MarkPenn.com

By MARK PENN
Published January 24, 2012

Tonight, President Obama has the kind of opportunity that former President Clinton had in 1996 — a chance to jumpstart his presidency, set the framework for his election and show that he has a dynamic agenda for America’s future in the 21st century.

The mess on the Republican side, along with improving economic numbers, has given him a singular opportunity to break through with the American people. The Republican presidential candidates have now proved as fractious and mean-spirited as the Republicans in Congress, widening the president’s opportunity.

So he has to give a speech that is long on job creation and short on rhetoric that could be interpreted as class warfare. In this speech, he has to bring America together and rise above politics and partisanship. It’s a time for tough words on Iran along with strong support for Israel. It’s a time to embrace optimism and the ability of America to succeed in the face of adversity. And it’s time to mend fences with the business community by bringing back offshore profits to jumpstart the economy. Above all, he has to give Americans renewed hope in his ability to restore the American Dream for this and the next generation.

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By MARK PENN
Published January 11, 2012

The center is back.

After a year in which it looked like the Republican Party was headed to the extremes with Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Herman Cain and then Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney last night took 49 percent of the Republicans who voted in the New Hampshire open primary.

And the more centrist the Republican nominee, the more centrist the president needs to be in order to win in 2012. The huge ideological gap that would have made running against the Republicans an easy romp is disappearing as the exit polls show that even primary voters are choosing practicality over partisanship. In both Iowa and New Hampshire, Romney won with those voters who thought he had a better chance to beat President Obama in November.

Despite Ron Paul’s popularity with youth and Jon Huntsman’s popularity with Democrats, Romney managed to still win the registered Independents and those who identified as socially moderate and liberal. The attributes that have been a weakness to Romney during the primary season will likely be his strengths in the general election if he clinches the nomination in the next contests.

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Mark Penn and Chris Metzler discuss the fight for the middle class with Christine Romans. Watch the video at CNN’s Your Bottom Line

Mark Penn, chief executive officer of Burson-Marsteller and a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, and John Sununu, a former Republican U.S. senator and a Bloomberg contributing editor, talk about the results of the Iowa caucuses and the outlook for the New Hampshire primary. They speak on Bloomberg Television’s “InBusiness With Margaret Brennan.”

Watch the video at Bloomberg.com

TIME IDEAS How Much Could Change in the Race Next Year? Republican strategist Karen Hughes and Democratic pollster Mark Penn in their bi-weekly faceoff about Election 2012

Penn: If there is one thing that has been true about every pundit’s prediction so far about 2011, it’s that it’s been wrong. Just as the stock market has gyrated erratically, so also the political marketplace has faced much the same kind of uncertainty and instability.

Let’s look at the last few months:

Obama is looking better, just after he was looking dire.

The economy is coming up, just after it was declared dead.

And Newt Gingrich is fading, just after he was pronounced the unexpected frontrunner.

So this suggests that either a) conventional wisdom will win out and Mitt Romney will be the nominee against a vulnerable President Obama and the rest of this is just noise or b) the Republican primary will descend into utter chaos with Obama looking stronger going into the general election.

At this point, I think future b — chaos — is more likely to happen.

Ron Paul could now win Iowa being the ultimate come-from-behind candidate. And if that happens, Romney would be so weak that maybe Jon Huntsman would finish higher than expected in New Hampshire and get back in the race. Gingrich could win South Carolina and then the primary season could go on for several months as a multi-candidate race with no clear winner.

That would give a clear path to Obama to seize the day with a strong State of the Union and re-launch of his campaign and his presidency with the backdrop of a strengthening economy.

Newt could then ultimately win the nomination after a long drawn-out battle, only to have a third party candidate enter the race and either unexpectedly win with a plurality that could be overturned by the House of Representatives. Or the third party candidate could just serve as a spoiler that tips the election to Obama, who would only need about 40% to win.

Far-fetched?  So far based on 2011, only the unexpected can be what’s expected for 2012.

Hughes: The only reasonable prediction after a year that has seen five different candidates lead in the race for the Republican nomination is this: sometime next year, my party will have a Republican nominee. (Of course, we used to say, Win or lose, come election day, it’s over. Then came 2000 and the Florida recount.) But once the campaign moves from a season of straw polls and speculation into a time when Americans walk into voting booths and make their choices, things tend to change fast. And sometimes very dramatically.

How dramatically? Consider that in mid-December, 2007, this same time in the presidential election cycle four years ago, everyone thought that Hillary Clinton would be the Democrats’ nominee. Rudy Giuliani led the polls in the Republican contest, followed by Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, while John McCain was in fourth place with a dismal 12 percent support in the Real Clear Politics average of national polls.

On Jan. 3, voters in Iowa will begin answering these questions: Is Newt Gingrich’s lead as transitory as it was for several other candidates in 2011? Will Romney’s organization deliver a win in New Hampshire and a stronger than expected showing in Iowa? Can another candidate emerge from down in the pack with a surprising finish in one of the early states?

Only the voters will decide, and I have some holiday homework for my fellow Republicans. Think hard about which of our candidates can actually win in the general election, and which would be an effective and respected President. Which candidate can have appeal beyond our Party and attract the Reagan Democrats and other swing voters who will be critical to victory? President Obama is vulnerable, and the only way for our country to change course, restore confidence, return to strong growth and lead the world to greater peace and freedom is to defeat him in November. The eventual outcome of the election may well hinge on the choices made by Republican primary voters in the spring of 2012.

Read the full article at TIME Ideas

By MARK PENN
Published December 21, 2011

With the Republican primaries now just weeks away, the range of observers who are watching polls and assessing campaign strategies is expanding beyond political wonks and news junkies.

While politics has always been an avid spectator sport, lately it’s become a field that offers valuable lessons for business. Political campaigns have traditionally been among the most sophisticated users of polling and statistics, and that remains true. Over the last decade, however, as baseball embraced the concepts featured in “Moneyball” and the general public became fascinated by the world of “Freakonomics,” many other fields have become adept at using data to make better decisions–corporations among them.

Here are five lessons from political campaigns that every business can learn from.

Find the New Voter/Consumer. In the 1950s, the mobile middle class changed our society by creating the suburbs and the suburban lifestyle, driving both the economy and politics. Today, I believe our economic and political landscapes are being driven by the growing numbers of a new professional class of college-educated, new-economy workers. From computer software engineers to veterinarians, the new professional class made the decisive difference in the 2008 general election for Obama, and they have fueled the dramatic growth of upscale brands like Apple.

In the last Democratic re-election in 1996, we coined and targeted the Soccer Mom – married, suburban, mostly working women who cared passionately about protecting and raising their kids. It was the Soccer Mom who replaced the traditional Democratic target of downscale, non-college, manufacturing sector men; the country wasn’t producing any more of these voters because at that time we had an economy that created 24 million new jobs, but not one in manufacturing.

In the last two elections, one in four voters had household incomes over $100,000, up from just 9% in 1996. The growth of the two-income, college educated household with a broader view of the world is a fundamental change represented by Obama himself, who came from the professional class. In 2008, Obama even won the 6% of the voters making over $200,000, giving him his margin of victory. The new professional class is growing in influence. If Obama expects to win a second term in the White House, he has to reharness—not push away—the political goodwill he captured from this group in 2008.

Read the Full Article at the Harvard Business Review

Mark Penn considers the statistical likelihood of a third-party candidate in the US presidential election in this video from the gala dinner of The Economist’s World in 2012 Festival on December 1st 2011 in New York City.

TIME IDEAS Is There Anything Left in Politics to Be Thankful For? Republican strategist Karen Hughes and Democratic pollster Mark Penn in their bi-weekly faceoff about Election 2012

Penn: There is one thing that all Democrats and possibly the country can be thankful for — the Republican presidential primary field. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. So I am thankful for:

• Herman Cain’s foreign policy knowledge because it makes us all feel better about our own.
• Rick Perry, for helping to teach our nation’s kids how not to count to three on national TV.
• Jon Huntsman, because the more Democrats and Independents adore him, the smaller his chances are of winning the GOP nomination.
• Newt Gingrich, who reminds us that holiday gift giving and financial prudence begin at Tiffany & Co.
• Mitt Romney for pretending he is a conservative after pretending he was a moderate.
• Rick Santorum for constantly reminding us of the two senate campaigns he won in Pennsylvania and for never reminding us about the last one he lost.
• Michele Bachmann for taking lessons from Herman Cain on foreign policy.
• Donald Trump for being an apprentice when it comes to politics.
• Ron Paul for threatening to launch a third party in the event he does not win the primary.
• All 27 Republican primary debates. Each one has delivered quality sports programming even during the NBA lockout.

Hughes: This week’s question made me think of the Sunday school class I teach, where our virtue of the month is “gratitude.” We’ve been talking with the kids about the need to cultivate an “attitude of gratitude,” to try to find and be thankful for good things, even when circumstances seem difficult. So in that spirit, even after a congressional super committee failed to find common ground on beginning to reduce our ballooning national deficit, we can be thankful that:

• Congress takes lots of recesses (under the theory that what they don’t do can’t hurt us.) In Texas, our legislature meets for only 140 days every two years and we like to joke that many Texans think it should be for two days every 140 years.
• There are probably now fewer than 999 times during this Republican primary season that Herman Cain can say 9-9-9 in answer to any debate question.
• All the leading Republican presidential candidates have much more leadership experience than President Obama did when he was elected: Mitt has shown calm, capable leadership in business, as the Republican Governor of a Democratic state and in rescuing a failing Olympics; Newt has an overflow of ideas and knows how to lead Congress; Cain has a strong record in business and an outsider’s perspective, and Perry has overseen strong job growth in the diverse state of Texas.
• In just about six weeks, the voters — instead of us pontificators — will begin deciding which candidates are actually ahead or behind.

On a more serious note, even at a time when trust in our political institutions and distrust of our politicians seem to be at the opposite, wrong ends of the spectrum, I am grateful that:

• Good people from both political parties are still willing to put their names on the line, endure the criticism that inevitably comes, and run for office out of what I believe is most often a genuine desire to make our communities and our country better.
• Many young people — like the impressive student leaders I have met recently in Texas, Iowa and Louisiana — still care about public policy and want to get involved.
• We are free to voice our complaints and work for change if we don’t like the way things are going.
• We are blessed to live in a country that, while far from perfect, has made great progress toward living up to its own grand ideals, and we are grateful for the men and women of our armed services who sacrifice to keep us free. That’s something that I hope close to 100% of my fellow Americans can agree on. Happy Thanksgiving!

Read the full article at TIME Ideas

Can the Republican Candidates Recover From Their Recent Implosion?

Republican strategist Karen Hughes and Democratic pollster Mark Penn in their bi-weekly faceoff about Election 2012

Penn: Republican presidential candidates are daily violating President Reagan’s 11th Commandment — Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republicans. From debate finger-pointing to smear campaigns, infighting among GOP presidential hopefuls is heightening as we head into the primary season and it doesn’t bode well for the Republican Party.

Far and away, the American people are looking for a president to create jobs and fix the economy. Yet, the discussion right now is filled with Herman Cain’s allegations of sexual harassment and questions as to who leaked the story. The Cain campaign accused the Perry campaign, who in turn raised the possibility that the Romney campaign was behind the disclosure of the allegations. Then Cain started again and blamed the “Democratic machine.”

Moreover, with Romney still hitting Perry on immigration and Perry peddling Romney as a flip-flopper any chance he can get, it’s no wonder that none of the GOP candidates can get their polling numbers above the 30% mark. These low numbers fuel in-party attacks, and they put the frontrunner position in a vulnerable, yet attainable state. As a result, Republicans at large are once again looking for a new face to enter the race. Things are looking desperate as talk of Palin or Trump entering the race has begun anew.

While it’s too early to measure the lasting impact of the sexual harassment charges against Cain, it won’t be too long before the GOP as a whole runs out of time to turn around its image in time for Election Day. Whoever does win the Republican nomination may just be too bloodied and bruised to get into the ring with Obama.

Hughes: Giddy, goofy and grumpy are not the words most Republicans would want applied to a week of presidential primary politics, but they are nonetheless an accurate description of a week that saw one campaign having to deny its candidate had been drinking, and another fending off allegations of sexual harassment.

On-stage in New Hampshire, Texas Governor Rick Perry appeared to be having a lot more fun campaigning than his current poll numbers would seem to merit. His speech gave new meaning to the word punchy, and became fodder for late night comedians. But the more lasting ramifications on the primary race could come from Herman Cain’s inability to put the sexual harassment story behind him.

Cain spent the week looking mad about accusations he hotly condemned as false. His campaign tried to divert attention by accusing (apparently falsely) another campaign of leaking them, then by week’s end, Cain made the classic mistake of thinking he could unilaterally declare the story dead. “We are getting back on message, end of story,” he told reporters. If you have any doubt that doesn’t work, just ask former Congressman Anthony Weiner.

Now that a fourth woman has come forward, moving the story from vague allegations to tawdry specifics, Cain must find a way to effectively communicate his side of the story. He needs to provide facts and context, not blanket denials that he “has never acted inappropriately with anyone, period.” This story will not go away until the questions are credibly addressed. And Cain desperately needs other voices to speak up on his behalf. Where are the senior women who have worked with him and can speak up for him?

Mitt Romney may well be last week’s winner, by staying out of the headlines and staying focused on his economic plan. Jobs are still the number one issue for the American people, and when voting starts, Republicans will choose a candidate they believe can most effectively run against President Obama’s dismal economic record.

Can Republicans recover? Absolutely, but the onus is now on the Cain campaign to effectively rebut these allegations if he wants to stay in the top tier of candidates.

How Much Trouble Is Obama Really In?

Republican strategist Karen Hughes and Democratic pollster Mark Penn in their bi-weekly faceoff about Election 2012

Penn: Obama is resilient. He proved in 2008 that he knows how to size up a tough spot and come out swinging. This time around he is facing another rough patch, only now he has to come out swinging for the swing voter.

Obama has to distance himself from the Republican right by occupying the center and rebuilding the coalition he had just a few years ago when he brought together those in the lowest and highest income classes — in 2008, he won the lion’s share of everyone making under $35,000 and got a remarkable half of the 26% of the voters whose households make over $100,000. Never before have so many voters fallen into that category and never before had so many of them voted Democratic. He has to keep his coalition together with a second-term agenda that unites them rather than divides them.

Obama’s ratings are hovering around 40%, a big drop from the lofty levels of two years ago, but he certainly could come back from here, as others have. He needs to get near 50% to tip the odds back in his favor. Given tough economic conditions, the best alternative is a relentless drive to show how his presidency is making a difference every day in the lives of average Americans.

While the Republicans tie themselves up in knots in their primary season and continue to be led by the Tea Party, their ratings are sinking lower and lower. National frustration is building and although the voters have real concerns about the President, few think the Republicans have a better idea. On issue after issue, the voters prefer the Democratic solution to the Republicans. And that means that there is a lot of hope for less change than the Republicans are counting on and a path to re-election.

Hughes: To quote an infamous campaign aside, President Obama is in trouble … “big-time.” As he launches his re-election campaign – far too early – he is undermining the very rationale that made him President in the first place.

Read the full article at Time Magazine