Why all the fuss over Mark Penn?

I think it's important to note why people have been so fixated on Clinton Chief Strategist Mark Penn and his recent demotion. Penn is a symbol of the greater issues that many have had with the Democratic consultant class as a whole. Penn was a the great white whale (pun fully intended) that was still out there, making millions to give Democrats bad and self-serving campaign advice.

Following the John Kerry loss in 2004 one of the main points of focus for liberal bloggers was the entrenched class of Democratic consultants and pollsters. Many were tied to the Clinton political machine and they preached a more pragmatic centrist policy approach and a cautious political/campaigning approach. Time after time this approach failed to achieve electoral successes and yet time after time these same pollsters and consultants were hired only to run another campaign into the ground. It really was maddening to watch. Amy Sullivan wrote the definitive piece on this issue in a piece in the Washington Monthly entitled "Fire The Consultants". Money quote,

Since their devastating loss last fall, Democrats have cast about for reasons why their party has come up short three election cycles in a row and have debated what to do. Should they lure better candidates? Talk more about morality? Adopt a harder line on national security? But one of the most obvious and least discussed reasons Democrats continue to lose is their consultants. Every sports fan knows that if a team boasts a losing record several seasons in a row, the coach has to be replaced with someone who can win. Yet when it comes to political consultants, Democrats seem incapable of taking this basic managerial step.

After the 2004 Kerry loss we saw the rise of Howard Dean to head of the Democratic National Committee. Dean was sniped at by the Clintonistas (most notably James Carville) but he didn't back down and has changed the attitude of Democratic campaigns and adopted a more aggressive electoral posture. The result were historic wins in the 2006 elections. The capture of the Senate in particular showed that if Democrats found good candidates to compete they could win almost anywhere.

So now comes the 2008 Presidential primary and Clinton decides that Mark Penn should be her Chief Strategist - in spite of his positions on free trade, in spite of the fact that his consulting firm is a notorious union buster. That is why his fall has been so celebrated, we may finally be close to burying the last of the DLC losers.