While the main story today is the piling on poor Mark Penn, it turns out that it is possible to start a sentence, "Penn's defenders say..." Michelle Cottle of The New Republic conveys the case for Penn, or at least the explanation for why the Clintons keep him around, as best it can be done. One thing we learn is that to the unnamed defenders, Penn's work for corporate clients and against unions isn't a bug, it's a feature:
Moreover, say defenders, since Penn isn't tied to the party's traditional interest groups (most notably labor unions), he offers a fresher, less-dogmatic perspective than other party pollsters.
Further, Cottle reports, the fact that Penn works for corporate clients makes his insights more valuable: "If Penn's looking at a poll for Microsoft and gets an impression of how the public thinks about something, explains an unaffiliated party operative, he can apply that knowledge elsewhere."
There's a lot in those sentences, including the implication that Penn's corporate clients are in effect paying for information that can then be used by the campaign. More disturbing is the implication that other Democratic pollsters analyses are distorted by their labor union clients. That's a rather nasty accusation, especially for someone like Penn who has rather dogmatically (and not very freshly) argued that Democrats should avoid messages of economic populism or criticism of corporations.
While Penn might, most pollsters actually don't distort their perspectives based on their work for other clients. The mention of labor unions seems like a particularly sharp dig at Penn's replacement on the campaign, Geoff Garin. While all the major Democratic polling firms (Greenberg-Rosner; Lake, Snell and Perry; the Mellman Group; Benenson Strategy Group) do polling for labor unions, as well as non-profits and in some cases corporate clients (because of that unfortunate reality known as odd-numbered years), I think it's accurate to say that Garin-Hart Research is number one, or perhaps tied with Greenberg, as the leading pollster for union clients.
A case of projection?
--Mark Schmitt
