Mercenary missions by the moneyed, for the moneyed...

Here's a story I've read several times over because it illustrates how mercenary some political campaigns have become. I'm speaking of the NY Times article this week that reported on how Hillary's political consultant, Mark Penn and team, billed her $3.8 million in January alone and millions more to date:

"The high-priced senior consultants to Mrs. Clinton, of New York, have emerged as particular targets of complaints, given that they conceived and executed a political strategy that has thus far proved unsuccessful.

The firm that includes Mark Penn, Mrs. Clinton’s chief strategist and pollster, and his team collected $3.8 million for fees and expenses in January; in total, including what the campaign still owes, the firm has billed more than $10 million for consulting, direct mail and other services, an amount other Democratic strategists who are not affiliated with either campaign called stunning."

So I can't resist weighing in here. Not only did Penn and his people completely fail to deliver for Hillary, but they're walking away with enough campaign cash to replace all the swimming pools in Bevery Hills. Whatever happened to working for your candidate because you believe in the candidate? You should still be able to have top consultants earning reasonable sums of money, but not on the scale of these windfall profits. Having donated a small amount early on to Hillary's campaign, I was a little disappointed to learn from the NYT how it was spent. Of course, Penn is an easy target now that Hillary is on the ropes. So shame on me:). Still, it reminds me a little of the stories of CEOs pulling in bigger and bigger bonuses while they steer their company stock into the ground.