Ari Berman reminds us:
Furthermore, few Democratic consultants so consistently and publicly advocate an ideology that perfectly complements their corporate clients. Every election cycle [Hillary Clinton’s chief lobbyist and adviser, Mark] Penn discovers a new group of swing voters–“soccer moms,” “wired workers,” “office park dads”–who happen to be the key to the election and believe the same thing: “Outdated appeals to class grievances and attacks upon corporate perfidy only alienate new consistencies and ring increasingly hollow,” Penn has written. Through his longtime association with the Democratic Leadership Council, Penn has been pushing pro-corporate centrism for years. Many of the same companies that underwrite the DLC, such as Eli Lilly, AT&T, Texaco and Microsoft, also happen to be clients of Penn’s.
Yet despite occupying such a divisive place in the Democratic Party and outsized role in the corporate world–and despite his company’s close ties to Republican political operatives and the Bush White House–Penn remains a leading figure in Hillary’s campaign, pitching the inevitability of her nomination to donors and party bigwigs. According to the New York Times, “[Hillary] Clinton responds to Penn’s points with exclamations like, Oh, Mark, what a smart thing to say!” Politically, his presence means that triangulation is alive and well inside the campaign and that despite her populist forays, Hillary won’t stray too far from the center. “Penn has a lot of influence on her, no doubt about it,” says New York political consultant Hank Sheinkopf, who worked with Penn in ’96. “He’s not going to let her drift too far left.”
This cannot be repeated enough.
