Man, David Axelrod is like a weird meld of Toby and Josh from The West Wing.

I'm wondering if it isn't already too late to switch over to the aggressive negative campaign Bill apparently wants to run.

1) Will the fact that she's allowed the "peace and love" theme to be established in Iowa allow Obama and Edwards to attack her as a calculating flip-flopper: benevolent when ahead in the polls, but toxic and divisive when trailing?

2) Can Hillary really run an aggressive campaign without being written off as a five letter word starting with "B?" I have no idea how a national audience will react to a female candidate who's running a serious bare-knuckle campaign. Where's the line between tough, strident and, uh, that certain word? Considering her adversarial relationship with the press and the fact that they label her strident whenever she so much as raises her voice, I'm not optimistic.

That Hardball bit was riveting, though I was confused by CM's introduction of them as "Starfighters" and his final proclamation that they were "Masters of the Universe." Where was the "real American heroes" shoutout, to say nothing of the shameful omission of any mention of the Autobots.

Where was the "real American heroes" shoutout, to say nothing of the shameful omission of any mention of the Autobots.

"Autobots, dissemble!"

Check out the hilarious, baleful way Trippi looks at Penn at around 5:45.

Where's the line between tough, strident and, uh, that certain word?

I'm pretty sure sleazy drug-dealing innuendo falls on the side of "that certain word." Has she been portrayed as a b-word when she has drawn substantive contrasts, like the one about her health plan covering more people than Obama's? I don't recall that being the case.

"Notice, among other things, that Trippi and Penn are standing in the same room, and Trippi clearly finds Penn an almost unbearable repulsive presence."

The body language between Trippi and Penn was one of the more entertaining things I've ever seen in my life.

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"My hunch, right now, is that if Clinton goes down, Penn is going to be blamed."

Ya think?

Do you also have a hunch that the sun will come up tomorrow?

Sleazy union-busting Democratic consultants who have their careers and reputations immolate in front of our eyes is the newest microtrend.

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And it's very much worth watching this small snippet of one of the Iowa Dem focus groups reacting to Edwards' debate performance yesterday.

I tuned in and caught you on the tube today, you did very well as usual. It was weird reading this entry because when I was watching the segment in which you point out (Trippi,Penn, and Axelrod) I was thinking the exact same thing about Penn and his less then stunning performance. It has been in the news that Bill has not been happy with the way her campaign has been running and I have a feeling that sooner then later he is going to have a chat with Mr. Penn. And man would I like to be a fly on the wall for that one.

http://www.hyerstandard.com

"Man, David Axelrod is like a weird meld of Toby and Josh from The West Wing."

It's a little known fact that Axelrod's entire head is made out of wax. In fact, he spent his early years working as a Mr. Potato Head doll. While he no longer does that kind of work, people will still have fun with him when he gets drunk by taking off his mustache and putting it on top of his head to cover his bald spot.

Trippi should have gone into stand-up, or at least silent improv.

best moments-- (trippi reacting to Penn):

5:27: who is this guy?

5:45: is he really saying that again? (yes, he really is.)

10:02-10:10: barely containing himself from cracking up in laughter at Penn's lame slogan for Hillary.

it almost makes you feel bad for Penn. He clearly was never the cool kid.

"it almost makes you feel bad for Penn."

No it doesn't.

It really, really doesn't.

If you understand anything at all about who Penn is and what he stands for in Democratic political circles, this is a very delicious moment.

Watching Penn immolate is exactly what folks had in mind when they came up with the word schadenfreude.

And Trippi is once again god. The only correct reaction to Penn is contempt.

And finally, worth noting that considering how Mark Penn has gotten rich by busting unions, representing tobacco companies, and helping Blackwater lie to Congress, he could be the poster boy for Edwards' critique on corporate greed corrupting Washington.

Mark Penn makes Joe Trippi look like Harrison Ford. It's not a good thing when your spokesman's grooming compares unfavorably to Jabba the Hutt. And yes that makes Howard Wolfson Boba Fett in my analogy. Everyone has made Bill Clinton out to be some kind of political Jedi but in this campaign he looks like Jar Jar Binks, not Ol' Bill Kenobi. OK, I'll stop.

Where was the "real American heroes" shoutout?

And remember kids, spinning is half the battle!

Wow. Mark Penn is disgusting. He can't actually be seriously making those comments.

Trippi and Axelrod are liars. Penn looks drunk and is giggling like a school girl.

her aura of inevitability

I'm so tired of this phrase. It's such a perfect example of insiderish punditty CW. Where is or was this "aura"? Do you need special tinted glasses to see it?

'Cause from where I sit there was simply a candidate who got in early, who had money which Obama proved able to match and poll numbers which were never as firm as the chatterers imagined. They bought into her campaign's inevitabilist spin (which was indistinguishable, in its essence, from any other frontrunning establishment candidate's spin ever) because conjuring up a Goliath invited people to imagine a David, and that makes for good TV.

I think that Penn comes across as whiney. But Axelrod looks like a stuffed frog, to take a page from Jeeves and Wooster. While great fun to watch in action, neither are appealing.

"I think that Penn comes across as whiney."

Whiney is the least of the problem.

Penn is a union-busting sleaze merchant who should be unemployable among Democratic politicians.

See Ari Berman's expose on Penn for a primer on his loathsomeness.

Cleaning up the Democratic Party is the newest microtrend.

I've had too much exposure, lately, to Episcopal priests who singsong their way through the liturgy as if the words they were saying were meaningless to them.

Damned if Mark Penn didn't sound exactly like that in most of that clip. The words are surely meaningless to him. He's a hired gun, and a particularly reprehensible one at that.

Can't say Trippi impressed me either, and I'm an Edwards guy. This was the great Joe Trippi?? Dayum.

Next to them, longtime worthless BS artist David Axelrod looked positively human.

That was a great bit of political tv. However, I am got ill listening to Penn speak.

For a campaign that is supposed to be apologetic about taking a hit out on Obama, they have a funny way of showing it. Penn could barely contain himself from smiling and laughing. He was so anxious to throw out the word 'cocaine', that he was practically glib with excitement over it.

My two take aways. 1. Penn is one weird dude. 2. No doubt that HRC & Co. were directly responsible for the hit and will continue the "not a coordinated effort" line for at least the next 3 weeks.

The fun part of this kind of analysis is that it can work on almost any lagging candidate.

When the rationale for your campaign is that you're the change agent, failing to change your opponents lead in the polls doesn't only put you in second place, it actually shreds the argument for your candidacy.

In a town full of assholes, it's always good to know your merely loathsome assholes from your particularly loathsome assholes.

I have no idea what Penn's track record is. I'm not an inside baseball guy, and for all I know he's an absolutely brilliant strategist. But I STRONGLY urge the Clinton campaign to keep the dude off the air. He's really repulsive and smarmy. And I say that as someone who's kinda been pulling for Hillary. Good thing for her the Matthews show isn't being watched by 30 million people at 9pm. Bad thing for her this thing called "YouTube" exists. Whatever happened to Anne Lewis? I always thought she was pretty good.

tib, thats a pretty poorly thought out analogy. When you're the candidate of change, your supporters expect you to have a hard time defeating entrenched monied interests.

When the only thing you say to people when they ask why they should support you boils down to 'because I'm going to win anyway.', it's not really a surprise that when that becomes questionable, so does your candidacy.

"I have no idea what Penn's track record is. I'm not an inside baseball guy, and for all I know he's an absolutely brilliant strategist."

Penn was the mastermind behind Joe Lieberman's incredibly successful "Joementum" Presidential bid in 2004.

Penn brilliantly has his finger on the concerns of Democratic primary voters, no?

Note to Ezra: Can't you put a link on this blog to your Hardball appearances? My ubercrappy cable carrier doesn't give me MSNBC despite the fact I pay the almost a hundred bucks a month (I refuse to go any higher) and I never seem to manage never to find your appearances on YouTube.

Hmmmm. Double negative. Note to Jasper: drink coffee before commenting. And second note to Ezra: pleeez pleeez speed up the arrival of the preview feature.

maybe penn is really a secret operative for the edwards campaign!!
i saw edwards in a GREAT interview this morning with joe scarborough...edwards is having his best day in months! he was glistening!!

who said there is no santa claus!!!

From the Newsday article:

"Clinton's Iowa swoon has also revived the internal campaign debate over whether she should have staked so much on Iowa."

That doesn't seem like the most useful debate to be having right now.

"maybe penn is really a secret operative for the edwards campaign!!"

All year long I've been fervently hoping that the various articles detailing how Penn has gotten rich working against the left wouldn't force him out of the Clinton campaign.

He really is an agent of self-destruction for the Clinton campaign. Penn may be smart in various senses, but he's always been badly out of step with the Democratic primary electorate.

"edwards is having his best day in months! he was glistening!!"

Smart campaigns peak at the end.

Soullite, yes I'm aware you can't see beyond your own candidate's spin.

If you want to see a pretty weird and funny consultant interview, check out this gem of Joe Trippi and Jonathan Prince talkin' Edwards with Ambinder.

Bonus points to anyone who can figure out just how Prince manages to look even weirder than Trippi.

My wife and I were watching the segment. We were both reminded of the Jerry Springer Show... y'know, the part in that show where the cliche scumbag philandering husband blames the victim and Springer producer "Richard" plays audio tape of a crying baby overtop the pathetic self-pitying finger-pointing whinge. A crying baby would have served Penn and Hardball viewers well here, because every time Penn opened his mouth he sounded like a pantywaist cry-baby Springer guest. Yes, it was that pathetic.

Say what you will about Trippi, and I have my own issues with the guy, but I truly admire the way he can't contain his loathing of Mark Penn.

Notice that Penn is the only man on earth more disheveled than Trippi, making Trippi, for once, "sheveled."

Heh. A college buddy of mine asked me "So Gardner, have you ever looked 'kempt'?" Folks around didn't understand what he meant by that and made a number of confused statements. I understood and replied that I was about as neatly dressed as I ever got, so if I wasn't "up to standards" at that point, then I never was.

Tib, while I do favor Edwards, my logical chain of thought was laid out before you. I wasn't just sniping, you actually made a shitty analogy.

There are big differences between why the people who support these various candidates do so. It's simply the truth that people who support Edwards expect him to have a difficult time getting his message heard, so they are willing to tough it out with him. People who support Hillary because they think they are backing a winner have no no reason stick with them through the difficult times.

That's not just spin, it's objective fact. The people who are with Hillary because they are as conservative as her won't be jumping ship. Neither will those who support her because she's the most likely female to win in their lifetimes. However, those who support her because they thought they were backing a sure thing probably will abandon her at the first sign of trouble. The problem for Hillary is that this later category makes up a substantial part of her support.

Interesting to see Trippi defending Obama.

I am telling you, there is an Edwards/Obama or obama/edwards ticket in the works.

Absolutely.

"I am telling you, there is an Edwards/Obama or obama/edwards ticket in the works."

I hope so too. My preference is Obama/Edwards, with Obama making the announcement that Edwards' VP assignment will be healthcare.

I couldn't agree more with Jasper. I'm a HRC supporter and found this guy absolutely disgusting. Where is Ann Lewis?

Petey: The only correct reaction to Penn is contempt.
Amen!

Mark Penn is slime. The kind of slime one expects from the Republican National Committee (think Ed Gillespie).

My take on an Obama/Edwards ticket: Edwards would be the best Attorney General I can conceive of to clean the stables of the waist-high corporate greed. So (out of the box thinking here), Edwards as VP being also the Attorney General would send an awesome message.

The best part is the "Knights who say Ni" type exchange between Trippi and Penn. "You just said cocaine again!" "Now you said cocaine!"

Penn is undoubtedly a douchebag, but come on. This is Althousian nonsense.

"the Clintons"

Did you hear Tweety say that?

Chris Matthews is hurting America. And my ears.

Ari's article mentioned that Penn defended Olestra being accused of causing anal leakage. Makes perfect sense

So, am I to understand that cocaine is their "safe space?" Presumably this is one recreational drug Hillary didn't use at Wellesley?

I don't know - and I don't think it should matter - but what's stunning is that it doesn't seem logical that her school years were drug-free, either.

Is it just me, or does Penn come off like Hitchens' socially awkward younger brother?

"Edwards as VP being also the Attorney General would send an awesome message.

Posted by: JimPortlandOR"

Can't do that. Can't hold both offices at once.

Additionally, Edwards would never accept VP spot.

"Additionally, Edwards would never accept VP spot."

Really? I'm not so sure. Plus, if Obama really did make an offer, saying, healthcare will be your gig, and Edwards didn't take it I would be very disappointed in him.