Glenn Greenwald: Douglas Schoen and Hillary's Sleazy Pollsters

[illinoisprogressive]

Glenn greenwald is touted as one of the most observant and insightful and the best of the progressive bloggers and writers.
Today Greenwald is looking alot more closely at the polls and some of the information in his column is food for thought when you hear about the polls these days.


"In any event, the Hillary Clinton campaign certainly recognizes that, in light of how our mainstream press covers the presidential campaign, perception of polling success is one of the critical factors in determining how a candidate is discussed -- certainly far more important than the substance of what the candidate is actually advocating. That is why Clinton's campaign is dominated by the execrable pollster Mark Penn, who manages single-handedly to embody, all in one person, everything that is sickly and wrong with our political establishment.

Penn has the perfect long-time (now former) partner in Douglas Schoen, whose purpose in life is to argue that Democrats must accommodate George Bush and his radicalism (by, among other things, embracing Joe Lieberman) -- and repudiate their embarrassing and rabid base -- as much as possible if they want to succeed. One of the most disturbing aspects of a Clinton presidency is that individuals such as Penn and Schoen -- along with the likes of telecom lobbyist Jamie Gorelick and Iraq War cheerleader Mike O'Hanlon -- are highly likely to occupy critical positions of power in a Clinton administration, just as they did in the last Clinton administration.

But Schoen's problems go beyond mere establishment-perpetuating ideology. In light of the importance of perceptions of polling success for the Clinton campaign, Schoen -- ever since he left the Penn firm -- has been holding himself out as an independent polling analyst for Rasmussen Reports and other media venues, concealing his long-standing ties to the Clintons and writing one ostensibly objective analysis after the next which has no purpose other than to depict Clinton's candidacy as an inevitability."


Apparently, as Greenwald points out, some of the Clinton/Penn connection is spilling over into the mainstream pollsters who are suppose to be neutral.



"The front page today of Rasmussen Report touts an "analysis" entitled "Hillary's Great Week," by Douglas Schoen:
The "analysis" itself reads as though it was written by Hillary Clinton's campaign itself -- because, in essence, it was:

The most recent Rasmussen poll shows Hillary Clinton holding a 20 point lead nationally over Senator Barack Obama. Clinton also has an 17 point lead in the Real Clear Politics averages of the most recently released national polls.

Moreover, examination of the most recently released polls in Iowa show her position improving over the last month or so, moving to a 5% lead in the last two polls to have been released. . . .

And the events of this past week are likely to do nothing that will change this pattern.

It seems pretty clear that the only groups that could conceivably deny Clinton the nomination are anti-war groups, still angry about her vote ostensibly authorizing the President to go to war in Iraq. And by pointedly refusing to vote to condemn the MoveOn.Org ad condemning General Patreaus and supporting a timetable for withdrawal, she artfully protected her left flank. . . .

Her delicate balancing act--executed deftly--stands in contrast to Senator Obama who chose not to vote at all on the resolution condemning MoveOn and Senator Edwards who could only complain that Senator Clinton had effectively lifted the core principles from his own health care proposal.

Nothing in Schoen's listed biography indicates he is in any way tied to the Clintons: "Douglas Schoen is a founding and former partner of Penn Schoen & Berland, and a Fox News Contributor." By design, anyone unaware of the role played in the Clinton campaign by the Penn, Schoen firm would read this and believe they are reading the analysis of an independent expert."

For the full article:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/27/schoen/

[rusty quoin]

1. I read this earlier and it made me think of

last night when I changed the channel to Hannity and Colmes (I do that sometimes to see the idiocy), and Hannity said to his group (I believe Schoen was there to represent Democrats. It looks like him.) "we all agree that Hillary will be the Democratic choice, right?" All agreed, even Colmes.
They are really pushing this, and I don't think it's over.

[Trisket-Bisket]

2. How does this help B.O. ?

A positive post about B.O. might help his struggle to spend his pile of money.