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Britain’s Nick Clegg. Florida’s Charlie Crist. Would U.S. politics benefit from a third party? The Washington Post asked Mark Penn and other political experts for their assessment.

MARK PENN
Chief executive of Burson-Marsteller; adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign; pollster and adviser to Bill Clinton from 1995 through 2000.

So Starbucks has 155 combinations of coffee but America and Great Britain only have two parties?

The election in Britain could be a game changer if the Liberal Democrats get nearly 30 percent of the vote. For the first time the major parties agreed to debates, and the results so far have been stunningly favorable for the outsider party.

In the United States, we have the structural issue that there are many Democrats who are socially liberal and economically more conservative than the leadership. And the Republicans have many members who believe in the economic philosophy of the party but reject the religious right. Both groups are not entirely comfortable with their party and have see-sawed in their voting.

On top of this, we have a record number of independents in the country, along with new, open media and Supreme Court rulings that make it easier and easier for non-party interests to participate in politics. This is why it is critically important for Democrats to welcome the vital center.

But if party primaries are driven farther to the left and the right by partisans, we are going to see more independent candidates at all levels. It’s part of the natural change in politics, and I think all eyes will be on Britain to see the final result.

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The Washington Post asked Mark Penn and other political experts whether the Republican Party would win in November with a negative strategy.

MARK PENN
CEO of Burson-Marsteller; adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign; pollster and adviser to Bill Clinton from 1995 through 2000.

The Republicans have made a living out of running tough, negative campaigns and presenting “no” as a strategy. It’s not really a strategy but a substitute for good ideas. Perhaps the best example of that was when Newt Gingrich shut down the government to stop Washington spending. He thought he would be welcomed as a hero. It backfired big-time — the public wanted progress, not partisanship.

They did a lot better with the Contract for America. That played to their strengths of lower deficits, smaller government and lower taxes — themes that if backed by good policies have typically been their best cards.

While there is a lot of dissatisfaction with the health-care bill, talk of repeal rather than select fixes misses the mark and again puts Republicans down as the party of “no,” not of constructive bipartisanship and action.

And the voters who will decide the election — the vital center — are the ones most likely to want to see results over insults.

Today’s Republican leaders in Congress still have only a 36 percent approval rating in CNN polling, even if they are creeping up in the generic horse race. The swing electorate today likes neither the Democrats nor the Republicans in Congress, and that can make for some extreme volatility between now and November. It is the party that wins them over with ideas that is most likely to go home with their votes.

Many years ago I worked on a successful campaign based simply of the slogan of “Ya Basta” — enough. Today, Americans have had enough of enough. They want something more.

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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

By MARK PENN
Published October 27, 2009

Republicans suggest that the aggressive move by the Obama White House to take on people and organizations that disagree with it and oppose its policies is an unprecedented abuse of government resources.

This is, of course, nonsense.

The Obama team is engaged in a series of tough legislative and press battles and is stepping up its game, not stepping over the line. And the actions taken by the White House are mild and pale compared with those of the Gingrich and Bush years.

Let’s look at the Republican record on this.

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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.

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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.

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