Rumors of Mark Penn's demise have been greatly exaggerated. I am writing this diary to try to set the record straight.
Mark Penn did not resign. Mark Penn was not fired. In fact, this is just another bit of smoke and mirrors from the Clinton campaign. From TheNation:
CLINTON DROPS PENN, SORT OF... After months of criticism and allegations of conflicts of interest swirling around Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton's "chief strategist," the Clinton Campaign announced on Sunday that Penn is losing his title.
More below the fold...
Clinton's tax returns were released Friday. People are poring over them, and they're finding things that she didn't really want us to notice.
Hillary was caught in another lie last night saying that she was criticizing the war in Iraq before Obama was.
And then there's the news that Mark Penn was meeting with Colombia about a free trade deal. And of course Colombia promptly fired Mark Penn's firm after Mark Penn apologized for meeting with them.
So now we get the news that Mark Penn has been fired or resigned (various reports say one or the other). But only that's not really true. They're just taking away his title, he's still going to be doing the job:
After the events of the last few days, Mark Penn has asked to give up his role as Chief Strategist of the Clinton Campaign; Mark, and Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates, Inc. will continue to provide polling and advice to the campaign. Geoff Garin and Howard Wolfson will coordinate the campaign's strategic message team going forward.
Notice that Garin and Wolfson will only be coordinating the message. They won't be developing it, creating it, or managing it. Huge difference. Ask anyone who's worked in middle or upper management -- these words are chosen very carefully, and coordinating is a much lesser role.
A story saying that Mark Penn has been fired or resigned helps to soften the hit Hillary is taking on the story of Mark Penn meeting with the Colombian government to work with them on getting a trade deal with the U.S. You can bet every time she's asked about it from here on out, she'll be answering, "Well, Mark Penn is no longer my chief strategist." But the fact is, they just changed his title for appearances.
This is smoke and mirrors folks. This is an attempt to manage the news cycle going into Sunday night and Monday. Nothing has changed except the media message.
We should be contacting the media (partial national list), especially the Pennsylvania media (complete state list) and pre-empting this. We need to make sure that the news stories reflect reality. UPDATE: Also, contact Pennsylvania unions.
Hillary should not be able to look the American people in the eye and tell them that she got rid of Mark Penn due to his conflicts of interest when, in fact, she never bothered to get rid of him. And this news story should not be allowed to push off the news stories about her taxes.
UPDATE: Josh Marshall at TPM pointed out:
The campaign statement says Geoff Garin and Howard Wolfson are taking over strategy and message. But Garin's a pollster. So the logic of the situation says he's taking over the polling. But it doesn't actually say that. Meanwhile the statement does conspicuously go out of its way to say that Penn and his firm will not only keep doing polling but also keep advising the campaign.