Mark Penn's terrible horrible no good strategy for winning in 2008.

[madfloridian]

Last edited Sun Nov 8, 2015, 08:46 PM - Edit history (2)

He is no longer with Hillary Clinton's campaign. But he's involved with a company that does Democratic Party consulting.

But now he’s come in from the cold, at least sort of. The private equity firm he oversees, the Stagwell Group, has purchased SKDKnickerbocker, a consulting firm that is synonymous with Democratic Party politics. In an interview with The Daily Beast on Thursday, Penn said he’ll be giving advice on how to grow the business but will still be watching his former client from the sidelines. “I’m on good terms with both of them,” he said, referring to the Clintons. “But I am not advising the campaign.”

He waited until after Tuesday’s debate to talk about the campaign because he thought the criticism of Clinton had gotten “out of sync with reality.” After months of seeing television clips of her under stress, at Chipotle, or answering questions on emails, he said the debate gave Clinton an opportunity to be seen unfiltered, and “as the leader she is.” While she has tacked left on key issues, like trade and the environment, he credits her with standing firm on a no-fly zone for Syria, refusing to reinstate Glass-Steagall in a nod to Wall Street, and pushing back on capitalism and the strength of the American economic system. “The Hillary who won the debate took a lot of the best of ’08 and combined it with some of the best new issues of ’16,” he said.

Penn is also teaching a graduate class in polling strategy.

Mark Penn is no longer her campaign guru, but he's still testing the waters for Clinton.

He is teaching a graduate course at George Washington University, “Interpreting and Strategizing with Polls,” where he currently has his students crafting polls and memos addressing the question of how Clinton should position herself in what so far is shaping up to be an outsider’s election.

Students in Penn’s class, which a POLITICO reporter attended last week, are in the midst of formulating a poll “to determine the state of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, and to determine the effectiveness of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign messages and how it affects the general voter.”

I'm glad he is hands off on campaign policy because these excerpts from his strategy for winning in 2008 were very questionable.

We win women, lower classes, and Democrats (about 3 to 1 in our favor).

Obama wins men, upper class, and independents (about 2 to 1 in his favor).

Edwards draws from these groups as well.

Our winning strategy builds from a base of women, builds on top of that a lower and middle class constituency, and seeks to minimize his advantages with the high class democrats.

If we double perform with WOMEN, LOWER AND MIDDLE CLASS VOTERS, then we have about 55% of the voters.

Actually gearing a campaign to the lower classes and to one gender is a terrible idea.

A partial summary from later on in the memo:

1) Start with a base of women.

2) Add on a base of lower and middle class voters

Contest the black vote at every opportunity. Keep him pinned down there.

The Atlantic has more on Penn's 2007 memos

Penn Strategy Memo, March 19, 2007: More than anything else, this memo captures the full essence of Mark Penn's campaign strategy--its brilliance and its breathtaking attacks. Penn identified with impressive specificity the very coalition of women and blue-collar workers that Clinton ended up winning a year later. But he also called Obama "unelectable except perhaps against Attila the Hun," and wrote, "I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values." Penn proposed targeting Obama's "lack of American roots."

This guy needs to keep his distance from any campaign with those attitudes.

[madfloridian]

1. The "all caps" are not mine.

Just saying.

[McCamy Taylor]

2. Brother Malcolm predicted (in the 1960s!) that the first Black Dem to be nominated would win

in a landslide, because of the increased turn out in AA voters. Brother Malcolm was a very politically savvy man. Much better than Karl Rove with his so called "The Math."

[madfloridian]

6. I am totally shocked at Penn's ugly words about Obama.

Can't believe he had the nerve to say it.

[sabrina 1]

10. I can imagine it when it comes to Penn. He's a vile little man. When I learned about his association

with the Clintons (I think they hired him during the Impeachment debacle for PR purposes if I am remembering correctly) I could not believe it.

But that was when I was a lot more politically naive.

He's a vile human being. I HOPE he's telling the truth about not advising her campaign.

[madfloridian]

12. I intend to watch polling trends to see if they connect to his graduate polling class.

[sabrina 1]

15. Good idea. I would put nothing past them at all! Not a thing.

[davidpdx]

16. He is worse than vile

Personally I wish he WAS advising her campaign. He did such a great job the last time.

[berni_mccoy]

3. Nice work madfloridian!

[madfloridian]

4. Your post earlier inspired me....this guy is bad news for any campaign.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251765129

[berni_mccoy]

5. There is more to follow... Digging through his campaign memos reveals a ton of dirty dirt

That Clinton supporters aren't going to like very much.

[madfloridian]

7. "Contest the black vote at every opportunity. Keep him pinned down there."

Penn's words from his memo. Horrible man.

[madfloridian]

13. I hope Hillary keeps him at a distance.

She should not let him anywhere near the campaign.

[Catherina]

8. Kicked, rec'd and bookmarked with thanks n/t

[Scuba]

9. Hillary picked this horrible person for her campaign staff? Yet another terrible choice.

[floriduck]

11. Another classic example

of terrible decision making by Hillary Rodham Clinton. The hits just keep on coming.

[madfloridian]

14. "How Mark Penn almost sunk Gore too. Before Gore canned him."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5434946