{"id":3076,"date":"2008-04-09T15:07:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-09T21:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/04\/mark-the-mercenary\/"},"modified":"2009-08-22T14:10:05","modified_gmt":"2009-08-22T20:10:05","slug":"mark-the-mercenary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2008\/04\/mark-the-mercenary\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark the mercenary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Carter Bundy<\/span> <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The Clinton<\/a> campaign received an unexpected boost this week when Mark Penn<\/a> finally got dumped. Penn is widely considered a brilliant political strategist. Further, there\u2019s nothing wrong with having varied opinions within a political campaign or an administration. The current administration is living proof that groupthink can be a major contributing factor to disastrous economic and foreign policies.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

But Penn\u2019s beliefs, actions and priorities are far more problematic than simply a normal healthy disagreement over issues. As the current CEO of Burson-Marsteller<\/a>, a firm that specializes in lobbying for and advising union busters, Penn has long been at odds with some of Clinton<\/st1:city>\u2019s strongest supporters and Clinton<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u2019s basic policies.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

His anti-union, anti-worker ways were finally exposed on the national stage last week when he was caught supporting President Bush\u2019s Colombian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA). Penn\u2019s actions and beliefs were beyond the pale considering he was a very highly paid, top-level advisor to the Clinton<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> campaign.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Colombia<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>\u2019s quiet crisis<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

According to the AFL-CIO, more than 2,500 Colombian trade unionists have been murdered since 1986 \u2013 including 39 in 2007 and 17 so far this year \u2013 while the government has sat by silently. Fewer than 3 percent of the cases have been successfully prosecuted, a dismal number that can only be explained by lack of desire to prosecute.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

With the Colombian government\u2019s de facto complicity in the murder of thousands of workers, there\u2019s no way that any labor protections in the CFTA would ever be enforced.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Yet Penn personally \u2013 or at least in his high-powered lobbyist job \u2013 supports the CFTA. Not only is that an indefensible position for any Democrat who even pretends to care about workers\u2019 rights, it\u2019s squarely at odds with the Democrat by whom he has been paid millions of dollars in this campaign.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Irreconcilable differences<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

It was just a matter of time with a mercenary like Penn. Turns out he also supports privatization of our military and the wasteful siphoning of tax dollars to well-connected companies like Blackwater<\/a> (another Burson-Marsteller client).<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing to have a disagreement on policy within a campaign. That can be a positive, particularly if the policy disagreements are overwhelmed by general philosophical agreements. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

It\u2019s quite another thing to be a millionaire CEO of an outside firm that actively lobbies against his candidate\u2019s policies \u2013 especially when Penn clearly has a philosophy more aligned with Dick Cheney\u2019s<\/a> than any national Democrat\u2019s.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

It\u2019s our job as citizens \u2013 particularly those of us who are Democrats \u2013 to fight back against the likes of Mark Penn. Fortunately, when his views on policy came into conflict with those of real people, Hillary Clinton wisely chose to side with real people.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Good policy, good politics<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Turns out, Hillary\u2019s choice was not only right from a policy perspective, but it also makes political sense \u2013 even with some independents and Republicans. This week\u2019s New Mexico Business Weekly has a Web poll<\/a> asking, \u201cAre NAFTA-style trade deals good for the U.S.<\/st1:country-region><\/st1:place> economy?\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The weekly has a heavily business-oriented (and in all likelihood strongly Republican) readership, but the totals as of the end of the day on April 8 were 44 percent \u201cNo,\u201d 38 percent \u201cYes,\u201d and 17 percent \u201cSometimes.\u201d The poll isn\u2019t scientific, but it\u2019s also not the type of site that a bunch of liberals are going to start to stuff the ballot box on, either.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Think about it \u2013 even without the gory details of Colombia<\/st1:country-region>\u2019s violent government to skew the results, a solid plurality of New Mexico Business Weekly\u2019s Web audience thinks NAFTA-style agreements aren\u2019t good for the U.S.<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> economy. Throw in the facts about Colombia<\/st1:country-region><\/st1:place>, and Hillary\u2019s position is both sound policy and smart politics.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

What kind of spiral?<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

I agree with those who say globalization is largely inevitable. What isn\u2019t inevitable is that it is destructive. The United States<\/st1:country-region> and developing giants like China<\/st1:country-region>, India<\/st1:country-region> and even Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> are going to grow much closer in terms of standards of living over the next few decades. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The question is whether we use our clout to ensure that developing countries move closer to our current standards of living in win-win trade frameworks, or whether we get bullied by short-sighted, quarterly-profit driven mercenaries like Mark Penn into pushing our standards lower.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The Penn\/Bush vision of the world is a negative downward spiral, where multinationals move their operations from country to country, seeking the most permissive pollution standards, most relaxed labor regulations and weakest consumer protections.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The competing, progressive vision is that we can create a positive upward spiral, leveraging the intrinsically good components of trade to increase commerce, drive competition and improve standards of living across the board.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Sounds like a utopian fantasy? Nope \u2013 it\u2019s already been done. The United States<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> is the best example in the world of a free-trade system with labor mobility and generally uniform floors for labor, environmental and consumer standards. The American model has created widespread prosperity without sacrificing our core principles.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

We can replicate that American success across borders, so long as Penn and Bush aren\u2019t calling the shots. No matter how talented a political operative Mark Penn is, unloading him is good for Hillary and the country.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME<\/a> in New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here<\/a>. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Carter Bundy The Clinton campaign received an unexpected boost this week when Mark Penn finally got dumped. Penn is widely considered a brilliant political strategist. Further, there\u2019s nothing wrong with having varied opinions within a political campaign or an administration. The current administration is living proof that groupthink can be a major contributing factor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bundy-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}