MarkPenn.com

By MARK PENN
July 18, 2010

By far, the most alarming numbers this poll presents for President Barack Obama are the reelection figures; against a generic Republican candidate, he loses by 5 points, 37-42. In general, when an incumbent’s reelect numbers fall below 50 percent, it’s a sign of trouble to come — and Obama’s inability to break even 40 percent may be the most telling indicator to come out of these data.

View the full results from Penn Schoen Berland’s poll, the first of six in Politico’s “Power and the People” poll series

Americans like Obama — despite nearly 10 percent unemployment and two ongoing wars, his 49 percent favorable rating remains much stronger than some of the low points hit by Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. But what is surprising is the 11-point gulf between his favorable (48 percent) and reelect ratings. This suggests a lot of voters are saying, “I like him personally” but not “I would vote for him again.”

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Mark Penn, Democratic political strategist, talked about the current political climate in Washington, D.C., heading into November’s midterm elections.

Watch the video at the C-SPAN Video Library

Pollster Mark Penn to donate collection of presidential polls to George Washington University

Mark Penn, an influential politico who has been dubbed the “king of polling,” announced his plans to gift a portion of his personal collection of polls to establish the Society of Presidential Pollsters within GW’s Graduate School of Political Management.

In an interview with The Hatchet from his office in downtown D.C. Friday afternoon, Penn said he plans to donate polls from 1994 to 2000, when he served as the presidential pollster for President Bill Clinton.

Penn joined Clinton’s administration in 1995 after the Democrats faced heavy losses during the 1994 midterm elections. Penn is credited with creating a campaign strategy that helped clinch the White House for Clinton in 1996. He was also part of the team that crafted Clinton’s response to the Monica Lewinsky scandal and impeachment trial. Penn also worked with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Hillary Clinton during her Senate and presidential campaigns.

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Obama should learn from Clinton, political strategist says

What the Obama presidency needs now is “a good dose of Clintonism,” the chief strategist for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign said today.

Mark Penn, who first went to work for the Clintons in 1994 when then-President Bill Clinton hired him as an adviser following the Democratic Party’s dramatic losses in that year’s midterm elections, said Obama faces many of the same challenges President Clinton faced 16 years ago.

Clinton bounced back from those losses with “some small things like balancing the budget, reforming welfare and creating 24 million jobs,” Penn said during a talk at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service.

Clinton learned from the 1994 losses and began “moving the country to the center in a way that people felt the president was listening to them,” Penn said, adding that Clinton’s successes could be traced back to the fact that he had clearly defined strategies.
“As you recall, President Clinton had a very clear economic strategy,” he said. “Elements of his economic strategy were popular; some were not so popular. He believed in expanding trade, he believed in expanding investment in infrastructure, education — math and science. He believed in closing the federal deficit. Those three elements were a strategy that everybody understood.”

Obama should follow suit, according to Penn…

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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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“Mark did a fine job for me in 1995 and 1996, during the government shutdown and my re-election campaign.

He also helped the Democrats win House seats in 1998, when we were badly outspent and pundits predicted losses of 25 to 35 seats. The last time the President’s party won House seats in the sixth year of his presidency was 1822.

He was a great help to Hillary in 2000 and 2006.

In 2008, his polling was accurate and advice was helpful even though the campaign didn’t prevail. As President Kennedy said, victory has a thousand fathers and defeat is an orphan.

I remain grateful for his hard work and loyalty.”

–President Bill Clinton, April 15, 2009