A man who has been likened to Karl Rove if Karl Rove were far less cautious with his private emails, Mark Penn is possibly heading toward the nadir of his political career. But Penn wasn't always infamous. Back in the early seventies, Penn was just a reporter for the Harvard Crimson.

Rick Perlstein writes that Penn, '76, displayed an early interest in public relations in a profile of a traveling encyclopedia salesman. Of the salesman, Penn wrote:

He refused to call selling 'manipulation,' preferring the term persuasion. Describing his sales technique as 'showing them the goods and seeing if they'll buy,' he compared it 'to asking a girl out on a date.'

In this excerpt there is a glimpse of the man who told Bill Gates that "Being human is overrated." This is kind of like what Penn told Hillary when he wasn't telling her to attack Obama for his lack of "roots to basic American values and culture."

In addition to writing the usual college news stories (a series of articles on where the JFK Library would be located, an article on the student government running out of beer money, and other such articles), Penn wrote several essays arguing against the impeachment of President Nixon. Like many Republicans at the time, Penn believed the Democrats were angling to install a Democrat in the White House (this was after Agnew's resignation but before Ford was vice president). According to Penn, JFK, were he then still alive, would side against his party and support his old opponent. Penn writes:

The late President John F. Kennedy '40, would have condemned a political impeachment of Nixon just as he abhorred in Profiles in Courage, the attempt to oust Andrew Johnson. Whether the issue is over secret bombings of Cambodia or a militarily imposed reconstruction of the South, the public and Congress should oppose an impeachment which places the opposition party in power.

After the jump, a young Penn's vision of the future.

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We are the final summer editors. Ivygate will soon return to the capable and freshly-scrubbed hands of Maureen and Jacob. But you have two more weeks left, and two more guest editors to survive. It's like the end of a videogame. You've beaten all the other editors and now you're up to the last bosses. Like that fat, angry turtle from Mario Bros., we too will pose a challenge to the serious gamer...er, reader.

Get to Know Us:

I'm James Yu, and I just graduated from Penn in May. For the past month or so I've been roaming about Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, eating savory things like kimchee and unadon and not-so-savory things like stinky tofu and thousand-year eggs. In two days I'll be flying back to Oregon, and a month after that to New York. But in the meantime I'm relishing in the fact that in Seoul being an English major and an Ivy League graduate doesn't mean that I'm destined for a life of abject poverty. So there you have it friends: the solution to America's crumbling economy. If you can't make anything of your $180,000 degree and need a gigantic boost of self-esteem come to Korea and make eighty bucks an hour assuring kids a degree from Princeton is all they need to succeed at life.

Hi, I’m Dan and I just graduated from Columbia. After four years of writing for comedy magazines, drinking, majoring in English and not going to career fairs, I can safely say it is better to plan ahead. While my friends are chilling in their own apartments, I am busy devising a way to get out of my childhood bedroom, or at least smuggle girls into it. When I’m not doing that, I’m working part-time at a public relations firm. In many ways it’s like I’m back in high school, only I’m working at a public relations firm and I can almost grow a beard. For the next two weeks, James and I will do our best to provide you, our precious audience, with a witty take on all the Ivy news out there.

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