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The mainstream media has recently gotten all excited over the discovery that the Russians purchased $100,000 worth of Facebook ads during the 2016 election season. Of course, almost any rational observer would realize that $100,000 is mere chump change in the grand scheme of things during a campaign in which many millions were spent on ads and commercials.  One person who made a very detailed analysis as to the absurdity of the Russians influencing the U.S. election via those Facebook ads is quite surprising considering his background. It is former 2008 Hillary Clinton campaign chief stragegist Mark Penn who in...

Federal Judge John Roll was killed in Tucson trying to save another man’s life. As soon as madman Jared Lee Loughner finished his attempt to murder Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, he turned his gun on the people to his left, then the people to his right. Recently released video shows his first target to the right was Ron Barber, Gifford’s district director, who was standing next to Justice John Roll. Barber was shot in the arm. Judge Roll then pushed him down and, shielding Barber with his own body, steered him to shelter under a nearby table. While under the table,...

The firm headed by Hillary Clinton’s former chief strategist, Mark Penn, is helping run incumbent President Victor Yushchenko’s campaign. Meanwhile Paul Manafort, whose firm worked on Republican John McCain’s losing effort, and Tad Devine, a top strategist on the Democratic presidential campaigns of Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, are consulting for Victor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian frontrunner in the polls.

RELEASE: The Podesta Emails Part 17 October 24th E-mail Drop

Breitbart research into Hillary starting birther movement

In his inaugural address Wednesday, incoming New York Mayor Bill de Blasio tried to establish an intellectual pedigree for his focus on economic inequality. He invoked Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Franklin Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Al Smith, Frances Perkins, Fiorello La Guardia, Jacob Riis, David Dinkins, Mario Cuomo, and Harry Belafonte. It reminded me of when Democrats, eager to prove their national-security bona fides, tell audiences they hail from the party of Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy. As if there wasn’t some other Democrat after Kennedy who dabbled at war and peace, some guy from Texas. De Blasio’s speech was a bit...

In early November, Democrat pollster Mark Penn appeared on MSNBC’s Hardball and said that President Clinton reconnected with his speech after the Oklahoma City bombings, and Obama needs a similar situation to do the same. “President Clinton reconnected with Oklahoma. And the President right now he seems removed. And it wasn’t until that speech that he really clicked with the American people. Obama needs a similar kind of, yeah” said Penn.

Occasionally, political pundits get so wrapped up in their analysis that they don’t think through all of the implications of their commentary. That happened to Mark Penn, longtime Democratic pollster, in his appearance on Hardball last night, in the most charitable explanation possible. Eyeblast’s Joe Schoffstall clips this magic moment from the discussion with Chris Matthews on how disconnected Barack Obama has become from the American electorate, and what it will take for him to reconnect, using Bill Clinton as an example:

Democrat pollster Mark Penn appeared on MSNBC’s Hardball and said that President Clinton reconnected with his speech after the Oklahoma City bombings, and Obama needs a similar situation to do the same. “President Clinton reconnected with Oklahoma. And the President right now he seems removed. And it wasn’t until that speech that he really clicked with the American people. Obama needs a similar kind of, yeah” said Penn.

The latest campaign-finance reports show that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign owes about $2.5 million to the firm of Mark J. Penn, who quit as chief strategist after embarrassing the campaign and left a leadership shake-up in his wake. The debt persisted on the campaign's ledger for February, according to reports filed for the March 20 deadline, despite payments of more than $3 million to Mr. Penn's polling firm that month, according to the most recent campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. Mr. Penn, who has long been a source of internal strife at the campaign, stepped...

Dana Perino, President George W. Bush's last White House press secretary, will join Clinton administration adviser Mark Penn at public-relations firm Burson-Marsteller, where she will be "chief issues counselor." Mr. Penn, the firm's CEO, said Ms. Perino's experiences in Mr. Bush's second term make her a valuable addition to the team of battle-tested public-relations veterans he is assembling. . . . Ms. Perino, 36 years old, likely will focus on communications strategies for clients in the looming Washington policy debates over issues such as energy, climate change and health care. She may also develop business among newer defense and technology...

<p>INSURER American Interna tional Group got into trouble for wastefully spending money on extravagant trips right before taxpayers had to bail out the company.</p> <p>Now the hard-up insurance giant is wasting money on a high-priced public-relations firm to make that bad image go away.</p>

A veteran Democratic political strategist has some advice for what appears to many to be a Barack Obama campaign rattled by the explosive entrance into the campaign of John McCain's vice presFormer Hillary Clinton presidential campaign strategist Mark Pennident pick, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Mark Penn, the high-priced strategist who did such a good early job of launching Hillary Clinton's Democratic presidential campaign to doom at the hands of Obama, tells CBS.com he's worried that the Windy City gang will repeat the mistakes of the last two losing Democratic presidential campaigns by returning to the base after their convention instead...

THE MONEY QUOTES: "I think here the media is on very dangerous ground. I think that when you see them going through every single expense report that Governor Palin ever filed, if they don't do that for all four of the candidates, they're on very dangerous ground. I think the media so far has been the biggest loser in this race. And they continue to have growing credibility problems. And I think that that's a real problem growing out of this election. The media now, all of the media — not just Fox News, that was perceived as highly partisan...

CBSNews.com: So you think the media is being uniquely tough on Palin now? Mark Penn: Well, I think that the media is doing the kinds of stories on Palin that they're not doing on the other candidates. And that's going to subject them to people concluding that they're giving her a tougher time. Now, the media defense would be, "Yeah, we looked at these other candidates who have been in public life at an earlier time." What happened here very clearly is that the controversy over Palin led to 37 million Americans tuning into a vice-presidential speech, something that is...

Ex-Clinton Aide: Media Tougher On Palin Sept. 12, 2008(CBS) Political Players is a continuing conversation with the leaders, consultants and activists who shape American politics. This week, CBS News' Brian Goldsmith talked with Mark Penn, a top strategist to both Clintons, about the state of the Obama campaign, and the appeal of Sarah Palin. CBSNews.com: Sen. Obama is struggling and, in some states, dropping in the polls. Sen. McCain now has higher favorable ratings. How serious is this decline? Mark Penn: Well, I think you're seeing a real decline after the two conventions. I think after the Democratic convention, Obama...

Excerpt - In May 2006, Clinton herself had interviewed another experienced campaign consultant, Steve Hildebrand, but had turned him down. The time was not right. And she had plenty of time. But it would prove to be a costly mistake. A few months later, Steve Hildebrand would play a key role in persuading Barack Obama to run for president. Hillary still was not worried. She would put together a great campaign team, a Dream Team. It did not turn out that way. “Happy families are alike,” Leo Tolstoy famously wrote. “Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The...

This is a torturous month of what-ifs for Hillary Clinton and her still substantial number of followers. First, they have to wonder if the Democrat-friendly media that helped her for so long may have doomed her by refusing to follow a John Edwards adultery story that could have given her the Iowa win that Barack Obama used as his nomination springboard. Instead, Hillary and her followers will have to make do with a Tuesday night convention speech the week after next. But she could have accepted the nomination that Thursday night if only she had followed the instincts of discarded...

Hillary Clinton's former chief political strategist said in a memo during the U.S. presidential primaries she should challenge Barack Obama's American roots. Strategist Mark Penn was the New York senator's chief political adviser until April. In a 2007 memo, Penn said of Obama: All of these articles about his boyhood in Indonesia and his life in Hawaii are geared toward showing his background is diverse, multicultural and putting that in a new light. Save it for 2050, CNN reported. Penn wrote that Obama's past exposes a very strong weakness for him, noting that the Illinois senator's roots in America are...

AUSTIN, Texas: Former presidential aide Karen Hughes is joining the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller as global vice chairwoman, the company said Wednesday. Hughes, who was an aide to George W. Bush in the White House and when he was Texas governor, will report to Mark Penn, the Burson-Marsteller worldwide president and chief executive who was chief strategist for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's Democratic presidential campaign. "Karen is one of the leading communications strategists working today," Penn said. "She brings enormous strategic insights coupled with the ability to drive successful campaigns at the highest levels of the political, governmental and corporate...