US Presidential elections - Is Hillary's Campaign Deliberately Sunk?
The figure of Mark Penn is revealing as to what the machine of Hillary Clinton represents in terms of power politics. Penn had been a political adviser of the Clintons since managing Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election fight. His firm ran the election polls that helped define Clinton's campaign strategy, itself a cynical modern US electoral innovation, updating with high tech means the motto, "tell the people what they want to hear." Penn's polling firm, Penn, Schoen and Berland (PSB) has been used by Britain's Tony Blair, Italy's Silvio Berlusconi, by Menachim Begin in Israel and Senator Joe Lieberman to shape election strategy.
Mark Penn is exemplary of what US political insiders refer to as a person of the "permanent establishment," the shadowy institutions and insiders behind the curtains who really determine critical policy issues and shape the choices gullible voters then are given to "democratically choose among." It has been referred to by strategists since the time of Edward Bernays as the "illusion of choice." Penn is above political party, serving the interests of what some call the permanent establishment. As a case in point, he also is CEO of the influential global public relations firm, Burson-Marsteller, which includes among clients the largest US mortgage lender, Countrywide Financial and Blackwater Inc. the Republican led mercenary security firm that has been accused of repeated killings of innocent Iraqi civilians. Penn's firm was to make sure the "image" of such clients remained positive to the US public.
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