Some gems from Mark Penn's new book - "Microtrends"

[jefferson_dem]

Just sayin' ...

:popcorn:

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Here's what he writes about politics.

## There are 10 million Protestant Hispanics in the U.S. today. 90 percent of them adhere to a variant of Pentecostalism. It was this subgroup of Latinos who helped George W. Bush increase his margin among Hispanics in 2004 -- "the percentage of Bush voters among Hispanic Catholics remained exactly the same." Penn's own surveys suggest that Protestant Latinos are largely values voters; Catholic Latinos are much more likely to respond to economic issues.

## "Every day in this 2008 election season, I hear two voices. First, I hear, "If only X or Y were warmer, and friendler, I would vote for him/her." Second, I hear, "I like the candidates who address the issue. This is a serious election, and we need a president who truly gets our problems and will help solve them." A "funny thing has happened to the American electorate: it's flippe dupside down. America's elite ... have become less interested in America's economic and strategic challenges than they are in the candidate's personalities." The elites say that it's because the lower orders of society don't understand the issues, they decide based on personality, so it's only natural for the elites to follow. (Penn has polling data to back this up.) Turns out, there's a sliding scale. When voters reach a certain income level -- around $100,000 -- a plurality focuses on character and personality. Under $100,000, Penn found that a majority focus on issues.

## It's tempting to read something about Barack Obama's fundraising successes or appeals to elite Democrats in here, but Penn's book was completed well before he wrote these words: "So between the 527-underwriting Mega-Donors and the increasingly powerful Elite Donors , we have a new class of givers playing an increasingly important role in politics -- and statistical proof that their heads are nowhere near the voters.'"

## "Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is a massive swing electorate out there, receiving more information from more sources than ever before, and acting on it."

## In '04, Penn estimates that nearly 5M ex-cons were "disenfranchised." The total of numbers of convicts returning to society grows by 650K each year.

## For Kremlinologists out there, Penn makes two (small) digs at Al Gore. One is: "Every day I hear experts say that voters and consumers are misguided scatterbrains....that is why politicians pay consltants to tell them to wear earth toned suits." The other is on Page 221.

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FOR MORE --> http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/08/political_book_watch_mark_penns_microtrends.php