HAHAHAHA..sorry I shouldn't laugh about others misfortunes and foibles ;)

This does not bode well for team Clinton. If Penn isn't showing respect for the campaign manager, they may need to dump him (finally). The problem is that he's so prominent that dumping him would make the Clinton campaign look like it was in even more disarray. Catch-22.

Isn't it abundantly clear that Penn is responsible for the huge strategic blunders in this campaign? The 2008 campaign buzzword (change) comes to us courtesy of the Obama campaign and not Penn's messaging.

Moreover the Clinton campaign's arguments for their candidate - inevitability, experience, ready on day one and 21st century solution - haven't caught fire. I think Hillary is a great candidate, but she's handicapping herself with a pollster who catches all the micro trends, but misses the marco trends. There's a hunger in this country, both for a change in direction AND a desire to be enlisted to help make this country better.

During one of the debates didn't Hillery brag about how she is a great "Hands on manager".

Has someone at her campaign headquarters got her handcuffed!

Why do people inside a campaign ever say anything negative to the press about their internal business? The press is not their friend. The press enjoys pouring gasoline on the flames.

The leaks are interesting. I'd speculate that what we're seeing here is the downside of dismissing Solis Doyle.

As Josh Green wrote in his Atlantic piece, Patti's chief virtue was that when she spoke, she spoke for Hillary. There was no space between herself and the candidate. That turned out to have its disadvantages - Hillary's absolute faith in her abilities was misplaced, and her financial mismanagement cost the campaign dearly. But it also served to quell internal dissension - everyone knew where they stood, and everyone knew there was no point trying to get the candidate to overrule her campaign manager.

Now, all of a sudden, no one's sure where they stand. Staffers are being fired. Positions that were solid as a rock yesterday are in doubt today. People are scrambling to secure their status within the campaign - and yes, to avoid the blame and fallout if things go south. Leaking to the press is a useful tool in those internal struggles. Whoever told the Penn/Grunwald anecdote clearly had it in for Penn, and hoped embarassing him would ratchet up the pressure on Hillary to eschew his advice. Maggie Williams may be a gifted manager, but she can't stop this. It's clear that blind loyalty to Hillary is no longer enough to secure status within Hillaryland - only results count now.

That's the real price of cutting Patti loose. Hillary should have eased her aside, or layered her out of her central position. Firing her shook up the campaign, but for better and for worse. People used to believe that being loyal to Hillary was what counted; screw the outside world and what it thought. Now, Hillary has made it clear that blind loyalty isn't enough, so her staff is going to spend a lot more time worrying about public perception. And that's damaging.

Would any super delegates, in their right minds, want to hitch their fortunes to this broken down wagon!

Stilton-Cheddar: "Moreover the Clinton campaign's arguments for their candidate - inevitability, experience, ready on day one and 21st century solution - haven't caught fire. I think Hillary is a great candidate, but she's handicapping herself with a pollster who catches all the micro trends, but misses the marco trends. There's a hunger in this country, both for a change in direction AND a desire to be enlisted to help make this country better....:

Mandy, Mandy, Mandy. Please post under your own name next time, you scamp, you. :-)

The ads that don't work don't count.

I voted for Obama, but I have a very strong affinity and affection for Senator Clinton. The healthcare battles of '93 and '94 won her my eternal respect. Moreover, on the minor policy differences she has with Obama, she has taken the more progressive position.

So why didn't I vote for her? I believe she sees artificial constraints to what she can fight for, both in terms of policy and rhetoric. We all know she voted for the war because of the public perception at the time. She didn't believe that she could voice principled opposition to the invasion and also remain a viable candidate for the presidency in 2008. Never mind that Bush I led a successful military campaign against Iraq in '91 AND still lost the presidency to a draft dodging governor from Arkansas the next year.

Iraq isn't the only example of where Senator Clinton sees artificial constraints. Her campaign has ceded small caucus states to Obama because they didn't think they could win those states. Her campaign's perpetual fear about the public's perception of her likability has prevented her from taking a sledgehammer to Obama during the debates. Trust in the people to vote for you, even if they don't like you.

If there's a silver lining, its that when Senator Clinton gets pushed into a corner, her campaign begins to ignore artificial constraints. After Iowa, she let her guard down and showed a little emotion. There's nothing wrong with a prospect commander-in-chief getting teary! When her campaign had money trouble, the formerly big donor express found that it could tap into true grassroots appeal to raise $10M online in a few days.

STOP HOLDING BACK!

Don't run a 'don't lose' campaign!

Don't run a 50.01% campaign!

Be aggressive!

For those who think that this story was planted, I don't see how it could possibly benefit Clinton. It's a reasonable strategy to lower expectations by talking about how the dynamics of the vote (demographics, voting format, etc.) work against you. It's not a good strategy to lower expectations by portraying your campaign as mismanaged, especially in light of the way Obama has been highlighting the success of his own campaign.

Second, Clinton needs to counter the perception of momentum for Obama. Lowering expectations achieves the opposite.

Third, Clinton's cockiness in Texas does not suggest that they are going for a strategy of lowering expectations.

The only reason that I could possibly see for Clinton to intentionally leak this info would be that they're planning to dump Penn and need to set up a narrative under which Penn can't get along with Grunweld.

But I doubt it. People are too eager to assume that everything that happens in a campaign is planned. These are human beings. They fight, they make mistakes, and they talk to the press when they shouldn't.

This story is not a plant from the Clinton camp. If they were that clever the would not have squandered the huge lead that Hillary had, and now find their selves behind a Senator who started out with very low name recognition. Hillery is just a terrible manager and judge of talent to hire.

Take a look back at the people who she had put up for nominations, during her years in the white house, and how many of them had to be withdrawn.

People tend to forget about what a habitual screw up Hillary has been.

Recall what a mess she made of the White House travel office staffing. Hands on manager indeed! That is the problem. Everything that she touches turns into another fiasco.

The healthcare battles of '93 and '94 won her my eternal respect. Moreover, on the minor policy differences she has with Obama, she has taken the more progressive position.

Such as:

• Voting AGAINST prohibiting use of clusterbombs in civilian areas (all the better to get the neocon vote)
  
• Being FOR the continued absurd Cuba embargo (all the better to get the older Cuban vote)
  
• Being For legalized gambling (all the better to the Gambling Industry $$)
  
• Being FOR giving GWB authorization to do whatever he wants in Iraq (for the reasons you outlined)
  

Mark Penn- his position on the Clinton campaign says everything about the candidate.

I have an idea. Let's only print rumors that reflect negatively on the Hillary campaign. Talking Points Obama has turned into a joke.

http://obamamessiah.blogspot.com/

Well, there are strategy mistakes:

Overspending, not listening to Trippi about web financing, ignoring many small states, starting late in Iowa, not thinking past February 4, etc.

And then there are message mistakes:

Inevitability, running as if in general election, not admitting to a mistake in war authorization, failing to find campaign themes, etc.

I think the worst was the war issue. This allowed Edwards and Obama to hang in there, and kept Obama in the debates, allowing his organization and funding to grow. That error comes from the arrogance of assuming that one is inevitable.

I wonder which one(s) of these errors Penn is responsible for.

This is quite a remarkable contrast from the statement by David Wilhelm yesterday:

http://tinyurl.com/yq6mx4

The last two paragraphs:

He [David Wilhelm] said in a conference call today that Mr. Obama was more electable than Senator Hillary Clinton. Mr. Obama’s campaign is evidence of his leadership, he said, calling it “masterful.”

“He has out-worked her, out-organized her and out-raised her,” Mr. Wilhelm said. “I know organizational excellence when I see it, and the Obama campaign, win or lose, will serve as a model” of execution of strategy, message discipline, application of new technology and small-donor fund raising.

Wow. I never thought I'd feel sympathy for Mandy Grunwald, yet here you've gone and done it.

Perhaps we should coin a new term: Mark Penn -- the Bob Shrum of 2008.

Though that's unfair to Shrum who at least seems to be a progressive and can write a good speech, even if he's clueless as a strategist and toxic to campaign morale.

The bigger point is that this goes not to any staff problems the campaign might be having but to Hillary herself. Why she became enamored of Penn's advice in the first place and why she continues to listen to him after he's been repeatedly proven to be a quack reflects very poorly on her judgment.

some rats leave a sinking ship

some rats stay and go cannibalistic on each other

hillary is starting to resemble the repuglitards in every way

If the goal is a 50.1% advantage by micro-tizing the electorate, then he should have been gone long ago.

That's right out of Rove's playbook.

So the arrogant, dishonest Clinton lovers have turned on each other? What happened to the vetted, tested, we-can-take-anything-the-republicans-give, bring-it-on, flawless campaign we have heard soooo much about? A few votes and dollars short, and they crumble?