I wanted to link to Mark Schmitt's article reflecting on the legacy of Mark Penn. Sadly, it seems that the Clinton campaign ejected Penn more for show than for real, and so the force of the moment is somewhat diminished. Even so, Penn himself is now a damaged product, and as Mark eloquently argues, that's good for politics in this country. Whether Penn was, himself, responsible for Clinton's victory in 1996 is open for debate. The economy was terrific, and while Clinton looked weak in 1995, the forecasting models showed him winning with a solid 53 percent of the vote. Life may have felt precarious within the Clinton White House, but there's no reason it should have been precarious. As it was, Clinton won by far less than 53 percent (though the question of how much he could have won by is complicated by Perot's involvement). Moreover, it was a grinding victory, dispiriting for the country and of little but defensive value to progressivism. As Schmitt points out, "[1996] was a dreary low point for the nation's politics: Voter turnout dipped below 50 percent for the only time ever in a presidential year, young people were completely disengaged, campaign finance scandals arose in part because politics was so uninspiring that no one would give except in exchange for favors, and the ambitions of the early Clinton years were abandoned for safe, symbolic gestures appealing to the middle-class swing voters -- 'soccer moms' -- in a few swing states." An argument can be made that that was the only viable strategy in 1996. I'm not adept enough with counterfactuals to really know. But there's no argument that that's all that can be hoped for in 2008. Penn might have once been necessary, but he's never been desirable. Now, however, he's neither.
