MARK PENN == A NASTY PIECE OF WORK

(Via Atrios)

Jesse Taylor at Pandagon found this description of Mark Penn, the pollster/strategist who worked for Hillary Clinton's campaign. (From the NYT)

Mr. Penn pushed for aggressive attacks on Mr. Obama, something other advisers resisted. At one point, Mr. Penn argued that Mrs. Clinton should find subtle ways to exploit what he called Mr. Obama’s “lack of American roots,” referring to his Kenyan father and his childhood years in Indonesia and even the offshore state of Hawaii, the campaign officials said. Mr. Penn recommended that Mrs. Clinton own the word “American” — she should talk about the “American century” and her “American Strategic Energy Fund,” and so forth. She should add flag symbols to her logo, he suggested.

Penn seems to have embraced the polarization tactics that the GOP uses and on a purely practical, that is amoral, level, I can understand this because it has been successful for them. But I can also see that the times were a changing and we saw that in the 2006 elections and I wonder why Penn couldn't?

On a moral level, Penn's advice was despicable and destructive.