Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton's chief strategist and the architect of one of the blandest presidential candidacies of the past decade, has been bounced from his position after some questionable lobbying ties came to light. Wow. Malfeasance surrounding the Clintons? I would never have suspected it.
I'm going to play the part of political strategist for the moment. My qualification includes watching a lot of CNN, which is sort of like saying I can play for the Lakers because I watch ESPN. But oh well. Penn's problem, I think, was that he encouraged Hillary to focus on the wrong one of her advantages.
You see (and I'm sure you do) Hillary had two strengths: she offered "change" (she's not George W. Bush) and she offered "competence" (she's been around f-o-r-e-v-e-r). For most of the election season Hillary emphasized the latter, and in doing so she became the candidate of the Clintonista 1990s--the candidate of the past. She became too tied to Bill and never got the chance to be her own candidate. This made it easy for Barack Obama to come in, talk a lot about "change," and take away the frontrunner crown from her (note: not an actual crown).
Man, I really ramble when it comes to talking about politics. But what can I say? I'm weird that way (among other ways).
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