and Carville too...

[SaveElmer]

42. Red Meat for DU...no one else gives a rats ass...nt

[durrrty libby]

43. That's it in a nutshell

[Yukari Yakumo]

46. I'm thinking the same thing.

A third of us here calls it a non-issue.

And probably about a third of DU will vote for Kuch in the primaries. (Or at least it seems like it.)

So basically this "issue" will play well to the choir, but will get largely ignored in the grand scale of things.

I can't wait until February. The tombstones has better be falling like rain.

[Carrieyazel]

44. Not an issue for me. Because with or without Mark Penn, she's running the same lame campaign.

[starroute]

49. This alone should give you pause

Can you really trust a campaign that's being run by somebody whose firm's greatest claim to fame is establishing the blueprint for how to use rigged polls in the service of regime change?

http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/venezuela/4372.html

Since 2000, this smooth new strategy to influence elections and topple regimes has been implemented in many other countries. Dubbed as the "post-modern coup" by Jonathan Mowat, the same brilliant techniques were used in Belarus in 2001, in Georgia in 2003, and in the Ukraine in 2004, to name a few. Although it ultimately failed in Belarus, in Georgia the U.S. effort produced the "Rose Revolution" which overthrew President Eduard Shevardnadze. In the Ukraine it was the "Orange Revolution" that installed Victor Yushchenko in 2004. Each time, groups financed by the NED, and USAID worked inside the country to build popular support for the opposition candidate. Each time they constructed an appealing campaign image using the modern marketing tactics that they have perfected along the way. And each time, they used Penn, Schoen & Berland election "polls" to shape the public's perception.

In his article, "Coup D'etat in Disguise," Jonathan Mowat described how these "polls" work:

"Penn, Schoen and Berland (PSB) has played a pioneering role in the use of polling operations, especially "exit polls," in facilitating coups. Its primary mission is to shape the perception that the group installed into power in a targeted country has broad popular support. ""...the deployment of polling agencies' "exit polls" broadcast on international television...give the false impression of massive vote-fraud by the ruling party, to put targeted states on the defensive."

That is, the goal is to either get enough support to sway the election in their favor, or, if that isn't possible, to give the impression that the elections were fraudulent and encourage the population to overturn them. The strategy has been so successful in overthrowing regimes, or installing the regimes that the U.S. prefers, that the operation has evolved into a blueprint to be used in countries around the world.

[maximusveritas]

50. I don't like him, but he's not a big issue for me

I'd rather focus on where Hillary stands than where her advisors stand, even those as close to her as Penn. As long as she doesn't share his line of thinking, I'm fine with her including him in her circle.

[Ken Burch]

59. She favors globalization and MORE outsourcing.

Therefore, she DOES share Penn's Republican view of the labor movement and working people.

Unless she changes this, her campaign can't possibly be worthy of the support of this country's workers, since her biggest donors are on the OTHER side.

[illinoisprogressive]

51. this guy plays in influential role in Clinton's campaign and life

What you see is another round of Karl Rove if she is elected. it also shows her lack of judgment and that character matters little.

[Luminous Animal]

54. He'sa union buster.

A big fucking issue for me.

[Hippo_Tron]

58. An issue, but by itself wouldn't make me vote against Hillary

[elana i am]

60. it's an issue in so much as

i would expect a democratic presidential candidate to care enough to run a campaign devoid of even a hint of impropriety or conflict of interest. so this suprises me. does it effect my view of her as a candidate in any meaningful way? not really, because i've never trusted her before and don't expect i ever will.

i'm still learning the ropes of politics, but this just seems like a kind of ooky repug-like thing to do.