I'm sorry. My money is not going to Mark Penn

[rhombus]

I can't do it. If I knew the money wasn't going to Penn's pockets, I'd be inclined to donate to help Hillary Clinton pay off her debt. As it is now, the bulk of Hillary's debt, $4M out of $7M, is owed to Penn. As much as I've moved away from the bitterness of the primaries, there's one line I'll still not cross.

Penn was they guy who was urging the Clinton team to bring up Barack Obama's 'unAmericanness'. I'm not giving one penny to someone like that.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Lol

[TheWraith]

2. A-freakin'-men. And let's not forget, Penn is also the PR man for BLACKWATER.

His company has a list as long as your arm of absolutely disgusting clients and jobs, a bunch of which involved COVERING UP GENOCIDE.

I think that Hillary would have been far better off both ethically and politically if she'd kicked Penn's ass out the door long ago.

[Radical Activist]

20. And one of the top international cheerleaders for free trade.

Penn is a destructive force in national AND international politics considering his firm's involvement in foreign elections. I agree with the OP, not that I was going to donate anyway.

[JVS]

3. I'm not sorry at all. But otherwise agreed.

[Sebastian Doyle]

4. Hillary should tell Penn to go Cheney himself

While I didn't support her, it's certainly plausible to make a case that she might be President Elect right now if her campaign hadn't been so goddamned sleazy. And I blame that on Hillary's so called surrogates far more than on herself. (though she certainly said a few dumb things over the course of the primary.... celestial choirs. Tuzla. 3:00 AM phone calls. RFK references, etc.)

[Radical Activist]

21. The way she openly mocked Obama

and everyone who supports him by making fun of his stump speech like she's some kind of fucking child. Please don't remind me.
There's plenty of political wisdom for Obama to have Hillary on the "inside of the tent pissing out" instead of the other way around, but she has a long way to go before she can earn back my respect.

[Blarch]

32. agreed.

[BeyondGeography]

5. Mine neither

The Clintons have a bunch of rich friends. They'll manage.

[T Wolf]

6. Who are you to dare question an edict from the DEMOCRATIC soon-to-be-POTUS?

Just trust that he is doing what is the correct, pragmatic, unifying, thing to do to address the crisis faced by the Clinton campaign.

After all, if we cannot help out a fellow-Dem, how can we help him out with something that pleases the ever-so-wiser-than-us "center" that he campaigned for (Iraq withdrawal, Wall Street bailout, etc.)?

Get with the program.

[floridablue]

7. No one seems to be jumping up and helping her out.

Can't you specify with a donation what she Cannot spend it on ? But none of her supporters or Obama supporters seem to be in a hurry to get Mr. Penn payed off.

[vssmith]

8. Bill Clinton makes more money for one speech than I do in 3 years

They can pay their own debts like I pay mine

[Westegg]

9. You should raise your rate-per-speech, dude!

[vssmith]

12. Hire me, please.

[EFerrari]

Maybe Bill can get Penn another gig defending Colombian paramilitaries.

Uribe pays really good.

[Radical Activist]

22. Or run the campaign of the next free trader to run against Evo Morales.

Again.

[Alexander]

10. Hillary should just not pay Mark Penn. He thought primaries were winner-take-all.

If your top campaign adviser is that stupid, he doesn't deserve his paycheck.

Hillary Clinton should just pay the vendors and small business and tell Penn to piss off.

[Bad Thoughts]

17. She should sue for incompetence

He was, no doubt.

[Alexander]

27. That's an even better idea.

[karynnj]

40. I always wondered if that claim wasn't distorted by others with vested interests and his goal

was that she would get the lion's share of the delegates there (and in Ny, NJ, and MA). From the rules* a candidate who gets less than 15% gets no delegates. Getting even close to 100% does not seem possible unless you speculate that he was counting on a far better get out the vote effort than the opponents. In all four states, HRC had nearly the entire established Democratic party behind her. In August or October 2007, Obama was basically at 20% and all other opponents below 15%. Had that percent held, given the fact that they had most of the experienced political operatives, there actually was a remote chance that turnout could have pushed her high enough that all the opponents could have fallen below 15% in all of the districts - resulting in her getting an overwhelming proportion of the delegates.

Now, the election was not in August or October 2007, it was in February 2008. Even by December 2007, Obama had risen to 22% and Hillary Clinton fell substantially - though most appeared to go to increasing the undecided. This rise likely would have led to Obama being above the limit in far more districts. (For poll numbers, go to page 2 - http://www.field.com/fieldpollonline/subscribers/Rls226... ) In the January 2008 poll, Obama was up even more to 27% - this was polled January 14 - 20. After the Iowa win, NH loss and the Kerry endorsement, but before the NV, the SC win and the Kennedy endorsement. (side note - this also shows you what JRE was looking at - he was not getting any delegates here and the other big states looked similar) By the election day, Obama was ahead in some polls - http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/... . - but lost by about 10%.

The fact is that the shift from December to February was HUGE - I think the shift in what the expected delegates would have been was even larger. That shift reduced the net gain in terms of delegates in all the big primary states that day to an amount where Obama's larger delegate numbers from the caucuses left them in a near tie. The problem for HRC, was that there entire plan was based on a huge SuperTuesday lead. I doubt Penn didn't understand the rules, just that their early plan counted on getting a far greater percent of the delegates than they did.




*Here's the rule they were running under:
"PROPORTIONAL PRIMARY
Seeing the WINNER-TAKE-ALL primary as unfairly reducing the input of significant minority factions within the party in the presidential nominating process, the McGovern-Fraser reforms of the early-to-mid 1970's successfully promoted the so-called "PROPORTIONAL" type of primary as an alternative to be used in the Democratic Party's nomination process. In the PROPORTIONAL type of presidential preference primary, the district delegates are apportioned among the top vote-getters in each (usually congressional, but occasionally state legislative) district while the at-large delegates are apportioned among the top vote-getters statewide by the percentage of the vote received above a certain threshold (most often 15 percent: a figure actually mandated by the rules of the Democratic Party since 1992). This is the system used by the vast majority of the states holding presidential primaries in the Democratic Party; the Republican party (where WINNER-TAKE-ALL primaries are still permitted) uses it in far fewer states than the Democrats and, in the vast majority of these, the GOP usually started using the PROPORTIONAL type only because Democrat-dominated State Legislatures of the mid-to-late 1970's passed laws forcing both parties to use this type of presidential preference primary. The major difference between the two parties' PROPORTIONAL primaries is in the thresholds used by the Republicans, which can vary from as much as 20 percent or more to as little as virtually 0 percent. (as noted below, the Democrats are currently required by party rules to use a 15 percent threshold in all their PROPORTIONAL primaries).
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/Definitions.html#Prop

[Thrill]

11. I believe Obama just sent the email asking. No has to donate

[LynneSin]

13. Then don't contribute

that was easy enough.

I have donated a small amount to Hillary for one reason - I still believe she was a major reason we came out of that convention super unified. And she campaigned everywhere for Obama, proving that what she said at the convention was for real.

It's good enough for me.

[ClarkUSA]

14. Update: According to The New York Times, $5.4M out of $7.5M is owed to Mark Penn

Good luck with that, Hillary. Your chief campaign Asshole of Assholes won't get a dime of my money.
Go ask Lady Lynn Forrester de Rothschild and your other PUMA friends.

Link: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/clintons-...

[PBS Poll-435]

30. Did they mention in that piece whether the $5.4M was for consulting?

Or was it for ad-buys that have already been paid by Penn's firm?

[ClarkUSA]

34. The article says that is what is owed to Mark Penn himself.

It does not mention any other business purpose or entity.

[PBS Poll-435]

37. When they say that money is owed to Mark Penn,

It is most likely owed to his firm, Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates.

And they pre-paid for the TV/Radio/Newspaper buys. This is not an uncommon arrangement in the world of political campaigns.

[Saturday]

15. Actually you haven't moved past the bitterness of the primaries at all. nt

[mwei924]

16. Yeah, I'd rather sell my liver than give money to Mark Penn.

[bvar22]

18. Where are Hillary's much ballyhooed 18 Million supporters?

If they all kicked in 40 cents each.....case closed with a few bucks left over.

[Whisp]

19. that is certainly a mystery...

[Radical Activist]

23. They're all too poor.

Since we know the Clinton agenda of free trade, welfare reform, and corporate DLC policies was supported by all the real working class Democrats.

[frylock]

24. no shoot

[HughMoran]

26. lol

that's just so childish

[ClarkUSA]

28. It's a perfectly reasonable question, given the ad nauseum emphasis it was given.

I know if it were Barack's debt, he'd be in the black ten times over via his primary voters/supporters.

[HughMoran]

29. Yeah, things said to pormote oneself should be used as a weapon

That's just so childish - don't be so bitter.

[ClarkUSA]

35. No, Penn's "things" were said to demonize President-Elect Obama and WERE used as weapons.

What was and is childish as well as disingenuous is Hillaryland's inability to admit they crossed the line - many times - on the
advice and consent of both Mark Penn and the Clintons. Obama supporters won't be contributing money to settle the McCain's
campaign debt, either, for the same reasons. Slash-and-burn politics against our candidate will not be rewarded by Team O's
grassroots supporters with our hard-earned dollars, ever. Oh, and we're anything but bitter; that's the PUMA and freeper venue.
After all, for longtime Obama supporters, the best man won.

Obama Is 44!

[Starry Messenger]

25. With the news of all the terrible job losses...

I'm waiting to see if the little I can spare can go to food banks, etc this month. I don't care to keep Mark Penn in high style. Although I do wonder if all those vendors got paid. I remember there were a lot of little business people waiting on invoices.

[goclark]

31. I worry about the vendors but I am concerned

that this will become the way to always run a campaign.

The way a campaign runs its business speaks volumes to me about the leadership.

Palin should have been smart enough to not accept those $$$ clothes!

But they let her get away with it.

HC knew long before that she agreed to dip into her private funds(and she had a lot of $$$'s) in my mind that was her choice if she was willing to buy the Presidency with her private funds. Other have done it.

Didn't Romney put in a chunk of change?
Didn't Kerry's wife spend her Ketchup money for 2004?

I know Papa Kennedy put a lot of his millions up to buy the Presidency for JFK.

Did I miss something, did we pay him back?

I just don't understand why we should be asked to pay for HC's campaign?

I will be giving to my favorite charity this lean year.

In my book, it's on Hillary and Bill.

[Barack_America]

33. I'd sooner give my money to help the RNC pay for Palin's wardrobe.

Not really, but the sentiment is similar. Both Penn and the Neiman Marcus shopping sprees represent extremely poor judgment calls that supporters should not be asked to shoulder.

[Hutzpa]

36. I am sick and tired of

bailing out everryone, from auto industry to wall street and main street, and now Hillary Clinton.

I'm just sick and tired of doing it with limited funds.

I don't see anyone bailing me out on my credit card bills or mortgage debts that I have incured.

This is just too ridiculous and depressing to fathom and besides, the Clintons are far wealthier than I am, so I'm sure they can afford to bail themselves out.

[Alcibiades]

38. I think the Clintons can pay Penn out of their own pockets

If it's really that important.

[TTUBatfan2008]

39. You're right...screw him...

He is a Rove clone. Period.