Mark Penn: Loser and Faker

An analysis of the ideas of Mark Penn, serial campaign loser and Hillary Clinton's chief strategist, provides interesting insight into what has gone wrong with her tragic campaign, and with DLC-style strategy in general.

Personally, I first heard about Penn about a year ago when was being interviewed on the radio about his book Microtrends, in which he supposedly took a marketer's lens to demographic data and finely classified the American population into many distinct sub-cultural groups. This was relevant to his role as Clinton's chief campaign strategist: He was going to run her campaign as he had his others, and as the DLC-oriented always do - by identifying just the right combination of pools of 'swing' voters that can be then appealed to.

On the surface of it, maybe this isn't such a bad idea. After all, marketing, which lives by these methods, has evolved into a remarkably effective industry. However, when you mix ideology and marketing... you get another thing entirely.

One day while waiting in an airport I picked up a magazine that had a review of his book and brief synopsis of Penn's demographic groups. I think there were something like 64 of them, and as I read through the lot - "Archery moms" "Extreme Commuters" "Office Park Dads" "Caffeine Crazies" "Cougars" "Unisexuals" and so on - what ended up striking me was that I couldn't find myself or most of the people I'm close with. I was actually offended - you'd think with almost 70 groups he could find room for myself and my friends within the American family!

If he chose not to see or care about me, or my mom, or most my friends, then it must be that there are plenty of other people out there that also just don't register in Penn's published version of America. And that's the important point here... Fast forward to now and what do we have? The Clinton campaign is consistently shocked (!) (and appalled!) at the people that are voting for Obama.

You can see it most prominently in their constant dismissal of the Democrats in various (actually most) states. They are incensed that Democrats in the likes of Idaho and Colorado are getting a say in who the nominee is. These boutique states don't count! In fact, not only are they incensed, but somehow this campaign, in spite of employing multi-million dollar consultants like Penn, seems to have totally neglected from the start that the rules are unambiguous that Dems in these places definitely do get a say! Hillary had no presence in these states, allowing Obama to rack up huge delegate gains. It's like Penn just plain forgot they were out there (oops), even though the delegate math was available to anyone who was interested over two years ago! And now they are annoyingly getting in the way of Hillary's right to the nomination.

The same can be said of many of the demographic groups that seem to be Obama's base of support nationwide. I'm thinking in particular of younger people, singles without kids, and so on. Crucially and very tellingly, these are the groups most conspicuously absent from, or at least underrepresented in, Penn's analysis of American demographics. And lo and behold, these are the people who Hillary's campaign can't stand. They don't need a president, they need a feeling! Who are these under 40 non-working-class non-Hispanics? And why are they all of a sudden allowed to vote?!

So whether it's red and purple state democrats, or various Obama demographics, to Penn and his staff these people didn't matter going in, and they shouldn't matter now.

Penn's analysis, and the resulting method of campaigning, has been ruinous to Hillary Clinton, and with all of these insults, disastrous to Democrats as a whole.

Penn broke America down into what he wanted to see, and charged headlong into the campaign with that, to Hillary's great peril. And why would a supposed marketing genius do that, rather than accurately survey what's out there? I read an excellent theory Penn, and the DLC, as always, are wrong, corrupt, and a recipe for defeat.
here, the idea being that Penn's corporate ties, and the pro-corporate, pro-entrenched-interest orientation of the DLC as a whole, prevent them from appealing to a wider audience. Not only do they insist, election after election - unsuccessfully I might add - on trying to put together the same 50 + 1 Democratic coalition of swing voters (those "Archery Moms" and so on), because they are stupid, but they do it because they can't add other demographics and keep their pro-establishment bent. "Archery Moms" exist in Penn's world because some of them can be swayed by a pro-establishment DLC campaign, but single city-based people under 35 who are not independent filmmakers (for instance)... they're not really out there, or at least they don't count.

Penn, and the DLC, as always, are wrong, corrupt, and a recipe for defeat.

I used to think we had two great candidates

At one time I was more or less on the fence between Cinton and Obama. At one time I thought that that they would both make solid general election candidates and presidents. I almost voted for John Edwards in the California primary even though he had already dropped out - that's how much I thought Clinton and Obama were both pretty a-ok.

But now, I've come to the reluctant conclusion that Hillary is probably a complete disaster.

Who in their right mind, committed to a Democratic victory, would do, or allow her campaign to do, the things that have been done by the Clinton side in the past few weeks? Who in their right mind, committed to a Democratic victory, would feed John McCain golden sound bites and video clips to be used against a Democrat in the general election? Who in their right mind, committed to a Democratic victory, would consistently belittle large geographic swaths of the country, and, more importantly, necessary demographics of the Democratic coalition?

Hillary said twice in the past week that both she and McCain have proven they are "ready to lead," but Obama has "just has a speech." Way to make sure you star in John McCain's general election ads! Her campaign has constantly stated that the states that voted for Obama are 'not significant', and people who vote for Obama in primaries and caucuses "need feeling, not a president." The latest and greatest outrage is that her campaign actually used the "latte sipper" epithet in reference to Obama supporters .

Clinton's defenders believe that this is all 'just politics' and that the Democratic candidate, whoever it may be, will have to do it so we better get used to it. That may actually be true. But my beef with this is not that it is politics, it is that it is poor politics.

It is a recipie for Democratic defeat!

The current Democratic coalition consists, in a broad generalization, of:

1) Working and middle class families who still vote their economic interests 2) Seniors who still vote their economic interests
3) Minorities
4) Rich liberals (eg. Hollywood)
5) Educated liberals / knowledge economy types
6) New voters

We can't win unless we have all of these groups on board, both with votes and contributions. By insulting Obama supporters, and especially insulting people in groups 5 and 6, her campaign is making Democratic defeat much more likely.

Worst of all, they are perpetuating the wedge that conservatives have used to divide Democrats for 35 years now! The working class against the professors - Karl Rove must be rubbing one out when he hears this stuff from an actual Democrat!

People have argued that it is elements of her campaign saying some of these things, and not Hillary herself. But guess what, if that's true and she can't keep her campaign from saying godawful stupid self-defeating things over and over, then we have a problem just as big. And the praising of McCain over Obama, that was definitely from Hillary herself.

So I am reluctantly forced to conclude that Hillary will do anything to win the primary, even if it makes Democratic defeat in November, whoever the nominee is, much more likely. And that is very unacceptable.

I used to like Hillary Clinton. She has had a great career, standing up for children and then being a new kind of first lady. I have always thought that she received such an unfair shake with all of the right wing vitriol over the years. But now she has worked hard to prove that she is absolutely unfit to be the Democratic nominee.