Commentary
Mark Penn, No Labels And The 2024 Election
- by Richard Whitman , Columnist, April 4, 2024
It was about a month ago that the Lincoln Project issued a statement about what it called No Labels’ “idiotic decision” to continue looking for a slate of candidates to put up in November’s presidential election.
Well idiotic or not, the so-called “unity” group announced today an about face, abandoning the effort to put up a ticket. Apparently it couldn’t find anyone with an iota of credibility to accept the challenge.
The LP statement concluded that “A vote for No Labels is a vote for Donald Trump. Nancy Jacobson and Mark Penn’s plan is clear: help Donald Trump win a second term.”
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Nancy Jacobson is CEO of No Labels and her husband Mark Penn is founder and CEO of Stagwell, the advertising and marketing holding group. It does market research and political polling through its subsidiary Harris Poll.
Penn has denied any and all connection to his wife’s organization “real or imagined,” as he told the New Republic last summer. That didn’t stop the publication from talking to a number of democrats who were a bit skeptical.
Democratic strategist Joe Trippi suggested that No Labels’ conclusion that its potential ticket could have a chance at winning was based on a Harris poll that it could win Biden’s home state of Delaware.
“And what’s it all based on?” Trippi was quoted as saying. “It’s all based on the polling and the interviews of Mark Penn. That’s it. Other than that, there’s no other polls that show this. None.”
The article also reports that Penn has opined, based on Harris polls that Trump would beat Biden in a rematch given the state of the economy, immigration and crime.
Hmmm, I thought the economy was doing relatively well, despite all the doom-and-gloomers who have been predicting a recession for the last two years.
Despite problems at the border, immigration isn’t the “blood bath” that Trump claims it to be.
And while Trump said the other day that crime statistics are going up in this country, preliminary FBI statistics for 2023 suggest otherwise.
But as the politically astute Penn knows, perception counts a lot more in politics than reality.
If you look at government entity reporting, like the Bureau of Economic Analysis, an agency of the Department of Commerce, there is a very different story than what is presented.
HHLD debt has increased almost 5% and average credit card debt has increased by 16.5% over the last couple of years.
Unemployment amongst 16-24 year olds is almost at 10% and we are an at all time high of people who have dropped out of the workforce.
Disposable income has increased a paltry 1% with inflation averaging double digits for the past three years, and younger people and those lower on the economic scale are getting hit twice as bad.
These are facts that the mainstream press and the administration conveniently ignore as they keep telling the American people that they just don't know how good they have it.
Don't believe your empty wallets - "trust us."
That's a hard campaign platform to run on.
So, 10% of 16-24 year olds are unemployed? In other words... students? Why is this a statistic worth citing?
Artie, they might be happy being gamers.
The "unemployed" rate for the 16-24 age group is way higher than 10% as "students, alone probably make up 50-60% of the total---perhaps more.Maybe Dan is referring only to those who are in the labor force and looking for a job---then 10% seems more likely.
Thanks Ed. I thought that might be it. We have similar issues and proportions in AU. The rate of looking for work overall is increasing mainly because businesses are reigning in their costs to preserve their profit margin.