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Leon Panetta Blasts Clinton Campaign

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Hillary

When you start reading stories like this, you know it’s over…

In an interview with The Observer, Mr. Panetta compared Mrs. Clinton’s top strategist Mark Penn to Karl Rove, suggested that the Clinton campaign had totally underestimated Barack Obama’s appeal, and complained about the overall lack of planning that he said had characterized the former First Lady’s bid to return to the White House.

Mr. Panetta, who served as chief of staff in the White House from July 1994 to January 1997, and who has contributed $2000 to Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign, complained that Mr. Penn “is a political pollster from the past.”

”I never considered him someone who would run a national campaign for the presidency,” he said.

He asserted that Mr. Penn “comes from an old school, like Karl Rove—it’s all about dividing people into smaller groups rather than taking the broader approach that was needed.”

I’ve said repeatedly that Mark Penn is just plain awful, and the fact that Hillary put him in such a high position suggests a serious lack of judgement. It’s good to see that Panetta agrees with the first part at least.

Also, if this is the type of judgement that comes from experience, well, maybe that experience ain’t too good…

“It seems to me like they rolled the dice on Super Tuesday, thinking that would end it,” he said. “And when it didn’t end it, they didn’t have a plan. And when it came to the caucus states, they did have a plan—which was to ignore them. I think those were serious mistakes.”

Seriously, if that was truly their “plan” there’s NO way Hillary deserves to be the nominee. No way, no how, good night, good luck.


This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Hillary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Leon Panetta Blasts Clinton Campaign”

  1. Jim S Says:
    February 26th, 2008 at 6:52 pm

    Putting Howard Wolfson in as communications director and letting him on TV as your representative doesn’t show great judgment, either.

  2. Donklephant » Blog Archive » Clinton’s Team Thought California Was Winner Take All? Says:
    May 8th, 2008 at 10:06 am

    [...] only that, others have spoken publicly about Penn’s incompetence… In an interview with The Observer, Mr. Panetta compared Mrs. [...]

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