The fact that all the users mentioned above came from a Clinton campaign IP, but did not register with campaign email addresses, and avoided making comments or diaries, instead only recommending pro-Clinton diaries, strikes us as gaming the system and a form of 'recommend astroturf'*. As a result, we have banned those accounts, and will do so again for undisclosed paid staffers of any campaign if need be."

Penn has become involved in virtually every move Clinton makes, with the result that the campaign reflects the chief strategist as much as the candidate. If Clinton sounds middle-of-the-road, it may be because Penn is a longtime pollster for the centrist Democratic Leadership Council whose clients have included Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.). If Clinton resembles a Washington insider with close ties to the party's biggest donors, it may be because her lead strategist is a wealthy chief executive who heads a giant public relations firm...

...For well over two decades, both Penn and his opinion polling company have advised the tobacco industry on how to counter the campaigns of the tobacco control movement. Based on internal tobacco industry documents, it is clear that Penn and his colleagues have little personal sympathy for those promoting policies that put public health ahead of the interests of the tobacco industry.

In 2001, PM hired Penn to help develop strategies to convince the Democrats in Congress "to support reasonable regulation" of the tobacco industry.

Another campaign was for the oil company, Texaco, on "key regulatory issues affecting the oil industry including gasoline taxes, alternative fuels and reformulated mandates, and global warming."

...Advising the American Nuclear Energy Council on developing "a proactive strategy to limit opposition to further study of the [Yucca Mountain nuclear waste] storage facility, and for immediate acceptance."

A press release crowed that PSB had been "closely associated with Burson-Marsteller on developing and implementing deregulation informational programs for the electric utilities industry and in the financial services sector."

But what we do know is troubling enough. Penn and others in his firm have worked for the tobacco industry, the nuclear industry, the packaging industry, an oil company and other industry groups.

What is on the public record about Penn's work is just a tiny sliver of what he has been doing during the thirty-plus years... The omission of tobacco interests from his official biography is itself an example of spin-doctoring, and it begs the question of who else he may be representing behind the scenes.

Of particular interest is that that Penn has been advising Hillary Clinton since 2000. During that time, he has worked for Philip Morris on at least one project aimed at getting bipartisan support for legislation affecting the tobacco industry. In May 2007 Bloomberg reported that in a blog post, titled "Workin' With Hillary," Penn wrote that one of the benefits of "mixing of corporate and political work" was that it was "helpful in cross-pollinating new ideas and skills." "And," he added, "I have found it good for business."

Now is the time for Penn to publish his full client list, covering at least the period that he has been advising Hillary Clinton. Clinton should insist that he does.

Yet Penn is no ordinary pollster. Beyond his connections to the Clintons, he not only polls for America's biggest companies but also runs one of the world's premier PR agencies. This creates a dilemma for Hillary: Penn represents many of the interests whose influence candidate Clinton--in an attempt to appeal to an increasingly populist Democratic electorate--has vowed to curtail. Is what's good for Penn and his business good for Hillary's political career? And furthermore, can she convincingly claim to fight for the average American with Penn guiding strategy in her corner?

Despite the risks he poses, it's easy to figure out why Hillary clings to Penn. The Clintons (like the Bushes) put a premium on loyalty, and they credit Penn with saving Bill's presidency.

"They were the ones who said 'Make the '96 election about nothing except V-Chips and school uniforms,'" says a former Clinton adviser.

Penn's largest client was Microsoft, and he saw no contradiction between working for both the plaintiff and the defense in what was at the time the country's largest antitrust case. A variety of controversial clients enlisted PSB. The firm defended Procter and Gamble's Olestra from charges that it caused anal leakage, blamed Texaco's bankruptcy on greedy jurors and market-tested genetically modified foods for Monsanto. Penn invented the concept of "inoculation," in which corporations are shielded from scandal through clever advertising and marketing. Selling an image, companies realized, was as important as winning a legislative favor.

The press release announcing Penn's promotion noted his work "developing and implementing deregulation informational programs for the electric utilities industry and in the financial services sector." The release blithely ignored how utility deregulation contributed to the California electricity crisis manipulated by Enron and the blackout of 2003, which darkened much of the Northeast and upper Midwest.

...Included the likes of Iraq's Ahmad Chalabi, the darling of the neocon right in the run-up to the war; Lockheed Martin; and Occidental Petroleum. In the summer of 2005 he landed a contract with the Lincoln Group, the disgraced PR firm that covertly placed US military propaganda in Iraqi news outlets.

Black is only one cannon in B-M's Republican arsenal. Its "grassroots" lobbying branch, Direct Impact--which specializes in corporate-funded astroturfing (industry term for creating fake grassroots orgs. - Billy)--is run by Dennis Whitfield, a former Reagan Cabinet official, and Dave DenHerder, the political director of the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign in Ohio. That's not all. B-M recently partnered with lobbyist Ed Gillespie, the former head of the Republican National Committee, in creating the new ad firm 360Advantage, which is run by two ad men for the Bush-Cheney campaigns and which includes a few prominent Democrats. Its first project was a campaign for the neoconservative Weekly Standard magazine against "liberal bias" in the media. There's more than a little irony that some Democrats would assist a conservative media machine that so regularly smears the Clintons. Yet the so-called "bipartisan" firm is hardly objective--of its thirteen principals, ten are Republicans.

As expected with such a lineup, B-M has a highly confrontational relationship with organized labor.

Yet Hillary apparently sees no contradiction between her own advocacy, as painted by Penn, and the anti-union, pro-corporate work of her chief strategist's company. "Clearly not," says spokesman Howard Wolfson. "I don't think it reflects on her at all. Mark's work away from the campaign is Mark's work, and his campaign work is separate from that." (Wolfson told me to talk to Penn for additional information, but when I contacted Penn he referred all questions to Wolfson.)

Yet despite occupying such a divisive place in the Democratic Party and outsized role in the corporate world--and despite his company's close ties to Republican political operatives and the Bush White House--Penn remains a leading figure in Hillary's campaign, pitching the inevitability of her nomination to donors and party bigwigs. According to the New York Times, "[Hillary] Clinton responds to Penn's points with exclamations like, Oh, Mark, what a smart thing to say!" Politically, his presence means that triangulation is alive and well inside the campaign and that despite her populist forays, Hillary won't stray too far from the center. "Penn has a lot of influence on her, no doubt about it," says New York political consultant Hank Sheinkopf, who worked with Penn in '96. "He's not going to let her drift too far left."