Now that he's not going to get any more of his million dollar invoices paid, what's the point of sticking around? An ultimate opportunist!
This is yet another nail in the coffin for HRC. She's getting a lot of bad press, and in PA., where they don't like Penn's ilk.(Not to suggest we like his ilk either!)Hillary's down in the PA polls, she's run out of dough, she's behind nationally and every measurable metric. Is she going to wait until she's an embarrassment?

... is very telling in and of itself. The type of Say Anything .... do anything to win campaign team Billary practice is the antithesis of Obama's campaign and that's one of the many reasons he is winning this nomination.

$100 Million plus in income since being the first couple shows how being a connected insider careerist politician can really work for ya .... just like Dubya.

Too bad the country is in deep debt with no way out short of a Democratic take over of Capitol Hill starting with the executive branch.

More of the same (lobbyist and Penn-heads ala the Clintonista) ain't the answer.

Give me Obama and a new beginning!!!

which is strictly under the control of the Congress

You are so right about Penn's "microtargeting."  His tactics border on superstition.

I had just written this about the rest of what I think about Penn:

Mark Penn Exits Clinton Campaign: Why Was He Ever Part of It In The First Place?

Controversial lobbyist Mark Penn has left the Clinton campaign and not a moment too soon.  His presence in the campaign was one of the biggest indicators of Hillary Clinton's bad judgment.  That he is finally gone does not relieve her of the error of using him as her chief pollster and strategist.  And his mere presence was the strongest indicator of Hillary's continuing links to the DLC wing of the Democratic party.  Penn is and was a poster boy for DLC anti-worker "free trade" pablum.  That's as in "free trade" for workers, but a rigged game favoring employers.  

The candidate herself has spoken out of two sides of her mouth on NAFTA.  While stating strong support on numerous occasions, she purported she was against NAFTA all along.  She claimed to oppose the Fair Trade deal Penn was lobbying for with Columbia.  And yet there was Penn trying to negotiate the deal.

One constant reminder of Clinton triangulation exits.  But this writer will not forget he was there in the first place.  And it is one of the main reasons to hope Ms. Clinton is not the nominee.

Until and unless the workers of the the US and the world regain some of the protections they lost under NAFTA and NAFTA-clones, and until ALL Democratic candidates unambiguously denounce the serious damage to workers resulting from such agreements,  we cannot fully believe in all of our candidates.  Thank God at least Barack Obama gets it.

Just my two cents....

He will continue to advise Clinton and be paid for that advice.  The only thing he has given up is an empty title.

If that's true, it's very clever -- the media and most everyone else is reporting this as "Penn leaves Clinton campaign" or some variant.  So, Clinton possibly gets out of hot water on the Colombia trade issue without actually ditching Penn?  Verrry clever.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04...
he'll remain with the campaign as the pollster. Which is, really, what his official title had been all along. It's he who insisted that he should be called the chief strategist. So, now, he won't be. Big deal.

He shouldn't have been hired -- much less at the salary he was receiving -- in the first place; bad judgment on Hillary's part (judgment? experience? experience? judgment? what'more important?)...

But, hey, it's only money and, had she swept the nomination on Super Tuesday, we would not have known about Penn's shady deals. Colombia being but a small part of them -- do we like his lobbying for Blackwater any better? Or the fact that McSame's adviser -- Black -- used to work for the same firm as Penn?

I didn't use to dislike HRC.. Until I learnt who her felo travellers were....

This is a very bad idea for two reasons.

First, once it is clear that Mark "Union Busting" Penn is still around in any capacity, Clinton's union cred will be totally gone.

Second, the media is getting ready to slap Hillary with the "liar" label for her mistake about the bullets in Kosovo. It is a bad idea to feed it with such a transparent tactic.

I hope that the news that he is actually staying is an unfounded rumor. Otherwise Hillary may have some kind of a political death wish if she decides to keep Penn around.

But man is it awfully PATHETIC!!

About f*cking time!  My opinion of Clinton just went way up.  It's still pretty low, but every little bit helps!

she is trying to say that she reacted when an advisor did something inappropriate to give her cover.   But his firm continues to do union busting, whether or not he was directly involved.   Somehow that should be gotten out to the union voters in Penna, who are an important demographic in the keystone state

having Penn working on her campaign while he was still involved with his lobbying and public relations is no different than Charlie Black running his lobbying business using his cell phone while on the so-called Straight Talk Express with McCain

maybe that's why Clinton thinks so highly of McCain - they both operate in a similar fashion, one which has the smell of corruption.

Penn is still in- I think Hillary is angry that he got caught.  They are still in bed together and will be doing each other favors. If Hillary got the nomination, I'm sure Penn would be lobbying her big time for Colombia.

There once was a man named Penn
Who left his candidate when
Her campaign in tatters
Her dreams he had shattered
His many mistakes did her in.

3 points!

These guys think politics is like selling products. People are just consumers to be fooled until the desired result is achieved. It started with the selling of the invasion of Guatemala in 1954 when Edward Bernaise (Freud's nephew and the father of American PR) was brought in to "sell" the invasion to the American people so we could install a banana friendly dictator (hence the term banana republic). There was an advertising campaign paid for by the American Government to sell people on invading a country and overthrowing their government. (Sounds like the lead up to Iraq doesn't it?)

This approach eventually evolved into the political consultants we have today. These are the same guys who told Paul Hackett to "tone it down" on the war in Iraq. He wouldn't listen so he was called by seniors in the Democratic Party and told to step aside.

These guys are a cancer in the Democratic Party and in the country in general. Its not the fault of the consultants themselves, but of those who employ them.

I am glad it happened this way, or Lowell would be supporting Sen. Clinton!