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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Friday, February 15, 2008

What are the priorities here?

Josh Marshall's very eloquent blame of Mark Penn spawned a stray thought.

Have you noticed how much time and effort the Clinton campaign staff has spent on the past, trying to explain their losses? It's almost like the staff is more concerned with protecting their reputations rather than spinning their candidate forward into victories.

What's the value of that backward revisionism? What's the cost in credibility versus the benefit to the candidate? At this point, no one's buying it.

Perhaps one of the most telling moments of the campaign was when Mark Penn took the night off on the eve of the Potomac Primaries to hold a book signing.

6 Comments:

  • Interesting. The senior echelon of the Clinton campaign -- both official and unofficial -- seem to be an All Star team. On the one hand, they're all pros. On the other they're not necessarily fully invested in the "team." They're all free agents who have high paying, soft landing gigs waiting for them if Hillary tanks. That's their real interest, first and foremost, protecting their future, and so Hillary's "failures" MUST be explained as not their fault.

    By Blogger -epm, at 10:06 AM  

  • great discussion here:

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/2/15/9350/11897/337/457307

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:36 AM  

  • IEPM, I don't know for a fact that that's the case, but it's definitely the way it's starting to feel. (And not all of them, but some of them in key spots.)\


    ....

    Anon, that is a good addition to this. I generally try to stay shorter form as I don't have that much faith that people will plow through, but yeah.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 11:04 AM  

  • Just doin' some postulatin'...

    I guess I like to play amateur shrink. I find these political characters really interesting studies in human motivation.

    By Blogger -epm, at 11:12 AM  

  • I realized a few days ago that Mr. Penn was the author of a new book, and was kind of surprised that he had been able to spare the time from his campaign duties. However, in his defense, I have to say that, after looking at the book, I don't think he really spent much time on it.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:42 PM  

  • TG, that's really funny.

    I think one of the more telling moments is that he held a book signing the night before VA, Md, and DC.

    That's unbelievable to me.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 4:18 PM  

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