Campaigning like it's 1996

In the Guardian, Michael Tomasky discusses the unfortunate influence of Mark Penn, Bill Clinton's former pollster and political adviser, on Hillary's campaign:

Pennism is a kind of Democratic politics that one could argue was right for an era of conservative dominance: take few risks, and move as far to the centre and even right as possible so you couldn't be labelled soft on defence or wobbly on support for the free market.

But George Bush and Karl Rove have seen to it that, after Iraq and Katrina and the US attorneys scandal and now a real-life recession, we are no longer in an era of conservative dominance. We're not in an era of liberal dominance either, of course, but we are in a place where, for the first time in a very long time, conservatism has discredited itself, and more Americans are open to progressive alternatives. This was apparent to anyone paying attention in September 2005, after the tragedy of New Orleans.

But it wasn't apparent to Penn. And by extension we can conclude it wasn't apparent to the Clintons either (revealing, considering Bill's alleged political genius). Hillary's refusal to renounce her vote in support of the Iraq war — a refusal that I have no doubt was based on Penn's advice, on the grounds that she had to continue to show she could be "tough" on foreign policy — was a disaster for her, as was the vote itself. If, in a few weeks' time, we're writing Clinton campaign post-mortems, her handling of Iraq will be deservedly high on the list of errata, and it was classic Pennism.