MarkPenn.com

By MARK PENN
Published February 20, 2009

If the $800 billion stimulus bill works, Barack Obama will go down as a great president who took bold and decisive action at a time of growing national crisis — and the midterm elections, and even his reelection, will be a breeze.

If it fails, moderate Democrats in swing states will find themselves back in the private sector in two years and Obama will face what President Bill Clinton faced in 1995: a tough uphill battle.

If you watch the TV show “House,” you can easily recognize Obama’s move. In the show, a brilliant diagnostician seeks to solve medical mysteries by trying a series of different approaches on patients who are often hurtling toward an inexplicable death. After several attempts that fail, he tries an unconventional, risky treatment that works and the patient is saved — most of the time. Occasionally, he chooses the wrong course, wiping out the immune system in the process — and the patient dies.

Obama displayed leadership, guts, decisiveness and political savvy to move one of the biggest pieces of legislation in history through Congress in record time.

Read Full Article

By MARK PENN
Published November 11, 2008

Barack Obama promised he would lower taxes for 95 percent of Americans and presumably raise them for the 5 percent who benefited most under President Bush’s tax policies. But, remarkably, the most affluent 5 percent supported Obama and that was perhaps the key to his victory last week.

This group — and the rise of a new elite class of voters — is at the heart of the fast-paced changes in demographics affecting the political, sociological and economic landscape of the country. While there has been some inflation over the past 12 years, the exit poll demographics show that the fastest growing group of voters in America has been those making over $100,000 a year in income. In 1996, only 9 percent of the electorate said their family income was that high. Last week it had grown to 26 percent — more than one in four voters. And those making over $75,000 are up to 15 percent from 9 percent. Put another way, more than 40 percent of those voting earned over $75,000, making this the highest-income electorate in history.

Read Full Article

By MARK PENN
Published November 4, 2008

The presidential campaign, in the end, had no October surprises beyond the worsening economic crisis. No game-changing ads. No candidate slip-ups of any magnitude. And so this election looks pretty straightforward — moderate voters have switched to the Democratic column, and change is the order of the day.

Presuming Barack Obama is elected, we will face a transition period unlike any since Herbert Hoover turned over the reins of the federal government to Franklin D. Roosevelt in March 1933. The country has been waiting for the end of the Bush administration for years, and the temptation will be to get the new government going without delay.

Read Full Article

By MARK PENN
Published October 28, 2008

This election promises to offer a fundamental realignment that could stand for decades to come as young moderate voters become the driving force for change in the presidential race. These more socially tolerant, opportunity-oriented voters are the ones likely to put Barack Obama in the White House next week.

Read Full Article

By MARK PENN
Published October 14, 2008

As Monty Python used to say, “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition” — which is another way of saying that no one expects the unexpected. And recent unanticipated political and financial events are a good reminder that everything could change in one fell swoop.

In a sense, the worsening financial crisis should come as no surprise — hedge fund managers I’ve met with over the past year and a half predicted almost perfectly what would happen. And Hillary Rodham Clinton was the first presidential candidate to warn repeatedly of financial danger while the president, Treasury secretary and Federal Reserve chairman all downplayed it.

Now the voters have shifted in Barack Obama’s direction, largely because he seems better able than John McCain to tackle these types of complex problems but also because the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, performed so well during times of economic concern. In such situations, voters now instinctively reach for a Democrat rather than a Republican. And it has shaken up the presidential race.

Read Full Article

By MARK PENN
Published October 7, 2008

My polling over the years has found that about two-thirds of Democrats define themselves as moderate, while two-thirds of Republicans see themselves as conservative. That polling trend was mirrored in the initial unsuccessful Sept. 29 House vote on the financial bailout proposal: Democrats were divided, with 60 percent of members in favor, while Republicans opposed the measure 2-to-1.

The 228-205 defeat saw the left and right team up against the center, revealing the fundamental unfulfilled divide in American politics today. Centrists viewed it as common sense to shore up the credit markets to stabilize America’s economic condition, which the president and others saw as on the verge of collapse. Yet to the right, it was an unacceptable intrusion by the federal government into the marketplace. And to the left, it was an unacceptable bailout of the rich on Wall Street. Together, they were successful in holding back the winds of change, if only temporarily, as a modified version of the bailout proposal was enacted four days later.

The two-party system works against moderates in Congress: Each side is a fusion of moderate and either left or right elements. So even though voters have repeatedly rejected politics too far to the right or left, the vital center often gets lost in the debate.

Read Full Article

By MARK PENN
Published September 29, 2008

The financial crisis has redefined the presidential race, bringing into stark relief the candidate who can deal with the complexities of the global markets and return the country to prosperity over the next four years.

The race is no longer about change, experience, Iraq, tax cuts or universal health care. The job posting has been fundamentally altered.

Read Full Article

By MARK PENN
Published September 24, 2008

The two prep teams for the presidential debates are moving into high gear, readying their candidates for the ring, knowing the stakes are probably the highest since the Kennedy-Nixon face-offs played a decisive role in the 1960 election.

The winner of Friday’s presidential debate could be the candidate who beats expectations and thereby causes another jump ball in this volatile election.

Read Full Article

By MARK PENN
Published September 17, 2008

The outcome of the 2008 election will, like the last two presidential campaigns, come down to a small number of voters in a few places. Yet those votes will be affected by big, overarching events such as the emergence of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, the economic crisis and the upcoming presidential debates.

Read Full Article

By MARK PENN
Published September 9, 2008

Here’s my post-convention take on the most important questions likely to decide the general election.

Who won the conventions? No one — or everyone — won. The post-convention polls suggest that the party gatherings did not fundamentally change the race — this is going to go right down to the wire, and debates will be key. Nearly 55 million people voted in the primaries, and nearly 40 million watched the key speeches at both conventions. Voters are interested, listening and undecided.

Read Full Article