PHILADELPHIA—The architect of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign Democratic strategist Mark Penn will not say whether or not he is talking to the Clintons.
Penn, who pointed out Barack Obama’s cocaine use during the negative campaign in 2008, spoke with the Atlantic’s Steve Clemons at an event Wednesday during the Democratic National Convention.
Penn offered his advice and strategy to Clinton’s presidential run this time around, but was mum on whether he is currently speaking with Hillary or Bill Clinton.
The Washington Free Beacon asked when was the last time Penn had spoken to the Clintons, if he is advising the campaign in any capacity, and his thoughts on the performance of both Bill and Hillary on the campaign trail.
"I never answer the first question, when I’ve spoken to the Clintons at any time," Penn said. "Two, I’m not advising the Clinton campaign. And three, you know, she won."
Penn was light on praise for Clinton’s performance in the Democratic primary, remarking that the only relevant fact is she came out on top.
The DNC so far has been rife with controversy after hacked emailed revealed that the committee was actively working against Clinton’s opponent Bernie Sanders. DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced to resign due to emails that showed staffers strategizing on how to attack Sanders based on his religion.
"Politics is a winner-take-all game, and tried as we did in 2008, we just came this close," Penn said. "People can always say, ‘Well, Bernie shouldn’t have gotten this high,’ but the truth of the matter is there’s always an opponent in the Democratic primary, you always have one, the progressive wing can always be a strong opponent, and she won."
"So politics is measured by the results," he said.
Penn has a long history with the Clintons, working on Bill Clinton’s reelection campaign in 1996, Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign in 2000, and her presidential campaign in 2008.
Clemons, the Washington editor-at-large for the Atlantic, called Penn the "Yoda" of elections.
"He’s the guy who helped create this entire Clinton phenomenon, until he lost, right?" Clemons said. "He did ’96, he did 2000, the 2006, the 2008. You had the longest run propelling the Clinton franchise than anyone, and then you jumped out of it."
Penn has been blamed for Clinton’s 2008 loss, as the top strategist who recommended a negative campaign that set its sights on Obama’s "lack of American roots."
"I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and his values," Penn wrote at the time in an internal campaign memo.
Penn also used Obama’s relationship to Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright against the candidate, and repeatedly brought up Obama’s past cocaine use.
Penn now owns SKDKnickerbocker, a firm hired to do marketing work for the Barack Obama Foundation.
Clemons said 97 out of 100 of his cousins in Oklahoma and Kansas are voting for Trump because they feel "screwed" by Washington corruption.
"How does Hillary Clinton deal with that, when many of my relatives in Oklahoma and Kansas, and Texas see her as this monarch, this queen, returning back to her castle in Washington," Clemons said. "I mean, it doesn’t matter what I show them about Donald Trump and what he said, they just see him as a wrecking ball, and they love that. And they see her as the queen of convention. How do you shake that?"
Penn said Bill Clinton’s Tuesday night speech in which he called Hillary a "change maker" will help her campaign, and said she has to present the message that she "has the strength and experience to make things happen."
He did admit Hillary is no outsider.
"She can’t say, ‘I’m the Washington outsider,’" Penn said. "That would get laughed at."