The Obama campaign has announced a 12PM conference call with Teamsters head James Hoffa, to discuss the continued role of Mark Penn in the Clinton campaign.
As long as Mark Penn is involved with the campaign, still dispensing advice along with polling, even with a title change, he presents a major liability for Senator Clinton in Pennsylvania. If Hillary Clinton was smart, she wouldn't have demoted him, she would have fired Mark Penn. The fact she still has him on the campaign shows her tone-deafness to labor issues in Pennsylvania.
You know it's pretty bad for Senator Clinton when her biggest supporter in Pennsylvania, Governor Rendell, says:
Mark Penn shouldn't just be out of his job as chief strategist for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, he should be cut off completely from her operation, one of the senator's most important supporters says.
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell told USA TODAY's Kathy Kiely yesterday that Penn "was just dead wrong" when he took on the job of promoting a trade deal that the Colombian government wants to strike with the USA even though Clinton opposes that trade pact.
And there's evidence from Mark Penn's own fat florid lips in a conference call, that Huffington Post listened into, that he will still be on the campaign, and that the title change was just a change in title with no major change in his campaign responsibilities:
"I think you've heard that I made the decision to step down as chief strategist of the Clinton campaign. Penn Schoen and Berland is going to continue to poll for it and I'll continue to play a role advising Senator Clinton and former President Clinton as well as the rest of the leadership of the campaign," he said.
And the Change To Win labor federation, representing over seven million union members, has called for Mark Penn to go in their post here.
And here is the killer graf from their blog post:
People who represent union-busters should not be welcome in the Democratic Party.
People who represent death squads targeting trade unionists should not be welcome in the Democratic Party.
Some argue that it is possible to "compartmentalize" these issues -- that you can be a union-buster one day and a supporter of workers' rights the next. We disagree. And we contend that there is no place on a Democratic campaign for someone who earns a paycheck helping companies that violate the basic human rights of working men and women paper over their offenses -- regardless of what title they carry.
The question that should be asked is, "Why did Hillary Clinton continue to have Mark Penn on her campaign, and why didn't she know that Mark Penn fully advocated for Colombia, one of the worst violators of labor rights, for a FULL YEAR?"
It really does say something about Clinton's judgement, doesn't it?
UPDATE:
The New York Daily News reports that Mark Penn is still very much with the Clinton campaign:
The campaign said that Penn would keep his role as an adviser and pollster, but most observers took that as a fig leaf to the former First Couple's trusted adviser.
Not so, say friends and critics.
"Reports of Mark's death are greatly exaggerated," said a Penn confidant.
"You don't break a circle like that easily and quickly," a senior Clinton adviser agreed.
HOLY SHIT!!! BILL CLINTON ON RECORD OF COLOMBIA FREE TRADE DEAL!!!
Ben Smith at Politico
reports that he found an article from a Colombian newspaper outlining Bill Clinton's support of the Colombian free trade deal:
"We need your help to expedite the signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the EU is very important to give a clear signal of what the relations between the two countries should be," President Alvaro Uribe said yesterday to the former president of the EU Bill Clinton, during Expogestion 2005.
"I will raise your point when you return to the United States," Clinton replied. "I am in favor of the free trade agreement and it is my hope that we will find the right formula to reach the agreement."