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Penned up frustration

James Forsyth

Friday, 11th April 2008

Mark Penn is still receiving an almighty kicking. Today, Paul Begala, a veteran of Bill Clinton’s campaigns, said ‘I have nothing but contempt for Mr. Penn.’ Begala went on to compare Penn to two of the things most despised by Democrats, Don Rumsfeld and Exxon Mobil.

Undoubtedly, some of the criticism of Penn is justified. He should have stepped down from his consultancy job on taking the job of Hillary’s chief strategist, he shouldn’t have tried to slice and dice the electorate so thin, he should have worked out a strategy for dealing with Obama—either hugging him to death or taking him out early, and above all he should have allowed Hillary’s human qualities to shine through. But Penn is also being kicked because he’s a convenient scapegoat. First, he can take the blame for everything that went wrong; meaning that the reputation of the rest of Clinton’s brain trust can escape damage for the campaign’s many missteps. One also gets the feeling, as Ben Smith suggested the other day, that Penn is being set up to take the rap for all of Clinton’s attacks on Obama—note how everyone is now talking about a more anti-Obama version of the 3am ad. If Penn can be blamed for as much of the bad blood as possible, then it will be a lot easier for the rest of the Clinton staff to go work for an Obama presidential campaign.