The Hillary Clinton Memos
from The Atlantic
“The Plan,” October 2006
Clinton had forbidden her advisers from openly discussing her presidential ambitions until after she’d won reelection to the Senate. But behind the scenes, planning was already underway. In this October 2006 strategy memo, Mark Penn sketched out the campaign’s strategic principles (“HRC is the power candidate”) and assessed potential opponents. He worried that Al Gore was “waiting to swoop in later.”
Penn’s “Launch Strategy” Ideas, December 21, 2006
Shortly after Clinton’s reelection, Penn tried out some themes in this flattering memo to his boss. He suggested former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as a role model: “We are more Thatcher than anyone else.” Penn believed that voters view their president as the “father” of the country. “They do not want someone who would be the first mama,” he counseled. “But there is a yearning for a kind of tough single parent.” (He did not propose divorce.) Penn thought voters were “open to the first father being a woman.” But he warned again about the perils of being seen as too soft. “A word about being human,” he wrote. “Bill Gates once asked me, ‘Could you make me more human?’ I said, ‘Being human is overrated.’”
Penn Strategy Memo, March 19, 2007
More than anything else, this memo captures the full essence of Mark Penn’s campaign strategy—its brilliance and its breathtaking attacks. Penn identified with impressive specificity the very coalition of women and blue-collar workers that Clinton ended up winning a year later. But he also called Obama “unelectable except perhaps against Attila the Hun,” and wrote, “I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values.” Penn proposed targeting Obama’s “lack of American roots.”
Karl Rove Strategy Memo to Bill Clements, Jr., September 4, 1985
As a contrast to Mark Penn’s memos, here’s a fun piece of political arcana: a Karl Rove strategy memo written to former Texas governor Bill Clements, Jr., on the eve of the 1986 gubernatorial race. Clements was elected governor in 1978 but lost his bid for reelection. He was attempting a comeback. Note the tone of bracing honesty: Rove lays out his client’s “potentially explosive” weaknesses, including arrogance and bad press relations. Then he explains how they can be overcome. (Let’s forgive Rove the hackneyed Napoleon quote—Clements won the race.)
(Continued here, with hotlinks.)
“The Plan,” October 2006
Clinton had forbidden her advisers from openly discussing her presidential ambitions until after she’d won reelection to the Senate. But behind the scenes, planning was already underway. In this October 2006 strategy memo, Mark Penn sketched out the campaign’s strategic principles (“HRC is the power candidate”) and assessed potential opponents. He worried that Al Gore was “waiting to swoop in later.”
Penn’s “Launch Strategy” Ideas, December 21, 2006
Shortly after Clinton’s reelection, Penn tried out some themes in this flattering memo to his boss. He suggested former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as a role model: “We are more Thatcher than anyone else.” Penn believed that voters view their president as the “father” of the country. “They do not want someone who would be the first mama,” he counseled. “But there is a yearning for a kind of tough single parent.” (He did not propose divorce.) Penn thought voters were “open to the first father being a woman.” But he warned again about the perils of being seen as too soft. “A word about being human,” he wrote. “Bill Gates once asked me, ‘Could you make me more human?’ I said, ‘Being human is overrated.’”
Penn Strategy Memo, March 19, 2007
More than anything else, this memo captures the full essence of Mark Penn’s campaign strategy—its brilliance and its breathtaking attacks. Penn identified with impressive specificity the very coalition of women and blue-collar workers that Clinton ended up winning a year later. But he also called Obama “unelectable except perhaps against Attila the Hun,” and wrote, “I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values.” Penn proposed targeting Obama’s “lack of American roots.”
Karl Rove Strategy Memo to Bill Clements, Jr., September 4, 1985
As a contrast to Mark Penn’s memos, here’s a fun piece of political arcana: a Karl Rove strategy memo written to former Texas governor Bill Clements, Jr., on the eve of the 1986 gubernatorial race. Clements was elected governor in 1978 but lost his bid for reelection. He was attempting a comeback. Note the tone of bracing honesty: Rove lays out his client’s “potentially explosive” weaknesses, including arrogance and bad press relations. Then he explains how they can be overcome. (Let’s forgive Rove the hackneyed Napoleon quote—Clements won the race.)
(Continued here, with hotlinks.)
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