Clinton’s Fading Margin for Error Campaign is Dealt Another Blow As Top Strategist Decamps ELECTIONS 2008

By Brian Knowlton, John M. Broder and John Harwood

Can Senator Hillary Clinton survive the latest explosion in her camp – the sudden departure of her chief strategist, Mark Penn? As the McCain campaign showed by fighting back from near death last year, and as Senator Barack Obama demonstrated by riding out fierce criticism of his former pastor, it can take a lot to fatally derail a presidential campaign.

Still, Penn’s departure Sunday – or rather demotion, as he will retain a reduced role – underscores a central fact: Clinton has little time left to overcome the daunting obstacles to her nomination and scant room left for further missteps.

“It’s a major blow to the campaign,” said James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. He said it raised questions about Clinton’s judgment and management abilities.

Penn, a lobbyist, sealed his fate by meeting last week with officials from Colombia, which had hired him to help secure passage of a bilateral trade treaty that President George W. Bush strongly supports – he called Monday for a quick vote by Congress – but which Clinton opposes, saying it is unfavorable to American workers.

But Penn had a history of bitter feuds with some in the Clinton camp, who blamed him for a strategy that is considered partly to blame for the New York senator’s difficult political position, or who resented him for, they said, letting his business interests trump the interests of the campaign.

So Penn’s departure could mean a fresh start of sorts, under his successors, Geoff Garin, who has conducted polling for the campaign, and Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s longtime communications director.

It would be a very late fresh start, however, in a campaign that has already seen its manager replaced, faced critical money shortages, often lagged behind Obama in a cohesive message and ground strategy, and now trails Obama by more than a hundred delegates, with a very narrow path ahead.

But Thurber said that Garin, whom he knows, “will take a gentler, kinder approach, a more biographical approach, a less truly negative approach in terms of attacking Obama. Whether that works or not, I don’t know.”

At this point, Clinton’s nomination would require serial best- case outcomes: an exceptionally strong showing in the April 22 primary in Pennsylvania, where she holds a sizable lead but one that has steadily narrowed as Obama outspends her there by 5-to-1, and also in most of the other nine contests, ending June 3. But polls show Obama holding a double-digit lead in one key state, North Carolina, which votes on May 6 and could interrupt any Clinton momentum.

Further, Democratic Party rules for proportional allocation would make it highly difficult for Clinton to erase Obama’s pledged delegate lead, even if she swept the final 10 contests.

While Clinton hopes to persuade uncommitted superdelegates – mostly party and government officials – that she is ultimately more electable than Obama, the trend is against her.

In the past two months, 68 superdelegates have announced for Obama, while Clinton has lost a net of two, according to figures from the Obama campaign that Clinton aides do not dispute. And on Monday a Democratic superdelegate from Montana, Margaret Campbell, planned to side with Obama.

Clinton’s once formidable lead among superdelegates who have announced preferences has shrunk to 34 by the Obama campaign’s count.

That erosion may dim Clinton’s remaining hopes even more than the internal campaign turmoil over Penn.

Aides to Obama said time was in his favor. The longer he demonstrates he can withstand the heat of a national campaign, they say, the more willing party leaders seem to be to embrace him.

“What we’re seeing now is a trickle of people making that final decision to publicly commit,” says Jeffrey Berman, Obama’s chief delegate tracker.

His counterpart for Clinton, Harold Ickes, directs 10 staffers working full time to forestall further defections. Ickes says the campaign can preserve a large enough pool of holdouts for her to rally before the Denver convention.

“Based on what we’re seeing,” Ickes said, “most of them are waiting and watching.”

Clinton’s strategists were heartened by the negative publicity surrounding the inflammatory criticism of the United States by Obama’s former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr., whose “God damn America” speech was played endlessly on television.

But Obama’s campaign, backed by recent opinion polls, argues that his Philadelphia speech rejecting those remarks while calling for dialogue on race relations has prevented fallout among superdelegates.

“Most people think he passed that test,” said Obama’s deputy campaign manager, Steve Hildebrand.

Thurber of American University last week hosted a conference of political scientists on the superdelegate question. The consensus, he said, was that “it’s going to be very difficult for Clinton to get those superdelegates, and the Penn thing doesn’t help.”

That calculus would change if Clinton did well in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and also Indiana on May 6.

“Then the superdelegates start worrying about who’s going to win in the fall,” he said.

While the Wright flap had benefited Clinton, the Penn controversy helped shift the media focus.

Penn had met with the Colombians in his role as chief executive of Burson-Marsteller, a global public relations firm. He had refused to sever his ties to the firm, though some in the Clinton campaign had seen them as troublesome.

Penn’s work on the trade treaty with Colombia threatened to undercut Clinton’s support among the blue-collar voters who are a crucial part of her base – particularly important in Pennsylvania – and to call into question the sincerity of her populist economic message.

A statement from Maggie Williams, the Clinton campaign manager, and comments from aides suggested that Penn voluntarily stepped aside, but other knowledgeable aides said that Clinton was furious when she learned of the Colombia talks and insisted on Penn’s demotion.

On Friday, Penn had apologized to the campaign for taking on the Colombian contract. On Saturday, the Colombian government fired Penn’s firm, angered by his comments. Penn’s polling firm, Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates, will continue to provide polling and advice to the Clinton campaign.

Clinton, Obama and John McCain were all interrupting their campaign activities to return to Washington for a series of congressional appearances Tuesday and Wednesday on the Iraq war by General David Petraeus, who commands U.S. forces there, and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker. All three senators are on committees holding the hearings and will have a chance to question Petraeus, the Democrats no doubt more critically than McCain.

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John M. Broder reported from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Originally published by The New York Times Media Group.

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