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If Clinton sounds middle-of-the-road, it may be because Penn is a longtime pollster for the centrist Democratic Leadership Council whose clients have included Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.).

If Clinton resembles a Washington insider with close ties to the party's biggest donors, it may be because her lead strategist is a wealthy chief executive who heads a giant public relations firm, where he personally hones Microsoft's image in Washington.

. . . .

Penn has deep roots in the national security wing of the Democratic Party, along with other centrist Democrats -- some of them Jewish and pro-Israel, like Penn -- who saw the merits of invading Iraq before the war began.

"Penn has always believed that strength is critical for running the country, and that people want to have a president who's going to be willing to defend the country -- that's the number one criteria," said Al From, the chief executive of the Democratic Leadership Council, who considers Penn a friend.

Penn gained his foreign policy expertise working on numerous campaigns overseas, especially in Israel. In 1981, he and business partner Doug Schoen helped reelect Menachem Begin, one of the most right-wing prime ministers in the country's history.

. . . .

His client list includes prominent backers of the Iraq war, particularly Lieberman, whose presidential campaign Penn helped run in 2004, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose campaign he advised when Blair won a historic third term in 2005.

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http://tinyurl.com/2e45dm

[ 21 May 2007: Message edited by: josh ]

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The firm defended Procter and Gamble's Olestra drug from charges that it caused anal leakage, blamed Texaco's bankruptcy on greedy jurors and market-tested genetically modified foods for Monsanto. Penn invented the concept of "inoculation," in which corporations are shielded from scandal through clever advertising and marketing. Selling an image, companies realized, was as important as winning a legislative favor.

. . . .

"Outdated appeals to class grievances and attacks upon corporate perfidy only alienate new consistencies and ring increasingly hollow," Penn has written. Through his longtime association with the Democratic Leadership Council, Penn has been pushing pro-corporate centrism for years. Many of the same companies that underwrite the DLC, such as Eli Lilly, AT&T, Texaco and Microsoft, also happen to be clients of Penn's.

Yet despite occupying such a divisive place in the Democratic Party and outsized role in the corporate world--and despite his company's close ties to Republican political operatives and the Bush White House--Penn remains a leading figure in Hillary's campaign, pitching the inevitability of her nomination to donors and party bigwigs. According to the New York Times, "[Hillary] Clinton responds to Penn's points with exclamations like, Oh, Mark, what a smart thing to say!" Politically, his presence means that triangulation is alive and well inside the campaign

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Mrs. Clinton’s six-year tenure as a director of Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest company, remains a little known chapter in her closely scrutinized career. And it is little known for a reason. Mrs. Clinton rarely, if ever, discusses it, leaving her board membership out of her speeches and off her campaign Web site.

Fellow board members and company executives, who have not spoken publicly about her role at Wal-Mart, say Mrs. Clinton used her position to champion personal causes, like the need for more women in management and a comprehensive environmental program, despite being Wal-Mart’s only female director, the youngest and arguably the least experienced in business. On other topics, like Wal-Mart’s vehement anti-unionism, for example, she was largely silent, they said.

. . . .

Though she was passionate about issues like gender and sustainability, Mrs. Clinton largely sat on the sidelines when it came to Wal-Mart and unions, board members said. Since its founding in 1962, Wal-Mart has fought unionization efforts at its stores and warehouses, employing hard-nosed tactics — like allegedly firing union supporters and spying on employees — that have become the subject of legal complaints against the company.

A special team at Wal-Mart handled those activities, but Mr. Walton was vocal in his opposition to unions. Indeed, he appointed the lawyer who oversaw the company’s union monitoring, Mr. Tate, to the board, where he served with Mrs. Clinton.

During their meetings and private conversations, Mrs. Clinton never voiced objections to Wal-Mart’s stance on unions, said Mr. Tate and John A. Cooper, another board member.

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I think it probably speaks to the reality that it's hard to run for President, or have your husband do so, without making compromises with the right.

I notice another Board Member says, about her lack of pro-union work while on the Board:

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“She was not an outspoken person on labor, because I think she was smart enough to know that if she favored labor, she was the only one,” Mr. Tate said. “It would only lessen her own position on the board if she took that position.”

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Since she is credited with raising the number of women in Walmart management, and in improving their environmental policies, this may be a fair summary:

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“Did Hillary like all of Wal-Mart practices? No,” said Garry Mauro, a longtime friend and supporter of the Clintons who sat on the Wal-Mart Environmental Advisory Board with Mrs. Clinton in the late 1980s and worked with her on George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign.

“But,” Mr. Mauro added, “was Wal-Mart a better company, with better practices, because Hillary was on the board? Yes.”

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So it probably comes down to the question of whether you can do more good on the inside, accepting the inevitable compromises, than on the outside, accepting the substantial powerlessness that may entail.

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her lack of pro-union work while on the Board:

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Because there really is a difference between George Bush and Al Gore.

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there really is a difference between George Bush and Al Gore

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You're right. I think George believes what he says. He may be completely wrong but I think he believes it. Where Gore is concerned I'm not so sure.

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Finding the Democrats inadequate requires you to tell us who actually IS adequate.

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Originally posted by -=+=-:
All Democrats suck, period.

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Both parties can be completely inadquate. It's just a function of degree.

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Originally posted by jeff house:

So it probably comes down to the question of whether you can do more good on the inside, accepting the inevitable compromises, than on the outside, accepting the substantial powerlessness that may entail.

And I don't think that question has an easy answer.

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Since the republicans always seem to start wars we need to compromise with them and the people taht think like them..

Ya, I don't think so....

Both are capitalist bourgeois parties.

Both uphold the present social order in the USA.

[ 21 May 2007: Message edited by: -=+=- ]

It would be one thing if the Clintons had made compromises where they gave up on a few small points to make things perceptibly better in the big picture. This was the kind of compromise that FDR was a genius at achieving.

With the Clintons, it's never just compromise. It's always, in the end, defeatism, surrender, and an eye for the main chance.

The consistent pattern from '93 to '01(and probably going all the way back through the Arkansas statehouse period) was for both Clintons to completely abandon ALL major progressive values in exchange for nothing but trivially small "window dressing" gains, or simply in exchange for personal political power.

They never, EVER dug in their heels and said "I won't back down" on any progressive issue during the presidential years. The abandoned the poor on "welfare reform"(not only signing Rush Limbaugh's wet dream of a bill, but leaving every lie about the inherent immorality of poor African American women completely unchallenged), they abandoned the inunsured and conceded defeat on the health care fight with no meaningful resistance(by taking single-payer off the table at the start and by never standing up to health insurance lies) and the sold out all working class people by fighting to implement NAFTA.

The Wal-Mart story shows this yet again. And it also shows that the Clintons, when it comes right down to it, put personal financial gain above all other values. It's only supposed to be Republicans who do that.

(Gee...I don't sound at all bitter, do I?)

Yes, Hillary Clinton would be a few millimetres better than the GOP status quo. But we don't have to settle for just a few millimetres better. It is possible to actually have strong convictions and win. Democrats need to remember that, or the 2006 showing will be a one-off fluke.

[ 22 May 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 22 May 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

The 80s ruled, dude. And Hillary Clinton DOES NOT SUCK! (If she did, Bill never would have had to go to Monica. (SFX: Rimshot)) THERE! That's the lame joke that this whole thread title was setup for. I did the knockdown - and it still wasn't funny.

[ 22 May 2007: Message edited by: The Wizard of Socialism ]

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
I would change the thread title, however. It sounds juvenile and right-wing, neither of which is your intent. Also, saying somebody "sucks" is way 1980's, and even Pierre Trudeau doesn't want to welcome you to that decade now.

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No, I think I'll keep it. It's to the point, and catchy. I had a different title when I started the thread, and no one posted. Besides, I never knew "__ sucks" had a particular political connotation.

In other news:

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Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who has cast herself as an ally of African-Americans in rebuilding this city, this weekend accepted fund-raising assistance from a family friend who is controversial with many black and white victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The friend, Sheriff Harry Lee of Jefferson Parish, has been close to former President Bill Clinton for many years, and he is popular among some Democrats here. But Sheriff Lee has a long history of making divisive and derogatory remarks, sometimes aimed at residents of neighboring New Orleans, which is predominantly black, and his relationship with many black political leaders is turbulent.

Sheriff Lee drew notoriety shortly after the hurricane when some of his deputies helped prevent hurricane evacuees, most of them black, from crossing the Crescent City Connection bridge into Jefferson Parish. Sheriff Lee defended the move, saying his office had “a duty to protect our people.”

Sheriff Lee was a host committee member for a fund-raiser here Friday night for Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign. The event, which the senator attended, was closed to the news media. A Clinton campaign spokeswoman declined to comment on Mrs. Clinton’s views of Sheriff Lee’s actions in 2005 or on his fund-raising support.

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