Bill Clinton once held a knife to her wrist. But now Wendy Clark, who claimed to be “Blood brothers with Bill Clinton,” is reportedly going to work for his wife, Hillary Clinton.
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The trade publication Beverage-Digest reported on Twitter that Clark, a Coca-Cola executive, has gone to work for probable Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
“Several sources say Coke N. Amer senior exec Wendy Clark taking leave to work for Hillary Clinton. Coke declined to confirm or comment,” writes Beverage-Digest on Twitter.
Several sources say Coke N. Amer senior exec Wendy Clark taking leave to work for Hillary Clinton. Coke declined to confirm or comment.
— Beverage-Digest (@BeverageDigest) January 9, 2015
The Wall Street Journal confirms that Clark indeed has taken an unpaid leave of absence from Coke. “Coca-Cola Co. North American Marketing Chief Wendy Clark is taking a leave of absence and is expected to advise potential presidential candidate Hillary Clinton , according to people familiar with the matter,” the paper writes.
Clark was born and bred in England. She spent her teenage years in Florida, and attended to Florida State University. And she’s met and hung out with Bill Clinton, which prompted her to share this picture on Twitter of the former president of the United States holding up a knife to her wrist:
Interestingly, the hiring of a corporate marketing executive is something Hillary has tried before. In her 2000 Senate run from New York, the then-first lady hired a man named Dwight Jewson, who helped make Doritos (and Taco Bell!) popular.
As Michael Tomasky wrote in his book Hillary’s Turn: “[Dwight] Jewson is the head of a consulting firm called Strategic Frameworking, based outside Seattle. Strategic Frameworking’s clients were, by 2000, mostly corporate–the firm helped the Frito-Lay Corporation figure out how to sell Doritos, developed and introduced Red Wolf Beer, and marketed the Taco Bell Value Menu. But Jewson had a political pedigree. He, like [Mark] Penn, had once worked in New York for David Garth–in fact, he and Penn had worked on campaigns together. One of his areas of concentration over the years had been the emotional and psychological terrain of politics. He had led a study in 1996 about voters’ emotional attachments to the parties that examined how the Republicans had won voters over on an emotional level in 1994, and how Clinton had won them back in 1996. His expertise, in other words, was exactly what Hillary’s campaign needed.”
But the political professionals didn’t exactly welcome Jewson in to the fold. It remains to be seen whether Clark’s transition from corporate work into politics will be more smooth.
Daniel Halper is author of Clinton, Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine.
