Bloggers on both sides of the aisle say good riddance to Mark Penn, pollster and now-former chief Clinton campaign strategist. Penn–who continued his PR work while working for the Clinton campaign–created huge controversy last week when he met with Colombia’s ambassador to discuss a free-trade deal, which Hillary opposes. He quit the campaign on Sunday, and Hillary was happy to accept his resignation. Most bloggers say that Penn should have been fired as “chief strategist” a long time ago, since her strategy clearly wasn’t working. Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey says, “He could just as well have been fired for the fumbling manner in which the campaign has declined from a coronation to a collapse.” Townhall’s Matt Lewis adds, “Penn was finally pushed out because he met with the Columbian government to promote a policy Clinton disagreed with. Still, Hillary’s mistake was not in hiring Penn, but in not identifying the misdiagnosis of her campaign, sooner.” And Time‘s Mark Halperin lists the many reasons why Penn deserved to be fired. But why did she wait so long–and why now? Marc Ambinder says, “For Clinton, who has tolerated Penn’s public errors in judgment because she believed in his strategy, [the Colombian meeting] was the last straw.” Contentions’s Jennifer Rubin also wonders why she waited until now to fire Penn: “Not for frittering away her lead, not for running on the ‘experience’ message in a ‘change’ election, not for engendering the hatred of peers, and not for his foul mouth…No, he was ousted because he was caught representing the government of Colombia in the trade deal Clinton opposes.” And the Fix’s Chris Cillizza says, “Penn’s demotion is the latest in a series of moves made by Clinton as she seeks to convince voters and superdelegates that she remains in contention for the Democratic nomination.” Many lefty bloggers show their disdain for Penn, perhaps because his strategy for Clinton didn’t really work and led to the long, nasty Democratic nomination battle. And TAPPED’s Dana Goldstein explains that Penn was just one of the many problems with the Clinton campaign: “Penn’s long, controversial tenure, and his axing, just echo a string of Clinton managerial mistakes, from over-relying on now ousted campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle to the whopper of this campaign season: failing to adequately contest the caucus states.” While I don’t really care what happens to Hillary’s campaign, anything that continues the Democratic nomination fight is good news. And right-wing bloggers like John Hinderaker explain the even worse news for Democrats: “The incident [Penn’s firing for meeting with Colombians] has further damaged our relations with Colombia, which said that it showed ‘a lack of respect to Colombians.’ It is deeply ironic that Obama and Clinton both vow to restore America’s standing in the world, while in fact impairing our relations with allies to a degree that is remarkable for candidates who haven’t even been elected yet.” As Rich Lowry said at the Corner, “Only in the Democratic party do you get canned (or demoted) for meeting with an ally.”
