Mark Penn: “The Crazies” Are Driving Democrats’ Declining Approval
Stagwell CEO and longtime Democratic strategist Mark Penn reacts to new polling showing a sharp drop in Democrats’ approval of their own party leadership, offering his assessment of where the party stands and what’s driving the decline.
HARRY ENTEN, CNN: 2006, Dems’ net approval of congressional Democratic leaders was plus 28. You go back to last midterm, look at that, plus 19. Very much on the positive side of life. The bottom has fallen out. The bottom has fallen out. Minus four points. That is Democrats, Democrats’ own net approval of their own congressional leaders. Even Democrats don’t like their own leaders when it comes to Congress. And overall, of course, the numbers are just absolutely awful. LAWRENCE JONES, FOX NEWS: Unbelievable. Here, a reaction from a Clinton adviser, Mark Penn, and FOX News contributor Kayleigh McGhee-White. Mark, I’ll go to you first. I mean, we knew that Republicans have rejected the Democratic Party. We knew that the common-sense issues were not an item for the Democratic Party, so independents said no thanks. But the old Democrat members are disgruntled with their party. Why? MARK PENN: Well, of course, they’re disgruntled because they’re totally out of power. They don’t control the House, the Senate, or the presidency. They’re not that happy with the Supreme Court either. There’s no clear leadership. And when that happens to a party, it shrinks. And when it shrinks, the crazies tend to get more and more power. And then it kind of spirals down. So until there’s a presidential election and a presidential candidate, or maybe the midterms will show some bounce back or not. But right now, I think you’re seeing this as a result of the party being out of power and what happens to completely out-of-power parties during that time. That’s what’s happening to Democrats.
