Clinton Chief Strategist Out

On Friday, April 4, the Wall Street Journal reported that Clinton chief campaign strategist and pollster, Mark Penn, had "met with Colombia's ambassador to the U.S. on Monday to discuss a bilateral free-trade agreement, a pact the presidential candidate opposes." The Clinton campaign's initial response was that Penn "was not there on behalf of the campaign."

The story prompted immediate comparison with Obama campaign advisor Austan Goolsbee's meeting with Canadian officials in which his attempts to offer a nuanced interpretation of Obama's position on trade was seized upon by the Clinton campaign as evidence that Obama's policy positions and rhetoric were inconsistent.

Salon.com's Andrew Leonard described Goolsbee's "folly" as that of a political novice "being frank in a politically charged atmosphere," in contrast to Penn, who could hardly be accused of political naievete.

The Change to Win coalition of labor unions promptly called for Penn to be fired. Penn apologized for the meeting, calling it an "error in judgment," and a Clinton campaign spokesman "said that Mr. Penn’s work had nothing to do with the campaign and that he did not see any conflict or perception problem."

But on Sunday, April 6, Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams issued a statement that read in part:

After the events of the last few days, Mark Penn has asked to give up his role as chief strategist of the Clinton campaign.

Penn's PR firm also represents Countrywide Financial, the nation's largest mortgage lender, and a player in the Republican mortgage crisis, and has advised controversial private security firm Blackwater.

In it's article on Penn's stepping down, the NY Times adds:

Mr. Penn is deeply unpopular among Mrs. Clinton’s most loyal aides because of his reputation as a self-promoter, his refusal to accept responsibility for the campaign’s setbacks and because he has refused to sever his ties to Burson-Marsteller.

He has engaged in a number of widely reported conflicts with other top aides, particularly Mandy Grunwald, a longtime and extremely loyal advertising expert who has advised both Clintons since Mr. Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.

Mr. Penn has also disavowed any responsibility for the campaign’s blunders and its poor performance in the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday contests, in which Mrs. Clinton lost the presumed inevitability of her nomination. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times, he said he had nothing to do with the campaign’s day-to-day message and was chiefly a pollster. That infuriated other aides who welcomed his demotion on Sunday, according to campaign officials.