In pondering why Patti got the axe and Mark Penn didn't, Noam notes that Penn is close to both the Hillary and Bill wings of this campaign and so might be less likely than Patti to have had Bill's infamous "white boys" plotting against him.
For sure, the word in Clinton circles has been that some of Bill's boys thought Patti was doing a poor job. (And it's not exactly a secret that relations between Bill et al and the Hillaryland gals can be fraught.) But poor Patti apparently didn't even have the full backing of her Hillaryland sisters, some long-time, seriously senior members of which had argued even before the campaign began that Patti wasn't up to the job.
So when things started looking shaky forTeam Hillary, Patti didn't have a full-fledged wing to hide behind.
--Michelle Cottle