Hillary Clinton's Penn-Ultimate Leadership Mistake

The worst mistakes I've made in life and leadership have always involved waiting too long to fire someone.

Whether I'm hanging onto a relationship long after love is gone or hanging onto an employee long after positive value to the organization has diminished beyond the point of return, my loyalty tends to trump my better sense. And like most women, including it appears, Hillary Clinton, I always think I can fix the situation. That I can retrain, redo the job description, or refocus the person's priorities so his or her performance will magically improve. After all, maybe it was my fault; I didn't provide sufficient direction or support to tease out their talents. Surely if I did, Ms or Mr. X would shine again.

Women are particularly sensitive to the connective filaments in the web of relationships that make up our organizations, just as we're sensitive to them within our families. We counsel our kids to eat Aunt Ida's hideous orange jello, carrot, and horseradish salad because she's such a good soul after all. Past contributions, we think, deserve to be recognized, good intent respected

These qualities serve women well, until they don't, as has been the case with Clinton and her top advisors. Many said she kept Patti Solis Doyle as her campaign manager out of loyalty (and perhaps fear of what the firing would do to her relationships with Hispanics) long after Solis Doyle's effectiveness had waned.

And then there's Mark Penn.

Penn is obviously a smart guy. After all, he's global CEO of the enormously successful public relations firm Burson-Marstellar and has a best-selling book that lays out his notions of a microtrend-focused political strategy designed to appeal to the maximum number of voters by speaking to each psychographic in its own tongue. He's intricately connected within the web of Clinton supporters, and has a full throated commitment to her candidacy.

But in no small part owing to his boorish personality which he too often flaunted on prime time TV, Penn's full-throated comments needed to be shut off long ago.

Penn's advice, while perhaps valuable when the campaign was forming based on the political landscape of 2006, soon became a net negative. He was too rigidly wedded to it, couldn't flex and pivot when the young upstart Barack Obama shifted the earth beneath them and created new environmental conditions within which the campaign would be waged.

Seems the sophisticated techniques of segmenting the electorate and moving the parts with wedge issues, so effective for Karl Rove to move the ideological Republican right during the past several elections, proved less likely to move Democratic and Independent constituencies in this election cycle. A simple unifying message that elevates voters' sense of patriotic mission -- much like messages JFK and Ronald Reagan were so good at delivering whether or not they could ultimately deliver the goods -- is once again the requisite new new thing to propel a candidate to victory.

The last and latest arrow in Penn's capacious quiver of insults to the campaign's integrity was taking the Colombian government on as a client to lobby for a trade agreement that Clinton opposes. That astonishing degree of boorishness and bad judgment finally had to break even the most loyal boss's back.

Sadly, to many voters, it doesn't matter now how brilliantly Clinton has mastered the enormous range of policy issues desperately needing attention in our beleaguered nation. It doesn't matter that her health plan comes closest to universal coverage or that she is more seasoned on the international diplomacy front. It matters not that she has endless capacity for the hard work required to bring politicians together to create those "solutions that work," as her slogan touts.

What matters to the 2008 electorate is that Obama speaks in words that make people feel like they themselves are being brought together, that they are elevated above the mundane, slogging work of finding wonky solutions. Where Penn says there are "hundreds of America's," which may be accurate social science, Obama makes the electorate feel good about themselves by assuring them there is one America.

However realistic it is to believe that good feelings will translate into the concrete change we need, it's where the people are today -- miles from the cautious beaten path where Penn's strategic advice led Clinton.

Clinton should have cut Penn loose when it became evident early on in the campaign that he wasn't serving her well. I'll bet the love faded long ago and she was hanging onto the relationship for a web of other reasons. That she finally fired him as chief consultant -- though strangely retaining him as pollster, not realizing that failure to fire cleanly is as bad as not firing at all -- is a Hail Mary pass, but it's the best supporters can hope for. Sometimes miracles happen despite the odds; otherwise there would be no buyers for lottery tickets.

Pennsylvania's scorecard will tell us definitively whether the clock had run out before this long overdue firing decision was made.

And, Mark, don't let the door hit you as you leave.

Follow Gloria Feldt on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Heartfeldt

Comments

[Kepps]

I don't understand the lack of Union leadership outrage over this situation with Mark Penn in the Clinton campaign. All she did was "shuffle the deck" so to speak. This guy is still gonna do polling and provide "advice". Mark Penn needs to be GONE! I cannot put any trust in Clinton that she has the best interests of American union members at heart as long as she refuses to part with this guy. And neither should the leadership of any union. I don't understand all the wailing about Obama's unpaid advisor's comments to some Canadian official, while the leader of Clinton's campaign is holding strategy meetings to get this onerous Columbian legislation passed? She is basically spitting in the eye of the unions by moving this guy to the back room for a while till the heat (what little of it that has been generated) dies down. Is union leadership so in love with (or in fear of) the Clintons that they accept this with nary a whimper? WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE? The AFL-CIO ought to be hounding Clinton night and day to make a complete break with this guy. Can someone explain to me why that is not happening?

[peterg76]

(1) Clinton does support the "free" "trade" agreement. When she says otherwise, that's just lying. (2) Clinton has another, more serious, loyalty issue - she thinks voters should be loyal to her. To everyone else, it's an obnoxious assumption of entitlement.

[SonofLiberty1]

Fact is we don't need a "feel good" president...we still have one..George W. Bush.
Remember? He's the guy everyone wanted to have a "Beer with"?

We do need someone who has matered and who is capable of mastering the complex issues.

Feel good candidates don't deliver...

I'm very much afraid of what we will really get..someone who has NOT shown that they are ready to
face the complex challenges!

Everbody is so very quick to dump on Hillary...and so very,very quick to deny questions about Obama.

I'm sorry but I think we are going to be pretty sad if Obama gets to the White House:(

[areaman03]

This notion that Obama is all "feel good" talk and "no substance" is like 5 slogans ago, man. At this point, if you think that, it's your fault, not his.

I've read Obama's book, I've checked out his website, I've listened to him speak, and I've watched him react to the dynamics of this campaign. Throughout all of it, I've been exceedingly impressed at every turn by his prescience, his sober logic, his cool-headedness, and his willingness to see the world thru eyes that don't agree with his own views, and not demagogue or demonize opposition.

I don't want to have a beer with Barack Obama. I want him to be the President that we need right now. You are absolutely entitled to be a supporter of Mrs. Clinton, but to act as though Obama has not demonstrated his abilities beyond those of Mrs. Clinton (ESPECIALLY in the context of this campaign), is not a serious argument for serious people at this point. Hillary has been unable to transmit a winning message, has behaved increasingly bizarrely (not presidential) as this race has dragged on, and has come up with some of the most disingenuous arguments in defense of her own failures that I have ever heard any high-profile pol make (outside of the current administration). If her abilities to manage, delegate, problem solve, build support, etc. were so vastly superior to Sen. Obama, I think we would see a completely different reality in this race than we have.

[standforpeace]

Hell, I'm definitely not a Hillary supporter, but even I can see that your blog is doing her and other women candidates more harm than good. We don't need anyone in the White House who for one reason or another is incapable of firing folks who have demonstrated that they are not up to the job. Thank goodness that I don't believe that this is a female trait. Just look at Bush who kept Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld long past the point when they should have been fired (if only Bush would have had the sense to recognize that he wasn't up to the job either and fire himself).

[purplestategal]

Good point. And let's not ever, ever forget how long Bush kept Gonzales as AG. Male or female presidents who don't know when or how to move on are poor leaders.

[GloriaFeldt]

standforpeace, you are right that this isn't just a female trait. But I think your comparison to W. is not, well, comparable. He was very deliberate in not firing those folks. He had no conflict with them; they fulfilled exactly the purposes for which he chose them.

[standforpeace]

I think that your argument about Bush and his deliberate decision to keep Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, and the rest also applies to the relationship between Penn and Clinton. I believe that she kept him on because she calculated that she was getting more out of him than it was costing her. Even now, he has only lost a job title (to make the public controversy go away) rather than losing his job altogether.

[PhoenixtheUndying]

the end is nigh

[skip4Obama]

There has been no firing yet! I don't think she has the nads to do so besides she will believe this issue will blow over and as voters we are too dim to follow the detials. She said he was let go and its to us to know the difference between what she says and what she does!

[DinSea]

Exactly! Billary has been so dependent on Penn for many years, thru both Bill's presidency and Hill's senatorial campaign. That's point one.

Point two: Corrupt people need to keep their circle together because they know each other's dirty laundry. It's a volatile situation - knowing each other's black secrets.

Point three: If Hill/Bill need someone to do some dirty work, they know Penn is in their arsenal of corrupt "surrogates" and will do the dastardly deed. He has shown that ethics and morals are not a "problem" - just like the Clintons, rules are made to be broken, especially by them and their team.

Point Four: It's just another "manipulation by words" move by Clintons .... they have been used to duping us for so long -- i.e. bamboozling, hoodwinking, putting on the okey doke -- with their con artist methods -- but some of us have woken up!! We are catching on to their corrupt Washington Ways. We're seeing lies CLEARLY. Light has come - the fog is clearing - they are being exposed (well, actually, they have been exposed for years; we just didn't have anything clear to compare it to & accepted it as Washington "business as usual"). We now see possibility for something different - something we have not known, EVER - that is, ETHICS IN POLITICS .... before Barack Obama, that was an oxymoron.

Billary did not fire Penn ... he's one of "theirs". It's "mirrors & monkey dust" to trick us in to thinking

[DinSea]

... continued

that their campaign has some shred of moral fiber - which it does not.

You cannot trust a word they say - especially if that finger is wagging in your face! Part of their sense of entitlement - a product of getting away with (*murder* - Google "Arkanacide") for decades, as they say "POWER CORRUPTS AND ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY".

[ChrisS13]

Marciia, I guess you think that Obamas relationship with REV. Wright shows great leadership, right? F'ing hypocrite.

[Ozarks]

Obama's relationship with Rev Wright did not include any cash transactions , other than Obama donating to the Pastor's church and Obama is not paying the Rev for his "services". Penn on the other hand is taking money hand over fist from all possible clients even those that damage his primary cash cow, Hillary

[PhDiva]

He was his pastor, not his employee. Rev. Wright did not run anything at any point in Obama's life. There is a big difference here.

[SamanthaJaneSalem]

What if the name of Senator Clinton's chief strategist was Marcia Penn?

What if the pro-NAFTA ex-president Clinton had played golf with his buddies while the more than capable Senator Clinton ran her campaign on her own, perhaps with the occasional assist from daughter Chelsea?

The tragic mistake of the Clinton campaign is that, for a candidacy that is so historic, it sure doesn't feel historic. Not unless "I Love the '90s" is no longer on VH1 but The History Channel instead. Maybe the first major woman candidate should have hired if not the hypothetical Marcia Penn, then definitely Donna Brazile.

The fact is, she didn't *need* Mark Penn. He might as well have been an undercover operative for the Obama campaign working to destroy Clinton's candidacy from the inside.

And with "roll of the dice," "fairy tale" and "Jesse Jackson," she didn't need Bill either. Last year, we saw a competent, cool, states(wo)manlike Senator Clinton, commanding a stage on which also stood Senators Biden, Dodd, Obama as well as Bill Richardson and John Edwards.

The lesson? Maybe the worst way to try to win is to do anything to win-- by hiring someone like Mark Penn to plot out the diabolical means of doing it.

[DoninJoisey]

So, you're saying he coached her to lie? To continue to defend her Iraq vote?

[DoninJoisey]

"Sadly, to many voters, it doesn't matter now how brilliantly Clinton has mastered the enormous range of policy issues desperately needing attention in our beleaguered nation. It doesn't matter that her health plan comes closest to universal coverage or that she is more seasoned on the international diplomacy front. It matters not that she has endless capacity for the hard work required to bring politicians together to create those "solutions that work," as her slogan touts."

1) Mostly bullshit
2) It doesn't matter if she lies all the time.

I like the health plan plug - let me ask you, if you were a health insurance lobbyist, how would making everyone buy insurance - by law - sound? Pretty good, eh?

"brialliantly mastered the enormous range of policy issues " - she did real well with Iraq. Couldn't be bothered to read the NIE, still defends her vote. NAFTA.

"More seasoned on the international diplomacy front" - right. N Ireland peace, perhaps? When Obama said he'd talk with Iran, Syria, she scoffed at him - sounds like the ostrich Bush approach to me.

Even IF the Hillary hologram of experience had substance, I'd like to point out that Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and McCain all have way more experience, and as they have proved, experience without learing from it is useless, and can give rise to arrogant disregard for facts - a trait she is exhibiting with her "I will win" stance.

No Eva Peron for me.

[michiganfan]

Exactly.

"how brilliantly Clinton has mastered the enormous range of policy issues"

The magnitude of ignorance shown in that statement is truly mind boggling. Hillary Clinton is good at keeping herself in the spotlight, but she has shown time after time that when it comes to policy and execution, she is completely incompetent.

She consistently makes the wrong decision on policy issues (Hello, Iraq?!?), and when she does choose the right side, she botches the job. She single-handedly set back health care reform by 15 years. Her health-care initiative was an unmitigated disaster. She was combative, secretive, isolated, and absolutely convinced that she, and she alone, knew the right path. She refused to listen to any criticism. She ended up with a plan that was as disastrously ill conceived, and as horribly divorced from reality as the Cheney/Rumsfeld Iraq plan.

She turned health care reform into a political third-rail. Anyone who dared touch it was as good as dead. Not only did her failure stop health care reform dead in its tracks, it handed Congress to the Republicans on a silver platter in the 1994 elections.

"2) It doesn't matter if she lies all the time."

Amen.

The only thing that Hillary has "brilliantly mastered" is deceit. I have yet to see a single moment of sincerity from her in this campaign. Everything about her public persona is a mirage. It's entirely fictional. Any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental.

[Grunty1]

"It matters not that she has endless capacity for the hard work required to bring politicians together to create those "solutions that work," as her slogan touts."

I'm sorry, but where is the evidence of this? Her campaign has been a long series of Bush's favorite slogan "My way or the highway". From dismissing entire states, to attacking Richardson, to attacking Democracy itself, there has been nothing unifying from Hillary...

[MrRex]

If Hillary would only disappear or go home and finish the dinner dishes then the pundits could focus on the real issue.... That Obama has flaws, does not walk on water and maybe, just maybe, has some issues he would like to hide.
This blog cannot wait to issue stories of Hillary's flaws and to show some of the worst possible pictures of her to accompany their pot shots. Go home Hillary ;I want them to focus on this upstart from Illinois who criticizes the war in Iraq as if he cast a dissenting vote in the Senate to begin it. He DID cast an afirmative vote to continue funding it, though. He also thinks his helath care plan which excludes millions is an answer to a growing problem. His associations in Illinois and elsewhere have not been scrutinzied... as if any poltician is without some special interest "musk" rubbed on them. And his 20 year association with the reverend begs to be examined thoroughy
So, Hillary, please go home and cook supper. Let the veting process begin so we can see just what "wolf in sheeps clothing" we have.

[jstock]

MrRex: what a crock. "Go home and cook supper?" She's not behind, as your comments suggest, because of her gender, or because Obama has not been sufficiently scrutinized. Given her name recognition and very impressive fund-raising skills, she should have creamed Obama along with all of the other candidates. He has run a superior campaign. Why do Clinton supporters take this all so personally? If Obama is able to win against the legendary Clinton Machine, he will have demonstrated great political skill. And all the while appearing above the fray. As a lifelong Democrat (I've voted Dem in every election since my first, in 1980), I'm not mad at Obama, I'm encouraged.

[PhDiva]

I'm an Obama supporter, and a feminist. I do not support Clinton, but I do resent anybody who tells her to go home and do the dishes. Few men have achieved even a fraction of what she's accomplished. You go do some dishes if you even know how. Shame on you.

[JoeSun]

FIring him completely would be tantamount to admitting a mistake, and, well, Hillary Clinton never makes mistakes.

Barack Obama. President. 2008.

[DBracewell]

" It doesn't matter that ....she is more seasoned on the international diplomacy front. "

This is like saying it doesn't matter that the Hindenberg had more experience in the air than the Boeing 747. Or that it doesn't matter that the Titanic had a greater acquaintance with icebergs than any other ship.

It's about judgment, not experience, and no I didn't get that from Obama. It's a common sense measure. The corollary to such a ridiculous assertion of this Hillary +quality+ is that you would support McCain over Hillary. Or even Bush if term limits weren't applicable.

[plutorage]

Mark, you are off the staff of the Hillary Presidential Campaign - sort of. Well, not really.


Nothing is really straight up and down with the Clintons. Never.

[ntmessage]

Keeping Penn on staff was a mistake, but to read a Leadership issue into a PR person during what is best described, as a PR or American Idol exercise of a campaign, is something only other superficial PR or media folks would dream up and find compelling or important.

Running the country is serious business.

Folks with little operational leadership experience, like pundits, academia and media think that a vote and speech are the same thing; wearing your foreign policy on your sleeve in UK and Canada is ok; that the more likable person will bring the world together; and an overlooked history of National and Global Service is less important than narrowly framed and conflated gotcha quotes; meaningless to Governing.

Many seem to have been playing too many video games or watching too many *happy* movies to see how so much does not matter. Yes, it is true that Clinton may not have the best words or likeability, but she is our best choice for President. To illustrate narrow superficial issues as critical to fixing our country is bizarrely perverted.

The country has real nuts and bolts problems.

No matter who is elected, they will not be trusted by the world or ideologues regardless of what they said or did not say or where they went to church. Limiting character to a media and PR borne exercise created to fill 7x24 news and does nothing productive or constructive for the country or the people.

Remember Carter? Enough said.

[GaryinToronto]

Obama = Carter? Wow!

I think the best measure we can have of how the candidates will perform as President is how they have managed their campaigns to date. After all have either of them had greater organizational challenges before?

When you look at Clinton's strategy of betting everything on one outcome (which happened to - shall we say - mesh well with her own sense of entitlement) on Super Tuesday with no meaningful back-up plan other than the kitchen sink you really have to ask yourself - is that an approach I'd like to see taken on international crises or domestic challenges?

Remember how every time Obama took a state Hillary would already be in the next one pretending she hadn't just lost. Delivering her stump speech and failing to acknowledge or thank the folks who had worked for her. Do we really need a President who throws people down the memory hole every time things don't go as planned?

[ntmessage]

Frankly look at some history and you will see that you are categorically incorrect.

Putting on a campaign is more like putting on American Idol anything else. It has zero to do with governing. Zero. Wait, did I say zero? Just having some fun, but it is so true isnt it? How you do, as President has if anything, is inversely opposite to how well you campaign.

Bush ran an awesome campaign to win against Gore who was the favorite.

How many states did Carter win? Check it out my friend.

We have a surprisingly similar situation as we did then. History is important for a reason and look at your own memory hole.

Anyhow thanks for proving my point. The Democrats system is nothing like the general election and seems to always put the weaker general election candidate forward. That the DNC process can be gamed, including removing FL and MI is factual and irrelevant to how good a president will be.

Indeed not to take away from Obama, if the DNC used the same system that actually elects the President Clinton would be ahead by 100 elected Delegates. But Obama is ahead and that is not debatable.

What is also not debatable, history proves that the last inspirational blind faith candidate the Democrats elected was Carter. He was great in many things except President.

[GaryinToronto]

Gloria,

There are some fundamental questions of values here and I'm not liking the Clinton's answers. Why use a guy who includes firms like Countrywide and Blackwater amongst his clients?

Assuming you value the individual sacrifices people are making to support your campaign why turn around and give ten percent of that money to a guy like this?

If I was in her shoes and an employee held a meeting antithetical to my stated objectives I wouldn't demote or "allow him to step down". I'd can him. Does she really think that people are fooled by the change in title? What does that say about her perception of the public?

Hillary's attempt to equate Goolsbee's off the cuff and ambiguous meeting with Canadian officials at their request is embarrassing in the extreme. Now if Goolsbee had been cashing cheques from the Canadian government and Obama simultaneously there might have been some comparison but to compare this to Penn - really now c'mon.

This guy represents the worst of Washington's insider game of secrets and influence peddling and is at the core of her campaign. Given the atrocious record of his firm and the dismal results of his counselling I'm forced to wonder: What exactly does Penn have on the Clintons?