Pollster smackdown
Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg has been described as the “Robert DeNiro of political consultants.” Is that because he goes after his enemies and rivals with a mafia-like zeal?
Republican consultant Frank Luntz, former Hillary Clinton adviser Mark Penn and bipartisan consultant Dick Morris are Greenberg’s pollster peers who find themselves on the business end of his prose in his new book “Dispatches from the War Room.”
No sooner than page 2, Greenberg lets Luntz have it, calling him “perhaps the epitome of the modern spinmeister, now almost a parody of himself.” He later calls Luntz the “master of obscurantism.”
Next to have it is Penn. Greenberg recalls an instance during Tony Blair’s reelection campaign where it was decided that the polling would be split between to the two men. “No, I won’t be doing that,” Greenberg recalls saying. “The Labour Party deserves better than that.”
He doesn’t just attack Penn’s polling skills, either. He goes after his book, “Microtrends,” opining: “If I ever come to think of my work in such terms, then take me out and shoot me.”
But the majority of his ire is reserved for Morris, whom President Bill Clinton famously brought on for his 1996 reelection effort. Sprinklings of his jabs include:
» He “always takes everything to the level of the absurd.”
» “Morris is the kind of slimy character that keeps me from calling myself a consultant. … [H]e’s a pariah among Democrats.”
» “He always wants to operate on the dark side and hungers to attack the opposition. He reminds me of the short guy in the mob movie who tries to prove he is the toughest and most loyal by jumping at the chance to do the hit.”
We caught up with Luntz on Tuesday, who said Greenberg “probably knows more about the intricacies of polling methodology than any other pollster in America. But where he has slipped is in allowing his beliefs to affect his analysis.”
A spokesman for Penn said Blair “has the highest praise for [Penn] and has stated that publicly.” He also noted that “Microtrends” was a bestselling book that was endorsed by Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, among others.
Morris didn’t respond to an email message, but he’s already flown his own sortie against the Greenberg camp. On Tuesday, Morris used his New York Post column to point out that Greenberg and his wife, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., allowed then-Rep. Rahm Emanuel to live rent-free in their Capitol Hill home. Meanwhile Emanuel, as chief of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, was paying Greenberg’s firm hundreds of thousands of dollars.
