Who's the Mystery Man Behind the Latest Pelosi Putsch? It's Mark Penn.

[babylonsister]

Who’s the Mystery Man Behind the Latest Pelosi Putsch? It’s Mark Penn.
Ryan Grim
November 26 2018, 6:42 p.m.


A small group of billionaire-backed Democrats, part of the so-called Problem Solvers Caucus in Congress, has launched a last-ditch effort that threatens to derail Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s election as House speaker.

They’ve framed their challenge to Pelosi, a California Democrat, in terms of good government and high-minded bipartisanship. Yet the force behind their campaign is one of the most toxic and notorious partisan warriors the Democratic Party has produced in the past three decades: political and corporate consultant Mark Penn.

The Problem Solvers Caucus is made up of 12 Democrats and 12 Republicans; nine of the Democrats have publicly committed to opposing Pelosi on the House floor if she doesn’t meet their demands for House rules changes largely aimed at legislatively empowering Republicans. Combined with the holdouts from the last putsch effort, there would be enough votes to thwart Pelosi.

The Democratic chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus is Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, who has been a protege of Penn’s since the 1990s, when he was just out of college. Gottheimer is one of the nine members making demands of Pelosi. She and the caucus will meet Tuesday afternoon to go over the group’s demands.

The caucus was born out of meetings of congresspeople organized by No Labels, which was founded in 2010 as a bipartisan group, backed by wealthy donors, ostensibly dedicated to civility and good government. Nancy Jacobson, Penn’s wife, is the No Labels CEO, and Penn is also closely involved with the group. Gottheimer was elected to Congress in 2016 and co-founded the caucus, with Rep. Tom Reed, D-N.Y., shortly thereafter.

more...

https://theintercept.com/2018/11/26/nancy-pelosi-speaker-no-labels-mark-penn/

[hedda_foil]

1. That question was almost too easy.

[BeyondGeography]

2. Mark Penn has his uses

He did give us President Barack Obama after all.

[MagickMuffin]

6. ah no he didn't, he worked for Hillary

David Axelrod & David Plouffe

[Eric J in MN]

7. That's the joke. He was good for the opposition in the primary. NT

NT

[MagickMuffin]

11. Ha-HA-HA

That makes sense now!!!

Thx for the clarification

[Me.]

3. Glad To See This Info Being Brought Forth

saw Gottheimer on MSNBC this morning talking a mile a minute, being very unconvincing. Eeek, the head of NO Labels is Penn's wife? That alone should qualify her judgment as being questionable.

+1

[octoberlib]

4. Mark Penn loves Trump and is a favorite on Fox News. Laura Ingraham loves him.

Penn’s latest paean to the greatness of Trump offers a disturbing window into the vacuous mind of one of the worst people to work in Democratic politics in the last generation. (The only political advisers worse than Penn are Penn’s former partners, Dick Morris and Doug Schoen.) Penn’s thesis is that, despite the predicted wave election he faces Tuesday, Trump has brilliantly outmaneuvered all his enemies. “His political survival after two years in office,” gushes Penn, “is a modern-day miracle.”

Penn goes on to credit Trump not only as a political wizard, but as a policy savant who has elevated the level of thought in American politics. Penn’s Trump is a Man of Ideas. Penn notes that while he does not personally agree with Trump’s “idea for ending birthright citizenship,” he praises its substance: “It’s not an insult, a racial epithet, or an off-color joke. It’s an idea that focuses on how an open-borders policy reverberates.”

Penn lambastes Democrats for lacking any of the intellectual energy Trump has displayed for the country:

Other than investigations and impeachment, what are the Democrats running on? They have made an issue of health insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions. Trump has said he too would cover them. The Democratic idea is not a health-care plan, but an attack.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/clinton-adviser-mark-penn-loves-trump.html

[erronis]

5. Wow - thanks for that link/text from the NY Intelligencer

About the only thing I agree with from Penn is his statement, “His [Trump's] political survival after two years in office ... is a modern-day miracle.” Trump's survival has required massive support from wealthy and criminal backers.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

14. Trump's political survival has been infuriating- but no miracle

I mean, after all, when you have a lapdog Republican Congress that purposely sticks fingers in their ears when faced with scandals and changes the rules to make it easier to get SCOTUS nominees through, it's not really that special IMHO.

[brooklynite]

8. Putsch (Noun): a violent attempt to overthrow a government.

Ever so slightly over the top...

And before you tell me that this is "common parlance" (like "coup&quot consider that the term implies illegitimacy. Whatever you think of Penn, or No Labels or the Problem Solvers Caucus, the fact remains that Pelosi doesn't have an automatic right to the Speakership that other are attempting to illegitimately deny.

[OnDoutside]

12. I had the (mistaken) impression that you were quite to the left of centre ? Between this and the

pushing of Gillibrand, that suggests the opposite direction ? Just wondering.

[brooklynite]

15. This has nothing to do with ideology...

I engage in politics in the real world, and experience tells me we do better when we frame debates realistically. I have no problem with Pelosi getting elected as Speaker' neither do I object if the Caucus picks someone else. But yelling "putsch" and "coup" over a decision that all House members will make democratically is something I find really irritating. So does continually insinuating evil intent to Gillibrand (and her ALONE) over calling for Franken (whom I've supported and met with) to step down after accusations of sexual harassment.

[OnDoutside]

16. Real world politics saw the Dems have their best midterm in 50 years, with Pelosi at

the helm. If this was about genuine ideology, that would be one thing, but this gang don't have the cojones to even have one of their number stand against her. This is all about blackmail and I fervently hope she crushes them. The House Democrats are the best hope, not just for the USA, but for the rest of us too. It's deeply disappointing to have this distraction taking away from what has been an outstanding result. Even worse, that it involves such a seriously compromised group, with Penn hanging around.

[brooklynite]

17. How is this "taking away" from the Election results?

[OnDoutside]

20. Because it portrays the Democrats as being in crisis by being blackmailed by

a tiny faction with nefarious purposes. That's the headline news, rather than the Democratic victory and plans for January.

[brooklynite]

21. That's the headline news in political blogs and newssites

The average voter has no idea this is going on. The politically engaged voter knows how inconsequential it is.

[OnDoutside]

22. Unfortunately not, it's on tv too, and of course RWers are sticking the boot in. It's not the

politically engaged I'm concerned about, but rather those who aren't engaged yet took a chance on the Democratic Party this time round. When they hear these bogus "bipartisan demands", their natural inclination would be to assume that the Democratic Party are up to something. It's not the message needed right now.

[LanternWaste]

18. Who is arguing Pelosi has an automatic right to the Speakership?

"the fact remains that Pelosi doesn't have an automatic right to the Speakership that other are attempting to illegitimately deny..."

And please, be specific.

[Hortensis]

9. The network of Super PACs linked to No Labels --

which go by a variety of names, according to a Sun-Times investigation, including United for Progress, Citizens for a Strong America, United Together, and Govern or Go Home — spent millions in the 2018 midterms, mostly to help elect members of the Problem Solvers Caucus.

...

One of the initial planks of the Speaker Project was that the House speaker should be a bipartisan position, with the speaker needing five more votes than the number of their majority party. That demand has been dialed back, but the rules changes being called for are in a similar vein, with the purpose of stripping power from the majority party and requiring Republican support for legislation.

Btw, I noticed in this article and subsequent googling that Penn's being used in a very widespread left-to-right hit campaign against Hillary. It doesn't help that when he's carrying out his own hit campaign against her and also attention-seeking by insisting she's going to run in 2020. Hillary has not employed Penn since 2008, a decade now. He'd be among the last she'd tell what she was thinking.

[CurtEastPoint]

10. from 17 but still valid

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ignore-mark-penn-democrats-advice_us_595e7260e4b0615b9e900030

[OnDoutside]

13. I would like this to be hit hard in the media. Shine a light and expose them for what they are.

[DFW]

19. So what will they do after Pelosi is elected Speaker?

Go chase after Sheldon Whitehouse for eating too many scallops?

[Honeycombe8]

23. They want three rule changes. Pelosi & the group are meeting. They're not against her personally.

They don't oppose Pelosi, per se. What they want are some changes in rules. One of those changes is for bills with certain numbers of supporters on it to be able to get to the floor for a vote w/o having speak approval. One example was a bill with 290 House supporters, and Paul Ryan wouldn't let it go to the floor for a vote.

Another rule change would prevent special interest groups from stopping the House business or shutting down the government (or something like that), like the Republican Freedom Caucus has done.

Pelosi is speaking with them. She has gotten one to agree to vote for her. She may agree to some rule changes, but hasn't made a commitment yet. People with power don't like to give it up, as we know.

So it's something to be hammered out. They have only three rule changes they want. Seems to me like they can come to some sort of agreement.

It's not a situation like the article in the OP seems to suggest: that they don't want Pelosi, personally, as speaker. It's three rule changes. Hopefully they can all come to some sort of agreement.

https://www.vox.com/2018/11/26/18112546/nancy-pelosi-problem-solvers-caucus-explained