Mark Penn
Hillary, Inc.
If Clinton really wanted to curtail the influence of the powerful, she might start with the advisers to her own campaign, who represent some of the weightiest interests in corporate America. Her chief strategist, Mark Penn, not only polls for America's biggest companies but also runs one of the world's premier PR agencies. A bevy of current and former Hillary advisers, including her communications guru, Howard Wolfson, are linked to a prominent lobbying and PR firm--the Glover Park Group--that has cozied up to the pharmaceutical industry and Rupert Murdoch. Her fundraiser in chief, Terry McAuliffe, has the priciest Rolodex in Washington, luring high-rolling contributors to Clinton's campaign. Her husband, since leaving the presidency, has made millions giving speeches and counsel to investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. They house, in addition to other Wall Street firms, the Clintons' closest economic advisers, such as Bob Rubin and Roger Altman, whose DC brain trust, the Hamilton Project, is Clinton's economic team in waiting. Even the liberal in her camp, former deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes, has lobbied for the telecom and healthcare industries, including a for-profit nursing home association indicted in Texas for improperly funneling money to disgraced former House majority leader Tom DeLay. "She's got a deeper bench of big money and corporate supporters than her competitors," says Eli Attie, a former speechwriter to Vice President Al Gore.
Corporate Interests | lobbyists | Politics | 2008 Presidential Elections | Hillary Clinton | Mark Penn | Primaries |
BREAKING NEWS : Mark Penn Quits Clinton Campaign

Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton's chief strategist has resigned from the Clinton campaign amid allegations of conflict of interest and ethical improprieties.
Penn had worked full time for the Clinton campaign even though he had not taken a sabbatical from his position as CEO of the international communications and lobbying firm Burson-Marsteller. What that meant was clear : Penn was taking meetings with political, corporate and consular clients while managing the campaign of a potential future president of the United States.
One of those clients was the government of Colombia, which had hired the firm in order to market in Capitol Hill a bilateral free-trade agreement with the United States as well as their anti-drug trafficking initiatives.
Penn vigorously defended the meeting saying he was there as CEO of Burson-Marsteller, not as campaign manager of the Senator. Yet he later retracted after it was revealed that Clinton was opposed to the trade agreement as well as her supporters with the labor movement.
Communications | Ethics | Politics | PR | 2008 Presidential Elections | Colombia | Democratic Party | Hillary Clinton | Mark Penn | Primaries






















