* The New Republic has an excellent look into why Hillary Clinton’s campaign stumbled so badly these past few months. This point, in particular, deserves notice because it is an easily avoided mistake I’ve seen too many times in the past right here in Illinois…

Probably our second biggest mistake was much more operational: Making our chief strategist [Mark Penn] our one and only pollster. It is impossible to disagree and have a counter view on message when the person creating the message is also the person testing the message.”

That is exactly right. The same thing happened to Ron Gidwitz in the 2006 GOP gubernatorial primary. His pollster and his media guru were the same people. Gidwitz ended up spending about a million dollars for every percentage point he received in that primary. Bigtime candidates absolutely must have a robust debate over message and over what the polls really mean.

* Penn was an absolute disaster. Case in point…

“[Hillary Clinton] never embraced the mantle from the beginning of being a different kind of candidate. Why did the campaign not do that? Because Mark Penn wanted to do it a different way. Read his book. He thought that you have a list of policy prescriptions. Voters are into that, and that’s how you win. This came at the expense of–and it’s a decision he really pushed for–saying to folks, ‘Yes, she’s a pretty inspiring figure herself.’ … There’s no reason why she’s not a change agent also. But once the CW is set, it just doesn’t change.” […]

“Our message in fact was working very well through September. What we failed to do is pivot when we needed to. We stuck on the same thing. … We didn’t say, ‘OK, everybody gets that she can do this job.’ We never pivoted to what kind of change she could bring. We repackaged the old message and sent it back out. Instead of ‘Ready on Day One,’ we changed to ‘Solutions.’ It was a very IBM approach

* And the coup de grâce…

“Penn was preoccupied with the national polls. We were up in the national polls, but Iowa was always a challenging thing for us. Early, early on, our internals showed us a significant number of points behind. … In Iowa, Penn consistently would show polls that were of the eight-way. That was basically meaningless because it wasn’t going to be an eight-way race. The candidates that were the second-tier candidates were not going to reach the threshold [of 15%]. The real race was the three-way. But he always focused on the eight-way when we’d start going over the numbers in Iowa. It was frustrating to the state staff and other people as well. It just showed a lack of understanding and a disconnect.”

When your pollster has as much power as Penn had, he can’t be overridden. That’s a very dangerous thing. Pollsters have their place on a campaign, but giving them total control over message and strategy is never a good idea.

* Meanwhile, the New York Times takes a look ahead at who might be the first female president…

Mrs. Clinton seemed to have the most success in the last months, fighting like a mama bear for her cubs. So some people look to women who have earned reputations as tough fighters: Lisa Madigan, a Democrat who is attorney general in Illinois, and mentioned as a possible successor to the embattled governor, Rod Blagojevich.

That’s getting a bit ahead of the game, but it’s a thumbsucker piece, so the prediction can be excused I suppose. Madigan has yet to show that she can win a Tier One race, even though her 2002 primary and general election contests were extraordinarily heated affairs. I’ll have more on Madigan’s intentions for subscribers later this week.

* More political stuff…

* Suburban Republicans fear an Obama ballot: “Republicans should take into account that Obama has proven he can attract new voters,” said [Republican state Rep. Ed Sullivan] of Mundelein. “And if you fail to realize you have to get in front of these new voters, the potential is you’re going to lose the election.”

* Ozinga to face questions in downstate feud

* Ozinga lays foundation for campaign

* Bobby Rush recovering after tumor surgery

* Judge: Depose candidate

* Sauerberg answers the prolife question again