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Did Mark Penn really not know the first thing about Democratic primaries?

James Forsyth

Thursday, 8th May 2008

Time’s analysis of why the Clinton campaign failed is well worth reading. One anecdote in it, in particular, is generating a lot of buzz here in DC:

As aides looked over the campaign calendar, chief strategist Mark Penn confidently predicted that an early win in California would put her over the top because she would pick up all the state's 370 delegates. It sounded smart, but as every high school civics student now knows, Penn was wrong: Democrats, unlike the Republicans, apportion their delegates according to vote totals, rather than allowing any state to award them winner-take-all. Sitting nearby, veteran Democratic insider Harold M. Ickes, who had helped write those rules, was horrified — and let Penn know it. "How can it possibly be," Ickes asked, "that the much vaunted chief strategist doesn't understand proportional allocation?"

If this is true, then it is quite incredible. Expect a lot more of this kind of thing to come out in the next few days as the blame game moves into top gear.

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The Indypendent

May 8th, 2008 9:09pm

Obama’s Race Against Race
By Nicolas Powers
From the April 25, 2008 issue
A black man runs from a howling crowd. If he’s caught he’ll be torn apart. If he reaches sanctuary he’ll be loved. This ritual is the Sacred Lynching. It’s a scene from Olaf Stapledon’s science fiction book, The First and Last Men. Set in the future, humanity has mixed and few people are “white” or “black,” and the ritual is a nostalgic celebration of racism in a post-racial world. It resembles our own supposed post-racial politics, and I see Senator Barack Obama as that last black man on earth trying to outrun our media mob.

TO READ FULL ARTICLE:
http://www.indypendent.org/2008/04/25/obama%e2%80%99s-race-against-race/

Ian C

May 9th, 2008 5:39pm

You'd have thought that:-
1) Hillary would have made sure he knew this at the interview and
2) He would have asked when he was offered the job, what success entailed and the type of measuring stick.
Amazing, if true.