Mark Penn

On April 4, 2008 the Wall Street Journal reported in Clinton Aide Met on Trade Deal that Hillary Clinton's chief presidential strategist, Mark Penn, was confirmed by two Columbian officials to have met with the Columbian ambassador of the US to discuss a free-trade deal. The catch here is that this is one of the issues that as a candidate Clinton is opposed to. I'll give you the scoop.

Mark Penn is a CEO at Burston-Marsteller Worldwide a public relations firm and president at Penn, Shoen and Berland a political consulting firm. According to the Wall Street Journal this international communications and lobbying firm already has a contract with this country to promote congressional approval of this trade deal. Under Burston-Marsteller Worldwide Mark Penn met with the Columbia ambassador to the US to discuss this pending free-trade deal. Although Penn was only there taking part in a job and not campaigning this will give a bad wrap for the Clinton campaign, which has campaigned against this deal.

It's quite ironic that Clinton's campaign win in Ohio was credited to Obama's raised doubts on the North American Free Trade Agreement. With trade agreements being one of the most tested issues between these two candidates, this action taken by a campaign leader could prove damaging in the upcoming votes. It wasn't right for Mark Penn to form opinions on two sides of an issue to appease both parties and it bit him last week when reality hit him.

Mark Penn reported to having a meeting with the Columbian ambassador in respect to the trade deal and is making a good decision and stepping down from his position in Clinton's campaign. CNN reported that Mark Penn called his meeting "an error of judgement" and in reponse the Columbian government fired him from their pending agreements due to a "lack of respect towards Columbians." So basically he lost everything by trying to please everyone.

My question to you is: Do you think that the Democratic party is hurting itself by prolonging their presidential candidate campaign and finding harmful things about both candidates? Since McCain has had his spot wrapped up early in the Republican race do you think not hearing about him as much is good for him?