<p>It’s dramatic, yet somehow hard to be surprised by the news that <a id="qgni" href="http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=6949" title="Mark Penn is stepping down">Mark Penn is stepping down</a> from his big gig in the Clinton campaign.<br id="ul75" />

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Even before The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Penn — Hillary Clinton’s top strategist, and a key adviser in her two US Senate campaigns — had met with Colombia’s ambassador to the US to talk about a pending trade deal, the tension was becoming apparent.<br id="sm3v" />

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Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s communications director, seemed to take an awkward glee when he introduced his colleague in a conference call with reporters on Thursday, calling Penn the campaign’s &quot;chief and senior strategist,&quot; when &quot;chief strategist&quot; used to do just fine.<br id="ae72" />

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Penn’s position became untenable after the Colombia meeting was revealed — prompting the latest in a series of <a id="qu95" href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070521/berman" title="questions about the conflicts of interest">questions about the conflicts of interest</a> that faced him while he sat atop the Clinton presidential race while refusing to relinquish his job as CEO of Burson-Marsteller, the lobbying and PR firm. Chris Matthews put an especially fine point on the double act on Friday night, likening Penn to <a id="m5ja" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107614/" title="Mrs. Doubtfire">Mrs. Doubtfire</a>.<br id="cmjy" />

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Penn had quickly <a id="bscq" href="http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/04/04/859814.aspx" title="apologized">apologized</a> for the meeting, but organized labor complained — and the Colombian government <a id="n5q7" href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Colombia_fires_Penn.html" title="fired his firm">fired his firm</a>. But most interesting will be whether his departure from the top job actually changes anything in Clinton’s campaign.<br id="tyls" />

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Maggie Williams, the campaign’s manager, said Penn will continue to provide &quot;polling and advice&quot; to the campaign.<br id="x5xf" />

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Penn made his name by targeting small groups of <a id="rxom" href="http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=penn_inc" title="swing voters">swing voters.</a> And in recent days, he’s used the same approach to argue that Clinton is more electable than Barack Obama.<br id="r_th" />

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In that Thursday call, Penn highlighted Clinton’s strength — in surveys and exit polls — among working and middle class voters, Catholics, women and Latinos. &quot;In 2004, the critical swing voters turned out to be Latino voters&quot; and security moms, Penn said. &quot;Those key swing voters have been very much among the groups that she has been attracting strong support from.&quot;<br id="duwa" />

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Of course, that narrow approach is also at the heart of Clinton’s <a id="g11l" href="../../../view/mapping-their-course" title="electoral map strategy">electoral map strategy</a>, which puts all the emphasis on winning a few swing states. Now, even with Penn on the sidelines, could the Clinton campaign even contemplate veering from that course?</p>