Falling DollarsEverything that happened last week, in case you weren’t paying attention.
ByMark Adams
early and often
What We Can Learn From the Clinton MemosMuch of the revelations from the memos aren’t exactly new, but some of the details can be fascinating, allowing us to look into the thoughts, nay, the very souls, of Team Clinton.
Chace Crawford and J.C. Chasez Hang Out With GirlsChace Crawford and J.C. Chasez hung out with girls and drank Cristal at a Vegas party thrown by Michael Strahan. A bunch of Upper East Side housewives at the premiere of The Real Housewives of New York City hated on the show. Because they were jealous. Among the stipulations in Kimora Lee Simmons’s contract rider is that her glass of Champagne must be filled whenever it gets below one inch. Employees at Philippe may have been watching celebs like Tom Brady and Gisele hook up in the restaurant’s private room via security camera. A party in honor of Baird Jones (open bar, naturally) will be held at Plumm this Friday, with a memorial service to be held at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine Saturday afternoon.
early and often
Hillary Campaign Starts to StingThe Wall Street Journal today gets to the bottom of an issue everybody is wondering about this week: What the hell is going on inside the Clinton campaign? As Obama pulls into a double-digit lead in a national poll, but the New York senator remains in a strong delegate position, everyone assumes things must be tense. Especially since there was a shake-up in the leadership of the campaign team last week. And, it turns out, everyone is right!
Clinton campaign operatives say it happened as top Clinton advisers gathered in Arlington, Va., campaign headquarters to preview a TV commercial. “Your ad doesn’t work,” strategist Mark Penn yelled at ad-maker Mandy Grunwald. “The execution is all wrong,” he said, according to the operatives.
“Oh, it’s always the ad, never the message,” Ms. Grunwald fired back, say the operatives. The clash got so heated that political director Guy Cecil left the room, saying, “I’m out of here.”
That was awesome. We don’t know Mark Penn personally, but it’s pretty clear he’s a guy who needs a good slap in the balls every now and then. When we heard the Clinton campaign was in “fighting mode,” we had no idea that’s what they meant!
Clinton Team Seeks to Calm Turmoil [WSJ]
early and often
Clinton’s Blackwatergate: If You Thought Whitewatergate Was Bad…Will unsavory connections be the slow death of Hillary Clinton? The Democratic candidate, of course, has run a near-flawless campaign so far, forcing the press to obsess over her body instead of her platform, but the swarm of characters around Camp Hillary is beginning to look like a liability. First there was the twitchy fugitive fund-raiser Norman Hsu. Then one of her donors and Bill’s golfing buddies turned out to be mixed up in a scary cultlike organization. Now comes the word that Mark Penn, Hillary’s longest-serving adviser, also runs Burson-Marsteller, a company doing PR for the mercenaries of Blackwater.
