There have been several interesting stories of late offering behind-the-scenes looks at the turmoil inside Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. It’s the ultimate in inside-baseball — the typical voter surely couldn’t care less about staffers’ infighting — but for political observers who follow this stuff, we’ve learned plenty of late about Clinton aides who’ve practically come to blows in recent weeks.
But today, on the front page, the WaPo runs the biggest one of these stories yet, a 3,400-word monster that characterizes the Clinton campaign as a dysfunctional team divided up into mini fiefdoms — none of which want to work with the other. Marc Ambinder accurately calls the piece “the most comprehensive insider account I’ve seen of the internal sparring inside the Clinton campaign.”
For the bruised and bitter staff around Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Tuesday’s death-defying victories in the Democratic presidential primaries in Ohio and Texas proved sweet indeed. They savored their wins yesterday, plotted their next steps and indulged in a moment of optimism. “She won’t be stopped,” one aide crowed.
And then Clinton’s advisers turned to their other goal: denying Mark Penn credit.
With a flurry of phone calls and e-mail messages that began before polls closed, campaign officials made clear to friends, colleagues and reporters that they did not view the wins as validation for the candidate’s chief strategist. “A lot of people would still like to see him go,” a senior adviser said.
The depth of hostility toward Penn even in a time of triumph illustrates the combustible environment within the Clinton campaign, an operation where internal strife and warring camps have undercut a candidate once seemingly destined for the Democratic nomination.
Broadly speaking, there are two general angles to all of this that I find striking. The first is that it’s the polar opposite of what I expected from the Clinton team. The senator was believed to have assembled the most experienced, professional staff in recent memory. These guys were perceived as running a finely-tuned machine — the New England Patriots of presidential campaigns — but in reality, the divisions were running surprisingly deep.
The other angle is Clinton enjoys so much admiration among Democratic voters, and started the campaign with such an advantage, she seems to be able to persevere despite a staff filled with rivals who want to see the other fired.
The Post piece notes that while “many campaigns are beset by backbiting and power struggles, dozens of interviews indicate that the internal problems endured by the Clinton team have been especially corrosive.” That’s not an exaggeration.
“I think about all camps think it’s Mark’s fault,” said a Clinton White House veteran close to the campaign. “I don’t think there is a Mark camp.” Another person who has advised the senator from New York said: “Penn should have been let go. He failed the campaign in developing a message and evolving the message as things changed.”
But there is a Penn camp, however small, that believes in his message of strength, experience, and fear of recession and crisis — and its most important members are Bill and Hillary Clinton. Three times, campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle and senior adviser Harold Ickes tried to hire another national pollster so Penn would not be the one to test his own message, campaign sources said, and three times they were rejected. When the candidate forced out Solis Doyle last month after a string of defeats, the departing manager said Penn should also be fired, to no avail, sources said.
And while the team is divided over Penn, it’s also divided over the former president.
“You had your Hillary people, and you had your Bill people,” said the top campaign official. “There were some crossovers, but very few. The Hillary people could never tell him to cut the [crap] because they were Hillary people — and vice versa.”
Some of these guys apparently can barely speak to one another.
Phil Singer, the campaign’s deputy communications director, emerged from a meeting on Feb. 11 and without explanation started angrily cursing the war room. “[Expletive] all of you,” he shouted, according to a witness, then stormed out and did not return for several days.
Penn was growing increasingly aggravated by what he saw as an untenable management structure, which another aide described as an “oligarchy at the top.” Penn had no real people of his own on the inside and chafed whenever Solis Doyle or Ickes got involved in his sphere. At one point, he and Ickes, who have been battling each other within the Clinton orbit for a dozen years, lost their tempers during a conference call, according to two participants.
“[Expletive] you!” Ickes shouted.
“[Expletive] you!” Penn replied.
“[Expletive] you!” Ickes shouted again.
The whole thing is worth reading, just to appreciate the extent of the drama and back-biting, but after finishing it, I thought, “Wow, these guys are like dysfunctional children — who may end up winning anyway.”
Love Clinton or hate her, the personal animosity that seems to dominate her campaign staff is apparently utterly irrelevant. Her chief strategist apparently has no friends on the team to speak of, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference at all.
Clinton won big this week, despite her team’s divisions, and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see her do so again in Pennsylvania. Her campaign is a mess, but voters neither know nor care.
I just hope as president, she puts together a team that knows how to work with one another.