Top Clinton Aide Leaving His Post Under Pressure

Top Clinton Aide Leaving His Post Under Pressure

By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: April 7, 2008
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/us/politics/07hillary.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&th&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1207567282-jLNFbovZdlHvKd5GMzoxnA

ALBUQUERQUE — Mark Penn, the pollster who has advised Bill and Hillary Clinton since 1996, stepped down under pressure on Sunday as the chief political strategist for Mrs. Clinton’s struggling presidential campaign after his private business arrangements again clashed with her campaign positions.

Mr. Penn, who was widely disliked by Mrs. Clinton’s fiercest loyalists and had bitterly feuded with many of them, sealed his fate last week by meeting with officials from Colombia, which hired him to help secure passage of a bilateral trade treaty with the United States that Mrs. Clinton, a senator from New York, opposes.

Mr. Penn met with the Colombians in his role as chief executive of Burson-Marsteller, a global public relations firm. He has refused to sever his ties to the company, which also represented Countrywide Financial, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, and through a subsidiary represented Blackwater Worldwide, the military contractor blamed for numerous civilian deaths in Iraq.

Mr. Penn’s shift — he will continue to do some polling — is the latest upheaval in a campaign that has seen its manager replaced, faced critical money shortages and has often lagged behind Senator Barack Obama of Illinois in a cohesive message and ground strategy. The move comes at a crucial juncture, just two weeks before the Pennsylvania primary on April 22, which Mrs. Clinton needs to win to keep hope of her nomination alive.

Mr. Penn’s work on the trade treaty with Colombia threatened to undercut Mrs. Clinton’s support among the blue-collar voters who are a crucial part of her base, as well as call into question the sincerity of her populist economic message.

A statement from Maggie Williams, the campaign manager, and comments from aides suggested that Mr. Penn voluntarily stepped aside, but other knowledgeable aides said that Mrs. Clinton was furious when she learned of the Colombia talks and insisted on Mr. Penn’s demotion. Mr. Clinton concurred in that judgment, aides said.

The Clinton campaign declined to make Mr. Penn available for comment. On Friday he apologized to the campaign for taking on the Colombian contract.

For months, many have wondered why Mrs. Clinton had protected the gruff, rumpled strategist. Many rivals within the campaign held Mr. Penn responsible for the flawed electoral strategy that is considered partly to blame for Mrs. Clinton’s difficult political position, trailing Mr. Obama by more than a hundred delegates and facing a very narrow path to winning the Democratic nomination.

Mr. Penn advocated the plan to focus on a limited number of big state primaries, ignoring many smaller states and caucuses, where Mr. Obama built what appears to be an impregnable lead in pledged delegates.

Mr. Penn also early on resisted efforts to humanize Mrs. Clinton, insisting that her personality was not a detriment and that voters would be drawn to her experience and presumed competence. He repeatedly pointed to polling data to support his position, leading to battles with other aides who later said it was the glimpses of vulnerability and humanity seen after her loss in Iowa that enabled her to rebound.

In a terse statement Sunday evening, Ms. Williams, the campaign manager, said, “After the events of the last few days, Mark Penn has asked to give up his role as chief strategist of the Clinton campaign.”

His polling firm, Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates, will continue to provide polling and advice to the campaign, the statement said. Geoff Garin, who has been conducting polling for the campaign and will continue to provide data, and Howard Wolfson, Mrs. Clinton’s longtime communications director, will coordinate the campaign’s strategic message from now on, the statement added.

Mr. Penn’s departure as chief adviser could have an effect on Mrs. Clinton’s message during the remaining contests. His strategy — emphasizing Mrs. Clinton’s strength and experience — has been controversial for months. Critics have complained that his approach allowed Mr. Obama to seize the larger theme of change that has come to define the 2008 election.

As the former first lady’s initial approach failed to blunt Mr. Obama’s rise, Mr. Penn increasingly favored tougher attacks; some colleagues argued internally that they would be counterproductive.

Mr. Garin, who advised Mrs. Clinton’s winning campaign for a Senate seat in 2000 and only recently joined her presidential bid, has argued throughout the primaries that her route to victory lies less in assailing Mr. Obama than in buttressing her own image as a leader who could connect with average Americans and improve their lives.

Mr. Penn’s decision to meet last Monday with Colombia’s ambassador to the United States in his role as head of Burson-Marsteller put Mrs. Clinton in a precarious political position as she tries to convince Pennsylvania voters that she is the best candidate to address their concerns about jobs and the economy. Many voters in Pennsylvania, like in Ohio, which Mrs. Clinton won, blame trade agreements for the hemorrhaging of jobs that has left areas like Scranton with high unemployment rates and a preponderance of lower paying jobs.

The Colombian government hired the Burson-Marsteller firm last year under a $300,000 one-year contract to help secure passage of a bilateral trade treaty with the United States. Mrs. Clinton, like many Democrats, has opposed the deal, saying it is unfavorable to American workers.

On Saturday, the Colombian government fired Mr. Penn’s firm, saying his efforts to distance himself from them were an insult.

There has been a long history of resentment toward Mr. Penn within the Clinton campaign because of the feeling that he was letting his business interests trump the interests of the campaign. People from the beginning have questioned why he had not recused himself from his role at Burson-Marsteller.

Although the end of the primary season is drawing near, campaign aides said Mr. Penn’s demotion would change the internal dynamics of the Clinton camp, with a more collegial atmosphere replacing the first-among-equals structure Mr. Penn created around himself.

Mr. Penn worked his way into the Clintons’ favor during President Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign. He provided the polling used by Dick Morris, then an influential adviser to Mr. Clinton, to create Mr. Clinton’s small-bore campaign strategy, much of it aimed at wooing so-called soccer moms with positions like support for school uniforms and for the V-chip to monitor violence on television.

When Mr. Morris had to quit in 1996 because of his association with a call girl, Mr. Clinton’s campaign went on “seamlessly,” Mrs. Clinton wrote in her memoir, “because Mark Penn continued to offer the thoughtful research and analysis.” He remained for the second Clinton term and through Mr. Clinton’s impeachment trial, demonstrating, among other things, one of the virtues that the Clintons prized most: loyalty.

In 2000, Mr. Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore, initially considered hiring Mr. Penn for his presidential campaign, but he decided Mr. Penn was too devoted to the Clintons to offer him objective advice. Mrs. Clinton, who described him in her memoir as brilliant and intense, shrewd and insightful, hired him for her first run at the Senate.

Mr. Penn and his business partner, Doug Schoen, began their polling firm in 1977 when they worked for Edward I. Koch’s campaign for mayor of New York. They went on to become deeply involved in campaigns for politicians in other countries, including Menachem Begin in Israel in 1981. He also advised David N. Dinkins in 1989 in his successful New York mayoral race over Rudolph W. Giuliani.

Mr. Penn advocated that Democrats did best when they campaigned from the center, although this did not always sit well with others in the party. His clients have included the Democratic Leadership Council and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, defeated in his Democratic primary and now an independent.

Mr. Penn described his philosophy in his book, “Microtrends,” published last year. Because of “niching,” he wrote, “there is no one America anymore” but “hundreds of Americas.” His extensive polling led him to believe that “Americans overwhelmingly favor small, reasonable ideas over big, grandiose schemes.”

Mrs. Clinton has not spoken to reporters since the news of Mr. Penn’s meeting with the Colombian officials broke at the end of last week. In several public appearances this weekend, she gave no indication of anger or a pending shake-up in her campaign. But at a rally on Sunday morning in Missoula, Mont., she said the contest with Mr. Obama was still very close and predicted many “twists and turns” before it was resolved.