Hillary's union problem - Top adviser is anti-labor

Mark Schmitt
May 15, 2007

U.K. Guardian Article

An American presidential election has many layers. At the top, of course, is the question of whether a Democrat or a Republican will win the office in 2008. One layer below is the question of who will be the nominee of each party - a question that is genuinely open in both parties for the first time since the 1950s.

But below that rests one more crucial layer that is often unnoticed but of great consequence: the battles for influence among advisors within the individual campaigns.

In this campaign, a battle is starting to brew over the role of a man said to be the de facto campaign manager for Senator Hillary Clinton, and labeled by some "the most important man in Washington you've never heard of": Mark Penn, a pollster who since getting into the business as a Harvard undergraduate in 1975 has advised Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and Italy's Silvio Berlusconi. Penn is known for a particular approach to political polling, identifying certain demographic groups as "swing voters," and urging candidates to focus their attention exclusively on those groups, usually middle-class suburbanites.

He's also brought those insights to many corporate clients, including McDonald's and Ford Motor Company, and that is one of the things that is beginning to draw him unwanted notice. There's nothing unusual about a political pollster conducting consumer polls for corporate clients, but for most it is a sideline. Penn's immersion in the corporate world is so complete that after selling his polling firm to public relations giant Burson-Marsteller, he became "world-wide president and CEO" of the parent firm, the fifth-largest PR firm in the universe,in 2005.

In this capacity Penn runs numerous corporate lobbying subsidiaries that ought to give key Democratic constituencies pause: among his underlings are a former chair of the Republican National Committee, a former House Republican leader, and several other top Republican lobbyists. Burson-Marsteller also has advertised its expertise in "Labour Relations," making clear on its web site that labour relations means keeping unions out.

"Companies cannot be caught unprepared by Organized Labour's coordinated campaigns," the company said, advertising its close relationship with a right-wing academic who has written about the nefarious leftwing campaign against American companies, and a group of operatives with Republican credentials. (The website was changed after I called attention to it in The American Prospect.)

Organized labour is a central constituency of the Democratic Party, and Senator Clinton certainly expects the support of some if not all of the major labour unions. But why should they support someone who's top campaign strategist also holds a full-time job at a company with a union-busting operation? Shouldn't labour leaders be speaking out about Penn's role in the Clinton campaign? Will they?

As more detail's about Penn and his firm's role begin to emerge - last week, The Nation's Ari Berman revealed Burson-Marsteller's role in blocking a major union organizing drive at the industrial laundry and uniform firm Cintas - union leaders have said nothing publicly.

Perhaps they assume that Clinton is likely to be the next president, and they don't want to alienate her by criticizing an advisor to whom she is said to be personally very close. Perhaps they assume that if they can get Clinton to endorse their specific policy positions in exchange for their endorsement, her advisors don't matter. Or perhaps labour is reassured by the presence of others they trust in Clinton's circle, such as former President Bill Clinton or labour lawyer Harold Ickes. But if labor ignores Penn's influence, they will have no standing to complain when working Americans are ignored in the general election or if Clinton becomes president. Let's hope that labor leaders such as Andy Stern of the Service Employees International Union and Bruce Raynor of the union that tried to organize Cintas are calling Ickes and others and quietly pointing out that unless Penn's role is visibly reduced, Senator Clinton should not expect labor endorsements for 2008.

Even if there were no issues of conflict of interest raised by simultaneously running Burson-Marsteller and the Clinton campaign, labour and progressive Democrats should be worried about the brand of politics Penn markets. It is a politics in which Democrats mouth semi-populist slogans until they win the party's nomination, and then retreat to safe appeals to affluent swing voters to win the general election. Such a politics is uninspiring, conservative, and inappropriate to an era when Americans are more deeply engaged in politics than before and concern about economic inequality and corporate power is growing. It is a politics that seems better suited to the concerns of Burson-Marsteller's clients than to the moment.