I just got finished reading this article in GQ. It's pretty interesting but the reporter (which in the disclaimer seemed like she would date Penn if he was available) failed to ask a lot of hard questions, and the part about being indignant over crying actually made me laugh out loud (there's no crying in politics or baseball). Kinda long but here you go:
http://men.style.com/gq/blogs/gqeditors/2008/06/why-she-lost.html
Why She Lost
Hillary's message man, Mark Penn, gives us the exclusive postmortem
and still wonders where all the money went
By Lisa DePaulo
with the possible exception of Hillary Clinton, there was no one in the primary race with higher negatives, as they say, than Mark Penn, her beleaguered chief strategist. Polarizing doesnt begin to describe himbased on the unrelenting ****storm of criticism hurled his way. From the loaded (did he really not know that California wasnt winner-take-all, and did his firm really get paid $13 million?) to the just plain schoolyard-bully mean (hes socially inept, nobody likes him, he has no friends!), it was brutal. Through it all, Penn never once defended himself, even as the Blame Penn chorus grew louder. And when he did put himself out there, to spin for Hillary, it didnt always go so well, as in the infamous (last) time he went on Hardball to promise America that the Clinton campaign would not be making an issue of Obamas college drug use, vowing that they wouldnt be talking about the cocaine. Or the cocaine. Causing Joe Trippi to jump down his throat, in a live and excruciating moment, and Terry McAuliffe to tell him to stop.
Oh, and he also got demoted. But not really.
It couldnt have been easy to be Mark Penn.
A disclosure/caveat: I once profiled Penns wife, Nancy Jacobson, for another magazine and, in the years that followed, got to know her personally. My previous encounters with her husband were all of the cocktail-party variety, but I never found him to be the least bit socially inept. And I always found the backstory compelling: Raised by a single mother who made $10,000 a year as a schoolteacher after his fathera union organizer and kosher-poultry dealerdied when Mark was 10. So determined to go to Harvard that when he got wait-listed, he jumped on a train from New York and knocked on the door of the head of admissions to personally plead his case. (He got in.)
I met with Penn twice as the campaign was winding down. The first time, in his office in Manhattan, he was frazzled, juggling e-mails (he gets a thousand a day) and stepping outside repeatedly to take urgent calls from Bill. His suit jacket was rolled up in a ball on the conference table. He seemed both a little edgy and subdued, at war with himself or someone, the loyal guy who doesnt name names but was clearly mourning the way things were playing out. The second time, in his gleaming white-and-glass offices in Washington, it was over but for the speech, and I hesitate to say he seemed relieved, but he seemed relieved. He was loose, laughed easily, gamely narrating the stories behind all the tchotchkes in his officethe framed photos of him and Nancy with Hillary and Bill, the photo of him deep in conversation with Bill in the Oval Office (when they were discussing one of the more, uh, sensitive matters), the acquitted front-page impeachment story from The Washington Post, signed by Bill with gratitude to Mark. His office is dominated by a huge fish tank. (At Harvard he used to breed fish in his dorm room; its safe to say he wasnt the BMOC.) In person he is every bit the geeky guy who secretly loves to watch SpongeBob SquarePants. And every bit the guy who coulda, woulda, shoulda won this thing.
*****
What does it feel like, now that its really over?
Well, you know, its obviously disappointing. I think that she had really found her stride. I mean, Ive never seen anything like itwe were winning primaries, and the leadership was all against her. I think the voters were out there very strongly pulling for her. She got more votes than anyone ever running for this office. Ever. And yet the superdelegates just decided that it was time. I think the voters didnt. [laughs]
But what kind of emotions were flying around the last couple of days?
Disappointment, frustration. I think that the senator herself looks back on this process as having been, you know
having had so many great moments in her campaign. Its just such a disconnect to come outat the end of this campaign with the kind of supporters that she now has, with the womens groups forming for herand for it to be over. Its just such a mixed signal.
So what happened?
[exhales] Well, first, a lot of good things happened.
Like?
I think that Hillary was a great candidate. We started out in Iowa tremendously well
Did you just say tremendously well?
We had a great start in Iowa. The first town halls she gave, people were amazed. We opened up with that video on the Web500,000 people came. She wound up raising what would have been a record amount of money. I think you look through this race in terms of, from when it began, the first phases of thisthrough October, I thinkcould not have gone better. What happened was that there was a second extremely well-funded media-beloved candidate who entered the race at about the same time, who then had equal resources and, you know, an attraction, and received unbridled glowing coverage.
How did you underestimate him?
I think I never underestimated it, that once you had that kind of candidate, that that kind of candidate could be real trouble. And that if that candidate
You know, if Obama won Iowa, it would really change, dramatically change, the situation going forward. And consequently, I really wanted to question Obama as early as possible.
You wanted to hit him harder?
Well, I wanted to question the basic underpinning of his campaign.
Which was?
His problems in his campaign were (1) that he didnt have the usual experience of somebody running for president, and (2) that the positions he took on Iraqyou know, that were revered by the pressdidnt really hold up when you look through his record in the Senate.
Why didnt you?
Well, I started down that road.
President Clinton took on the Iraq back-and-forth. But the rest of the campaign didnt want to tackle Iraq. They always felt that that was a losing proposition for her, and they always pulled it back.
How much of the reluctance to go after him at the beginning was because hes a black candidate?
[clears throat] You know, I cant answer that.
But there had to have been some concern about attacking the first black man who was a serious candidate for the presidency.
Well, but the word attack is a harsh word. If you point out somebodys voting records, his attendance records, you know, if you point out how they differ with you on an answer of meeting with dictators, you know, that was a prime concern of a lot of people. It appeared to be the prime concern of a lot of people in the news media. Because the normal stories that would have been written about someone just never appeared. The truth of the matter was, there seemed to be an unlimited market for anything on Hillary and very little market for writing a story on Barack Obama and say, for example, his attendance in the Senate. There has still been no story written about something like thatas basic as something like that.
Okay. But you had to have underestimated him at some point.
No. Internally, I spent a year and a half fixated on this issuefrom the moment he preannounced, when you saw the kind of money, the kind of support, what could happen with the African-American voterest assured.
So who didnt listen to you?
Well, look, its not that people didnt listen. Its that people had a different idea of how you win against him. I had the idea that the best way to win against him would have been to go against him like any normal candidate as early as possible, because, as I often say, once the cats out of the bag, you really cant put the cat back. It becomes a ten-times-harder task. And so we fundamentally disagreed on whether to take him on, on Iraq, you know.
When you say we
[laughs] Well, me. And President Clinton sided with me throughout this. The rest of the campaign
Look, their views were honorable views. Its what they felt. I just think
So it was you and the president against the rest of the campaign?
Me and the president thought, Take him on, take him on early. You know, bring out the fact that he gave these interviews saying that his views now were about the same as Bush and that his votes were the same as Hillarys. And you know, therefore, take away a lot of the myth thats brought up about his Iraq position. If you were to go through all of the strategy memos and all the preparations, it was always about, Whats the difference between us and Obama? How can we illustrate that? How can we make that clearer?
Was there a moment when you realized this guy was a phenomenon?
After his 60 Minutes interview.
Tell me why. That was in
That was in February! February 2007. That was early. And I watched it, and I was, you know, terrified that he would be ahead the next day in the polling, that we didnt have a stopper for him, that he was running the table. He was becoming nationally known. His poll ratings were skyrocketing. People knew nothing else about him other than that he was, you know, a fresh face, an agent for change
And hot ****.
[laughs] And the question was, how were you gonna stop somebody who was getting that kind of lift in the polls? Dont underestimate the extent to which he was taken as the only real competition in this race, from the first day of this race. I mean, look, John Edwards, you know, had run before, was running a good campaign in Iowa, was a good candidate, but he didnt have the money or the elites. He didnt have the things that would be necessary to sustain a full presidential race. Barack Obama had, from day one, those things.
Why do you think the rest of the team was afraid to go after him?
I think they thought that her position on Iraq wasnt strong enough to sustain a debate on Iraq.
Or popular enough.
Right. But her position, rememberwe went through the early discussion of Was it a mistake? Should she apologize? Of course, the rest of the team wanted her to apologize. [laughs] And you know, she weathered that extremely well. She didnt apologize, because she had given a speech outlining her position. On that day. And that speech held up. It actually explained why she voted for Iraq and why it was a sincere vote at the time.
You said there were two issues with him, thoughone Iraq and the other his experience. Why didnt she hammer him on experience?
Well, she did. I often say that first there was the experience primary, and then there was an ideas primary. And so it wasnt so much that we meant to run an experience primary, but there was an early notion that someone running as the first woman candidate to be president, it was extremely important that people had confidence that she could do the job of president in a really strong way.
People who try to dissect your role say, Everybody wanted to humanize her, and Mark Penn wanted to prove that she was capable of being commander in chief. Do you regret that?
No. No. The basis of people being able to support her is the belief that she could be president of the United States.
Do you think wed even be talking now if you hadnt established her as capable of being commander in chief?
I think we wouldnt have won any primaries anywhere if people didnt feel comfortable with her being president.
And your polling showed that to be true?
Oh, absolutely. All polling showed that. All the exit polls. You look at the exit polls in New Hampshire, for example. The exit polls in New Hampshire showed that her readiness to be president, her ability to be commander in chief, were absolutely central to that vote. What Ive always said was, it was about being strong and human. Right? People who wanted to emphasize the human qualities never had a strategy for her. They had a couple of random ideas.
Like?
Like put her mother on TV, okay? Thats not a strategy! [a little snort laugh] And I never opposed anything that would humanize her in addition. But to just run her as somebodyto say that the only thing that Hillary Clinton had to do to be president was to, you know, show some softness would have been a mistake. She would have gotten zero votes from men.
Was the inevitability thing you?
No. Inevitability is a concept from the opponents, okay? We ran, though, as somebody who was the front-runner, as somebody who had the strength. She had the experience. She had, you know, then, the political establishment behind her. You know, front-runners typically win against challengers. Thats been the pattern. So it was never a notion that she was inevitable. It was a notion, though, that she was running as a big candidate, the kind of person you want to turn to as president and you say, I really believe this is somebody who can do this job, and do this job the way the great presidents have done this job. Right? And so to be that, I think Hillary Clinton fits that mold. And that just having her, you know, wander around to, you know, candy stores
But its very interesting when they talk about an inevitable campaign. We never used the word inevitable. Ever.
So who started it?
The opposition.
Who? Edwards?
No, I think the Obama campaign called us inevitable. And that stuck with the media. But that wasnt something that we were actively selling. We were selling the idea that she was ready to be president, that she had broad support across the country, and that she was the candidate who could win.
How does it feel to know that you will probably be the fall guy?
Well, you know, I think when you lose, youre just gonna take a pretty good dose of responsibility. Ive won a lot of other elections, and when you win, maybe you get a little more credit. When you lose, people are gonna point at you. And thats just the way it is.
But youve gotten the **** beat out of you.
[laughs] Well, you know, theyre running out of, uh
You know, if we had a campaign with no message, that thought it was inevitable, that didnt think it was a change election, then how did we really manage to get 18 million supporters? The evidence just flies in the face.
But where do you say, Heres where Im to blame?
Well, look, I gotta take my share of the responsibility.
Okay, but specifically. What are the one or two or three things that you wish youd done differently?
I wish in reality that I had a team of people, you know, who was with me, that I organized, as I had in 96. Look, remember, a big difference between me and a lot of people is that Ive been doing this for thirty years. Ive run the successful strategy of a presidential campaign in 96. Ive run overseas campaigns like Tony Blairs and, you know, been through this on the big scale. And in 96, I had a close-knit team that really ran everything. And this was not organized that way.
Why couldnt you bring your team this time?
I think this was organized in a way which, you know, some people think is a better organizationto have, instead of a team, almost a group of rivals. And you know, one would say, overall it worked pretty well. Till October.
What happened in October? How was that the turning point?
Well, October of 07 we were forty points ahead. What happened in October, or really the beginning of November, was that Barack Obama personally attacked Hillary Clinton. Called her disingenuous. They attacked her in the debate on the drivers licenses.
Ah, the drivers licenses.
Right. And until then, basically, people were declaring the race over. The message strategy had been so successful that everybody was declaring it over. And they got so frustrated that what the Obama camp did was that they restrategized. And they concluded, obviously, the only thing they could do was attack her personally. It took us a while to kind of throw off those basic attacks. And I think that it was a tough organization to respond to that. You know, the response to a lot of those attacks became Lets do the soft, personal stuff. And that didnt work.
Go back to the licenses.
What happened was, Obama announced the day before [the debate] that he was gonna go after her personally. Called her disingenuous in The New York Times. Now, at that moment, and up until that moment, you know, we had won the experience primary; we won the new-ideas primary. A lot of the leads that we would rely upon in the big states were already built up. He was fading in the national polls, and he said, Look, the strategy here isnt working. Ive gotta do something different. And Obama did. He attacked her. And a lot of the press egged him on.
But he should have. You would have, right?
I would have, yeah! But
So that attack, on the drivers licenses, was then played an absurd number of times by the media.
And you didnt come back fast enough.
Well, we didnt come back. We came back in the next debate, two weeks later.
Thats a long time.
She was strong. She pushed back. He got asked the very same question on drivers licenses. He hesitatedhe had to be asked, I think, two or three times by Wolf Blitzerand then we thought, Okay, were back. Weve done it. Weve shown that she can parry it back effectively and that he couldnt answer this drivers-license question either. And you know what the media did with it? Nothing. The media played it not at all.
So you feel the media had a narrative and they were sticking to it, regardless of what happened, one way or another?
Especially at that time. At that time, they did not come back. At a certain point here, when Saturday Night Live goes on, everybody realizes what a joke this has been, right? That the media has not been fair to her compared to him. That if they were tough on both or easy on both, fair enough. But
*shrugs*
