In this campaign, a battle is starting to brew over the role of a man said to be the de facto campaign manager for Senator Hillary Clinton, and labeled by some "the most important man in Washington you've never heard of": Mark Penn, a pollster who since getting into the business as a Harvard undergraduate in 1975 has advised Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and Italy's Silvio Berlusconi. Penn is known for a particular approach to political polling, identifying certain demographic groups as "swing voters," and urging candidates to focus their attention exclusively on those groups, usually middle-class suburbanites.
In this capacity Penn runs numerous corporate lobbying subsidiaries that ought to give key Democratic constituencies pause: among his underlings are a former chair of the Republican National Committee, a former House Republican leader, and several other top Republican lobbyists. Burson-Marsteller also has advertised its expertise in "Labour Relations," making clear on its web site that labour relations means keeping unions out.
"Companies cannot be caught unprepared by Organized Labour's coordinated campaigns," the company said, advertising its close relationship with a right-wing academic who has written about the nefarious leftwing campaign against American companies, and a group of operatives with Republican credentials.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/mark_schmitt/2007/05/hillarys_union_problem.html
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