Begala: 'Nothing but contempt' for Clinton adviser Penn Nick Juliano

Published: Friday April 11, 2008



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Print This Email This Meanwhile, Penn spotted lunching with Bush confidant A longtime Clinton ally compared Mark Penn's ability to hold onto a job in Hillary Clinton's campaign to Donald Rumsfeld's prolonged term atop the Pentagon. Paul Begala, who worked on Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, expressed contempt for the embattled pollster, who was removed as Clinton's chief strategist last week after news emerged that he was lobbying for a free-trade deal Clinton opposes (Penn continues to work for the campaign). The Huffington Post reports: "I have nothing but contempt for Mr. Penn," said Begala at a New York City breakfast sponsored by the non-profit group Public Agenda. "And for those of us who wanted to see him out from the beginning, it became almost a Rumsfeldian thing. And he is not even fired. He has been demoted. How could this be?" Penn was demoted after reports that he was working with the Colombian government to help it secure expanded trade privileges with the US that Sen. Clinton does not support. He remains a top player in Clinton's campaign, despite his demotion, according to several reports. The kerfuffle that resulted from his meeting with Colombia apparently hasn't dissuaded Penn from taking meetings that could leave questionable impressions. The Washington Post's In The Loop reports he had lunch this week with a former Bush administration official. Spotted at lunch Wednesday at the pricey D.C. restaurant Il Mulino: Mark Penn, Burson-Marsteller chief and former chief strategist and major player in Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign.



His luncheon companion? None other than Karen P. Hughes, longtime Bush aide, White House counselor and State Department public diplomacy czar. We're told mutual friends arranged this as a "get-to-know-you lunch" while she was in town for a State Department public diplomacy award.



But what would the two PR wizards have discussed? Obviously not politics. Maybe Hughes, who surely would have a number of potential Mideast clients -- despite having had some rocky days over there -- would come work for Penn's firm? Maybe a little chit-chat over their favorite PR strategies? NAFTA? It's been an open secret for a while that Penn, who joined Team Clinton during Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign, is widely disliked inside the Clinton team, as a recent Washington Post article noted, quoting several unnamed advisers venting about Penn's perceived failures. One New York adviser quoted in the piece said Penn should have been fired because he "failed the campaign in developing a message and evolving the message as things changed." The article said Begala was among several longtime Clinton allies to "openly despise [Penn], and some even nicknamed him 'Schlumbo.'" Speaking at the breakfast Friday, Begala blamed Penn's ill-conceived game plan for giving Barack Obama the edge in the nomination battle, according to the Huffington Post. (Begala said it currently looked like Obama would take the nomination). "Mark Penn did have this strategy," Begala said. "He wrote a book called Microtrends in which he argued that the era of big trends is over. That's like going to New Orleans before Katrina and saying the era of big storms is over. It might end up being true but it could be really wrong."



Taking more, often humor-laden swipes, Begala went on: "[Penn] is looking to target non-Catholic Latino woman. All two of them... He slices the baloney incredibly thin. And in addition to being a political strategist, he is heading one of the biggest public relations firm in Washington, which is a huge conflict of interest. The campaign ended up looking like Exxon Mobil instead of what it really is..."



Begala's comments on Penn's tenure as chief strategist are some of the harshest yet to emanate from within the broader Clinton circle. In the wake of Penn's decision to meet with the Colombian ambassador to the U.S. -- to discuss the promotion of a trade deal that Sen. Clinton opposes -- other advisers to the senator (notably Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell) hinted their disapproval and desire to see Penn fired. Politico's Ben Smith notes that Begala is a "key consultant to Progressive Media USA, the new Democratic independent money group."