Disgraced Clinton Big Whig Mark Penn Has a History of Being "Let Go"

April 9, 2008

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

It turns out that the now disgraced Mark Penn –Hillary’s former chief strategist who was forced to step down earlier this week after side dealing with Columbia– has somewhat of a history when it comes to getting canned from Presidential gigs. It turns out that his track record of “poor judgment” and complete disregard for the simple reality’s of a primary race spans all the way back to 1999 when he worked for, and was eventually let go by the Gore campaign. Yes folks, the embarrassing blow hard, Mark Penn, has managed to have his paw in two perpetual “can’t be beat” candidates into dismal campaigns which in one instance (Al Gore) ended up as a loser, while the other (Hillary) appears to be on track for a second place finish. So just why did Gore decide to let Penn go?

While a bloated, imperial operation could hardly be expected to pick up on warning signs, Gore insiders particularly fault Mark Penn, the lead among Gore’s half a dozen pollsters. Penn shares his energies with the President, Hillary Clinton and Microsoft chairman Bill Gates. Over and over, Penn told the Vice President that Bradley posed little or no threat, that Bush was not as far ahead as public polls suggested and that most voters were confusing the Texas Governor with his father. At one point, when Penn was insisting that Gore was no farther than 10 points behind Bush, a campaign official quietly asked another pollster to check Penn’s work. The number came back: Gore down by 18. Penn declined to be interviewed but let it be known through an intermediary that his position is secure.

Well as you can see from the reports above Penn really managed to utilize his “spot on” analysis back in 1999 in the same, doltish, fashion as he did for Hillary in 2008. Just as he ignored Bradley and Bush then, Penn completely ignored the smaller states and caucuses now, the very factors which has allowed Barack Obama to build on an already daunting lead. You would really think Hillary would have taken his piss poor calculations into account when hiring him, however it appears that she didn’t, and for that she has paid dearly.