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By MARK PENN Published January 27, 2010

It’s the Super Bowl of politics – the SOTU is watched in some years by up to 60 million people, and it’s usually the President’s best opportunity to address the country, tell them his plan, and bolster his approval.

What could have been a rather sleepy affair has taken on new significance with the loss of the Massachusetts Senate race – it has added dramatic tension and probably 10 million more viewers. How will the president handle the Mass. defeat? What will he say about healthcare? Is he moving to the center?

President Bush generally got little out of his State of the Union addresses. President Clinton did best in 1996 and 1998 — one against the backdrop of the Gingrich government shutdown and the other at the start of the Monica Lewinsky revelations. Clinton successfully pushed back on his critics and reassured the nation in those two pivotal speeches.

President Obama now has to do the same.

But perhaps the biggest questions around President Obama are exactly which course is he taking on so many critical issues – I think the choices he makes will determine the success of the speech and perhaps even of his presidency. So let’s go through his choices.

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On Morning Joe today, Mark Penn discussed how the Massachusetts election result is a wake up call to President Obama just as the failed midterm elections of 1994 were for President Clinton. Mark recommends that the Obama administration take a lesson from the Clinton years and begin to change direction, move to the center and to bipartisanship to keep their policies moving ahead.

Watch the video now at MSNBC

By MARK PENN Published January 20, 2010

Once again an initially popular Democratic president tries to pass healthcare reform, raise taxes on the wealthy and expand domestic spending. And once again the voters send a sharp signal that they want him to chart a more centrist course. As Yogi Berra said “It’s déjà vu all over again.”

President Clinton’s wakeup call came with the 1994 mid-term elections — Obama’s came a year earlier with yesterday’s special election in Massachusetts.

In response to the similar situation, President Clinton fundamentally changed everything — his team, his policies, and the overall direction and message of his administration. He moved to the center with a balanced budget, welfare reform, and policies that helped concerned moms raise their kids, leaving behind the divisive bitterness of his first two years. As a part of that new team then, I saw how President Clinton consciously took his presidency back to the centrist message of his presidential campaign and relentlessly pursued swing voters; he didn’t go small, he went to the vital center — 24 million jobs and a balanced budget were big accomplishments.

President Obama now has plenty of time to turn this around before facing the kind of losses President Clinton did. But stopping the Republican machine now will not be done on the basis of words alone — it will take actions and results to calm this electorate.

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Obama’s first year: Mark Penn’s take
President’s slide in the polls is “cause for concern,” but not irreversible.

Mark J. Penn, who served as the chief strategist for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, has some views about where President Barack Obama stands near the end of his first year in office.

Obama’s sliding support in the polls is “a real cause for concern,” the veteran pollster says, but the president’s situation is not irreversible.

Penn is worldwide CEO of Burson-Marsteller, a public relations and public affairs firm. He ran polls for former President Bill Clinton in 1995 through 2000 and also ran weekly White House strategy meetings.

This is what Penn said in a conversation with the Washington Bureau:

Q: How serious is the overall drop off in the president’s job approval rating? Is this a bad sign for Democrats in the upcoming mid-terms? What advice would you give to the president to restore those numbers to January 2009 levels?

Penn: “The president’s numbers are a real cause for concern for himself and the party – but they certainly can be reversed at this point.

“It’s only been a year and people are uneasy but not opinion is not yet set and is quite mushy. Progress on the economy and in Afghanistan are the big things that can make a difference. I don’t think the president can do a lot right now with words – the public expects that the first year is going to be the foundation and by the second year they are looking for results. If he delivers them, these poll numbers will quickly reverse themselves.

“Working for six years with President Clinton certainly taught me the lesson that how a president can change public opinion over time as in 1995 he had about a 32 percent approval rating and almost doubled it by 1996 – president Clinton said he would focus on the economy like a laser, he did, and the public quickly recognized the progress.”

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Democratic strategist Mark Penn appeared on CNBC’s The Kudlow Report yesterday to discuss approval ratings for Congress and President Obama.

Watch the video at CNBC.com

By MARK PENN with E. KINNEY ZALESNE
From The Wall Street Journal Microtrends Column
Published December 17, 2009

This is the season for traditions: chestnuts roasting on an open fire, carolers on the doorstep, and the endless argument about the secularization of Christmas. This isn’t the usual complaining about the toy and greeting card companies commercializing the holidays, but a much broader trend involving the secularization of religion around the country.

We are still a nation whose coins say “In God We Trust,” where most witnesses in U.S. courts swear “so help me God,” and where our school kids pledge allegiance to “one nation, under God, indivisible.”

But God, as we have traditionally known Him, is evolving for more and more worshippers. Belief in the God revered by most mainstream religions — a highly specific, paternalistic deity with an agreed-upon history and behaviors — is on the decline.

According to the most recent American Religious Identification Survey, only 76% of Americans identify as Christians, down from 86% in 1990. But interestingly, while non-Christians are not choosing Islam or Judaism, neither are they choosing atheism. A poll done by Gallup in 2008 found that 15% of Americans – up from 8% in 1999– say they don’t believe in God, but they do believe in a “Higher Power” or “Universal Spirit.” More and more, Americans believe that the world was created by a spiritual being, but they reject the Torah, the Koran and the New Testament as the explanation for it.

These universal-spirit worshippers, or what we call Religious Independents, are defining a secular Third Way in religion. They are like political independents who vote but refuse to affiliate with a party. Consequently, attendance at Christmas mass may be declining, but celebration of Christmas and the holidays remains as high as ever. Paradoxically, overall belief in a God is rising, while participation in organized religion is declining.

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The Hill: FCC disputes stimulus numbers

The Federal Communications Commission is disputing numbers cited in today’s The Hill story about stimulus money given to Democratic pollster Mark Penn’s businesses for a public relations campaign surrounding the digital television transition.

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The story appearing in today’s Hill newspaper about Mark Penn is fundamentally inaccurate.

For more information, please visit the Burson-Marsteller blog.

Mark Penn participated in a panel on “The Business of PR” at the 92Y Tribeca in New York with Kathy Bloomgarden, CEO, Ruder Finn and Steven Rubenstein, President, Rubenstein Communications.

In the highlight video, Mark mentions that despite the shrinking demand for newspapers, the demand for news and information in general is skyrocketing, and will continue to rise with the growth of the middle class. Watch the video at 92Y online.

By MARK PENN with E. KINNEY ZALESNE
From The Wall Street Journal Microtrends Column
Published November 18, 2009

Unemployment has hit double digits in the U.S., and in some areas of the industrial Midwest, it is approaching 16%. Joblessness in many parts of this country is destructive beyond belief. The Federal Reserve Chairman said he sees little prospect of immediate relief.

And yet, in other areas it is not nearly as bad as it could have been. One reason is that bringing home a paycheck, especially in upper-income households, is a shared responsibility today. That fact alone, in a recession, can provide a lot of families with a built-in backstop–an Unemployment Cushion–to the destitution that unemployment in a recession can cause.

In the last 50 years, job growth has far outstripped population growth. As a result, today’s 10.2% unemployment rate leaves a far greater proportion of the population at work than in the past. In 1961, for example, when we hit 7.1% unemployment, the record for that period, only a third of Americans had jobs. Today, even with 10% unemployment, nearly half the country, or 138 million people, is still at work.

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