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Mark Penn, Stan Greenburg and James Carville all think Obama is
messing up. Hmmm, who are they all aligned with at one time or
another.......?

Clinton Advisers Unload On Obama's Economic Message: 'What Were They
Thinking?'
Posted: 11-18-10 10:33 AM
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WASHINGTON -- Two of the top consultants in the Democratic Party
leveled unusually blunt criticisms on Thursday over what they deemed a
"total mis-framing" of an economic message by the Obama White House.

Speaking at a breakfast organized by the Christian Science Monitor,
Democracy Corps founders James Carville and Stan Greenberg conceded
that the party had been bound to suffer a drubbing at the polls in
2010, owing to a recession that had produced a lingering 9.5 percent
unemployment rate. But a 60-seat loss in the House could have been
something closer to a 35-seat loss, they argued, had the
administration effectively communicated a sense of urgency and
indignation over the economic crisis.

"During the campaign... their message of 'what we are doing is
working,' people would get mad, okay," said Carville. "Most kind of
messaging is not very effective, it just goes in one ear out the
other. This one, it went in one ear and right to the brain. What were
they thinking? It was almost universal. And as opposed to saying
'These irresponsible, greedy people got us into this mess and we are
the only thing between you and them, and we are fighting every day and
we understand.' We kept telling them, don't tell them it's working...
The White House had the best and brightest. But they mis-
underestimated this."

"A metaphor about a car in the ditch when people are in trouble and
angry at Wall Street is just out of touch with what is going on,"
Greenberg said, with respect to the president's closing argument
during 2010 cycle. Pointing to the polling data he had seen in the
lead up to the vote, he added: "At one point, any framework tested
better than trying to make the case for success."

It is a tried and true feature of the consulting profession to profess
knowledge of the solutions and answers to most political problems,
especially after those problems have occurred. And as it was pointed
out at later moments, both Carville and Greenberg (both frequent
guests at the Christian Science Monitor breakfast) had offered faulty
analysis before -- mainly in predicting back in 2008 that the
Democratic Party was posed to enter an era of longterm political
dominance.

That said, both are veterans of the Clinton White House and, in turn,
had front row seats for the last mid-term electoral shellacking
Democrats suffered. So the prescriptions they offered carried a
modicum of weight. The two insisted that it was too early to demand
that heads roll or that policy platforms dramatically change. Those
would come with time, as they did after Clinton's major losses in 1994.

"I'm skeptical that there is a parallel Dick Morris," said Greenberg,
referencing Clinton's long-trusted adviser (now Fox News analyst and
devout conservative) who was brought on board to right the ship after
1994.


The big disconnect: D.C. elites think Obama will be reelected, but the
public doubts it
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By MARK PENN | 11/15/10 10:29 PM EST Updated: 11/16/10 5:08 PM EST

The midterms not only dealt a big shock to Democrats but also sent a
message to President Barack Obama. According to the new POLITICO Power
and the People poll, only 26 percent of the public believes he will be
reelected as president in 2012. Inside the Beltway, however,
expectations are quite different, with D.C. elites saying he will have
a second term by a reverse 2 to 1 margin. (49 percent say re-elected;
23 percent say not).

This difference in expectations could mislead the president if he is
listening to the Beltway chatter — right here in D.C., he may just
find a lot of comfort in this assessment by insiders, and that may
lead to actions that don’t fully adjust for the sea change that has
occurred among the general public. (See also Poll: D.C. Sees Midterms
Differently)

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This big difference can partially be explained by the different ways
that the two groups see the economy and the world today. Seventy
percent of D.C. elites admit that they have been affected less than
the average citizen when it comes to the economic downturn. The elites
see the tea party as purely a fad (70 percent). In contrast, those who
say that the president will not be reelected see the country as headed
in the wrong direction by 82 percent, see the economy as headed in the
wrong direction by 81 percent and overwhelmingly want repeal of the
health care law at the top of the agenda. The quarter of the public
who consider Obama's reelection probable see the economy turning
around by nearly 3-to-1. They are the outliers of the electorate,
suggesting that the president has a lot more work to do to get back on
track for a second term.

Get the full poll results

In 1994, President Bill Clinton heard the message loud and clear — he
was facing both houses in the hands of the Republican Party, so he
moved aggressively to the center and remade his White House and his
policies. But not every president is willing to take that kind of
aggressive action to change course.

The discontent of the electorate has been pretty clear since Scott
Brown of Massachusetts filled the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s seat with an
upset Republican victory. The administration depicted that as an
isolated event based on a supposedly weak Democratic campaign and
candidate. And so all the way up to the midterms, the president made
few policy or personnel changes.

It should be clear now that the public believes it sent a very clear
message to the president that it wants new policies — particularly
when it comes to government spending and health care. The public wants
him to move back to the center and focus on the economy.

D.C. elites can, of course, sometimes be right over the public. But in
this case the administration has the electoral carnage of the midterms
as proof that the public is fully prepared to vote in more Republicans
unless it sees more changes than it saw in the months since Brown was
elected. There will be a tempting comfort to the president to stay the
course; the poll results show that staying the course may be quite
perilous.

Mark Penn is president and CEO of Penn Schoen Berl


Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45136.html#ixzz15kNO2E7m