Evidence continues to mount that Clinton campaign manager Mark Penn really had no conception of how to run the Senator’s presidential campaign. In his latest op-ed to the New York Times, Penn states his belief that Clinton’s largest problem was money despite the fact that the campaign raised over $225 Million and actually won primary states where Obama was outspending her 2-1.

While everyone loves to talk about the message, campaigns are equally about money and organization. Having raised more than $100 million in 2007, the Clinton campaign found itself without adequate money at the beginning of 2008, and without organizations in a lot of states as a result. Given her successes in high-turnout primary elections and defeats in low-turnout caucuses, that simple fact may just have had a lot more to do with who won than anyone imagines.

As it was noted by Jack Trapper from ABC News, the money itself wasn’t the problem so much as how it was spent and what it was spent on, namely Mark Penn and other consultants who pushed a message which Penn is still defending in the article. Clinton proved time and again, in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, that when she ditched the pre-scripted lines, the inevitable strategy and instead connected with voters in a way she did not do the year following up to Iowa, she could win in-spite of her fund raising.

All the money spent by the Obama campaign on advertising and ground organization did almost nothing in California, Nevada, Texas and other states. Furthermore the final nail in the Clinton coffin came from ignoring caucus states where, yes, had they organized and spent money she would have competed better and won more delegates. That was, by all accounts, a Penn inspired choice, ignore the little Caucus states and spend time on the big states, thereby ignoring the apportioned delegate system that decided the election.

In short, Mark Penn sucks and should find another line of work.