Hillary Clinton has done fairly well over the last month or so emphasizing populist economic themes and criticizing trade deals like NAFTA and the still pending negotiations with Colombia.
With this in mind, it’s doesn’t help at all when Clinton’s pollster and strategist lobbies to help pass the Colombian trade deal.
Hillary Clinton’s chief campaign strategist met with Colombia’s ambassador to the U.S. on Monday to discuss a bilateral free-trade agreement, a pact the presidential candidate opposes.
Attendance by the adviser, Mark Penn, was confirmed by two Colombian officials. He wasn’t there in his campaign role, but in his separate job as chief executive of Burson-Marsteller Worldwide, an international communications and lobbying firm. The firm has a contract with the South American nation to promote congressional approval of the trade deal, among other things, according to filings with the Justice Department.
Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, Mr. Penn’s campaign-consulting firm, received more than $10 million in payments from the Clinton campaign as of the end of February, according to federal election filings.
Mr. Penn declined to comment. Howard Wolfson, communications director for Sen. Clinton’s campaign, said in an email that “Mark was not there on behalf of the campaign” and referred further questions to Burson-Marsteller. “Sen. Clinton’s opposition to the trade deal with Colombia is clear,” Mr. Wolfson added.
Wolfson’s right; Clinton’s opposition to the trade deal is clear. But that’s exactly why Penn should show better sense than this.
As Josh Marshall put it, “Having your key campaign advisor also be an international man of mystery-cum-PR-lobbyist-cheeseball is fairly problematic. But for Hillary’s sake, when her political future is on the line in a state like Pennsylvania, wracked by the loss of industrial jobs for decades, you think he could have waited a few more weeks before prancing off to help get a new free trade pact passed?”
In case there’s any doubt about who I’m criticizing here, it’s Penn, not Clinton. I doubt the campaign knew about this, and I’m pretty sure the campaign isn’t at all pleased about Penn’s non-campaign activities.
It is, as Eric Kleefeld noted, a “case study on the dangers of wearing too many hats,” leaving the Clinton campaign open to “hypocrisy on trade” and “having as her top strategist a lobbyist for a foreign government.”
Apparently, and not surprisingly, Clinton aides concede behind the scenes that they are less than pleased.
I’ve asked several Clinton aides and advisers for their reaction. Some declined to comment. Others responded with pejoratives, but since I don’t print anonymous pejoratives as a policy, I will refrain from sharing them.
It’s true that other campaigns have consultants with day jobs. The closest analogy is that of Charlie Black, a senior McCain strategist who resigned from his lobbying/PR firm in order to devote his attention full-time to McCain. (The irony: Black’s firm falls under the umbrella of Penn at Burson Marsteller.)
One of the toughest tasks for a political journalist these days is to try and find someone in Clinton world who is willing to defend Mr. Penn or his sense of political optics.
Incidentally, Penn has said that he has time for only two clients: Clinton and Microsoft. Now, perhaps, he has three.
Don’t go away mad, Mark, just go away.