per CNN
Now with my actual thoughts!
Mark Penn's decision to step down as Hillary Clinton's chief strategist comes after months of bitter campaign infighting over disappointing performance and questionable judgment.
Mark Penn will continue to advise Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Clinton campaign surrogate, told NBC's Meet the Press Sunday that there were a "lot of issues" which might call for the senior adviser's resignation.
In the days between the first reports of that session and Penn's resignation Sunday night, Clinton's chief strategist was conspicuously short of defenders from within the ranks of her campaign's staff and surrogates -- some of whom had been openly anxious to see his exit for months.
The dynamic within the campaign had devolved to the point where senior staffers got into shouting matches with Penn, all sides hurling profanity at each other in exchanges that made their way into news accounts.
Ultimately, I believe he may have been pushed to do so by his company: his company did lose a large contract with the Columbian government due to his dual-role.
None of the Clinton press gave much water to his needing to step down in the same way that Obama's surrogate did.
Frankly, however, I pretty strongly believe that the team as a whole is broken. Hillary is a very strong candidate, and her candidacy is helped massively by goodwill for the last Democratic President and her husband, Bill Clinton. This should not have been a horse race and the fact that it is, proves how broken their team is. It also proves Hillary's incompetence at forming and running a team.
I fully agree with the premise of the article, in that the campaign must have been internally breaking down. Ultimately I think this move is a good thing for the Clinton campaign.. it had clearly gotten to the point of cancerous.
I do wonder, however, how much of an impact Penn will continue to have as an adviser... and I still wonder about that and Rove for McCain.