Hilary Clinton’s Chief Advisor Quits Campaign
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s chief advisor – Mark J. Penn – quit on her this week. This new development along with the fact that Barack Obama is in the lead for the Democratic presidential nomination is shaking things up for her campaign.
Penn had been a polarizing figure within the Clinton campaign for months because of his personality as well as his strategic vision, but his departure came as a result of another continuing controversy - the conflicts of interest that resulted from his representing major clients as president of Burson-Marsteller, the giant public relations firm, while working for Clinton. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Penn had met with Colombia’s ambassador to the United States to discuss promotion of a free-trade agreement, one that Clinton opposes. Penn apologized Friday for an “error in judgment,” and the Colombian government responded a day later by firing Burson-Marsteller.
Clinton and her husband, Bill Clinton, were furious with Penn for going to the meeting, campaign officials said. Trade has been a divisive issue in the Democratic race and a particularly significant one in Pennsylvania, the next state on the primary calendar. The senator from New York has pledged to take a “timeout” from free-trade agreements until their impact on the United States becomes clearer. “After the events of the last few days, Mark Penn has asked to give up his role as chief strategist of the Clinton campaign,” campaign manager Maggie Williams said in a statement. “Geoff Garin and Howard Wolfson will coordinate the campaign’s strategic message team going forward.”
Williams took over the campaign in February after Clinton failed to grab control of the nomination race in Super Tuesday votes, and brought aboard Garin, a veteran Democratic pollster, a few weeks ago to help on message and polling. Wolfson, a longtime Clinton aide, oversaw her communications in her two Senate races before doing the same in the presidential campaign. Garin said Sunday night that it was “way too early for me to say” whether there will be significant changes in Clinton’s campaign strategy. “We’ve got a lot to prove, and we intend to prove it,” he said.
He stressed the need for Clinton to win the final primaries, saying that doing so could have a significant effect on how Democrats evaluate the two candidates. “The important thing is just to win,” he said. “My view is the campaign has to focus on the work of April and May and the early part of June and do well at all of that. So at one level, first things first.”