By MARK PENN Published September 25, 2009 President Barack Obama can’t be faulted for following the failed Rose Garden strategy of some of his predecessors. Instead, he is inventing a new approach — a prime-time strategy that has him out, about and on television virtually all the time. By and […]
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By MARK PENN Published September 1, 2009 The Obama administration’s health care reform efforts are spinning out of control, and the White House is taking on water, seeing its ratings fall and its leadership questioned. For a president whose communication skills are so justifiably well-regarded, the biggest obstacle comes as […]
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By MARK PENN Published July 29, 2009 It sounds so simple: Just tax the few to pay for social programs that benefit the many. Yet no political idea — embodied by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s call to tax the wealthy to cover health care for everyone else — has ever […]
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By MARK PENN Published July 9, 2009 Unless some tough decisions are made soon, rising jobless figures will most likely hit what could be a public opinion and political tripwire: 10 percent unemployment. If and when the country crosses that line, it will be the No. 1 news story for […]
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By MARK PENN Published June 18, 2009 Everyone knows the story of what went wrong in 1993 with health care reform: virtually everything. The plan was written by a White House task force, all the health care interests bitterly opposed it and spent heavily against it, the Republicans moved to […]
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By MARK PENN Published June 3, 2009 To: President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton While America has been preoccupied with the fight over the Guantanamo detainees and now the GM bankruptcy, and the United Kingdom has been distracted by the expense forms of its parliamentary members, two other […]
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By MARK PENN Published May 20, 2009 To Hon. Speaker Nancy Pelosi: The accusations that the CIA did not properly disclose its waterboarding activities to you in 2002 are making you a lightning rod for criticism from the right and causing a split within Democratic ranks at a time when […]
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By MARK PENN Published February 20, 2009 If the $800 billion stimulus bill works, Barack Obama will go down as a great president who took bold and decisive action at a time of growing national crisis — and the midterm elections, and even his reelection, will be a breeze. If […]
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By MARK PENN Published November 11, 2008 Barack Obama promised he would lower taxes for 95 percent of Americans and presumably raise them for the 5 percent who benefited most under President Bush’s tax policies. But, remarkably, the most affluent 5 percent supported Obama and that was perhaps the key […]
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By MARK PENN Published November 4, 2008 The presidential campaign, in the end, had no October surprises beyond the worsening economic crisis. No game-changing ads. No candidate slip-ups of any magnitude. And so this election looks pretty straightforward — moderate voters have switched to the Democratic column, and change is […]
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