“Hillary Clinton’s know-it-all chief strategist apologized Friday for a major blunder – advising Colombia how to win a free-trade deal that Clinton opposes,” according to the New York Daily News.
“Mark Penn, who wears hats as Clinton’s top pollster and adviser – and as the CEO of public relations giant Burson-Marsteller – met early this week with the foreign government to hash out how to get the deal through Congress.”
The irony of this story is that both Clinton and Barack Obama have been slamming this trade deal while campaigning in Philadelphia. Now Clinton is looking pretty stupid – and some in her campaign hope that Penn will be forced out.
To make matters worse, Columbia hired not only Penn’s firm, but also another company chock full of Clintonites, Glover Park.
As one might expect, Obama supporters hammered the strategist, with the labor group Unite to Win demanding “Mark Penn has to go,” according to the New York Daily News.
Personally, I support free trade compacts. They help to build third world economies so that poor people can find work. Ultimately these compacts create new economies that become new markets for U.S. corporations. Blue collar workers don’t like them, because they allegedly kill jobs. The reality is, we all need to continue to learn new skills in this day and age. I have changed careers several times and have always come out ahead financially.
The era of spending your whole life in a union job at a factory is gone. U.S. workers need to wake up to that fact. That two of our remaining three presidential candidates don’t seem to get this is a bit disturbing.
UPDATE:
Mark Penn just can’t win. “The Colombian government announced Saturday morning that it will terminate its contract with Burson-Marsteller Worldwide over chief executive Mark Penn
Ha! I blogged about this today too.
I’m convinved the Hillary Clinton thinks we’re all stupid and can’t connect the dots between her and Mark Penn.
Burson-Marsteller, Penn’s firm, has covered up a lot of tragedy over the years in the name of good PR.
Dunno if you realize but most of us Democrats have always loathed Mark Penn — even Hillary supporters! One of the Clintons’ worst traits has been the scumbag advisors they surround themselves with — Mark Penn, Terry McAuliffe — and Penn has not served her well in this campaign.
Just as well though, because this probably reflects on the people she would surround herself with as President. (Bill at least had a few folks I liked, like Robert Reich) Can’t wait for her to get out of this race so we can focus all our energy on defeating crazy McCain!