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Lincoln Park Strategies’ Coverage of the GOP Nomination

The 2012 election cycle is in full gear, and as the GOP nomination contest takes shape, Lincoln Park Strategies’ Founder and President Stefan Hankin has been at the crux of the media analysis of the early primary and caucus results. Click here to read our analysis of the results from Iowa to New Hampshire to South Carolina and beyond. More>>

Politico Arena:

Lincoln Park Strategies’ Latest Take on Topics of the Day

Click here to read our views on items in the news in Poltico’s Arena.

 

Elsewhere In the News:

How Over-Regulation Could Risk the President’s Reelection

January 19, 2012 | Stefan Hankin

While we are months away from the 2012 elections, some things are already clear. First, the White House and Congress are in play for both parties. Second, barring any large national security event, the biggest issues in the upcoming election will be jobs and the economy. Third, it is increasingly evident that Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee for president. More>>

Most Americans Against Replacing Dollar Bill With Coin, Poll Says

October 19, 2011| Harry Bradford

Given the choice, Americans still prefer crisp bills to shiny coins.

A lawmaker recently introduced legislation to abandon the paper dollar bill and replace it with a dollar coin, but it looks like most Americans are happy with their currency the way it is. More>>

A cloudy forecast for 2012

September 13, 2011 | Ruth Marcus

The word clouds tell the story — and illustrate the challenges ahead for both sides.

“TRYING,” says the cloud illustrating swing voters’ assessment of President Obama. And then, ominously: “liberal” and “ineffective.”

“STUBBORN,” says the cloud illustrating these voters’ view of congressional Republicans. Followed by “conservative,” “selfish,” “greedy” and — the one unabashedly positive phrase among the top 10 — “trying.” More>>

Poll: ‘Gaping divide’ between Democrats and ‘switchers’

September 13, 2011 | Aamer Madhani

President Obama is lagging behind Republicans in the chase for political moderate voters in 12 battleground states, according to a new poll by the centrist Democratic group Third Way. More>>

Labor unions: the latest moves to empower or weaken them

July 6, 2011 | Mark Trumbull

The Obama administration is showing support for labor unions, while some states, like Wisconsin, work to strip some of their key powers. If the job market continues to weaken, could Obama’s support for unions hinder his reelection campaign? More>>

Democrats Try to Crack Mystery of the Missing Voters

November 23, 2010 | Gerald F. Seib

A popular theory of this year’s midterm election holds that Democrats took a shellacking in part because big chunks of the party’s core liberal base, discouraged at the path of the Obama administration, stayed home rather than show up to vote as they did in 2008.

It’s an interesting narrative. It also doesn’t appear to be entirely accurate. More>>

Poll: Non-voters split over Barack Obama

November 17, 2010 | James Hohmann

As President Barack Obama charts a course to keep the White House in 2012, he’s getting conflicting signals from some of the people who helped him get there in the first place.

Voters who backed Obama in 2008 — but didn’t vote during the 2010 midterms — are divided over whether the president should have steered further to the center or governed more to the left, according to a poll being released Thursday by the moderate think tank Third Way.  More>>

Gutierrez mayoral poll: viable contender, torn about leaving Congress

October 12, 2010 | Lynn Sweet

A poll Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) commissioned to test the waters for a Chicago mayoral run shows he is very viable — and the favorite of Hispanic voters — but as of Monday night Gutierrez was torn over running or staying in Congress and leading the fight for immigration reform. More>>

 Opinion Pieces

 

Default isn’t an option- for debt or Democrats

April 26, 2011 | Ryan McConaghy and Stefan Hankin

Last week, the sound of Wisconsin town hall attendees booing House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) was music to progressives’ ears.

The booing wasn’t undeserved – Chairman Ryan’s proposed budget would have disastrous consequences, and caters to the ideological purists on the right by ending Medicare as we know it and asking nothing from the wealthiest on taxes. However, progressives should pause before they consider opposition to the Ryan budget to be enough to carry the deficit debate. A quick look at some key insights from last year’s election shows that default isn’t an option – on U.S. debt or for Democratic political victory. More>>

 

 

Size Matters? How to pick your Pollster

August 23, 2010 | Stefan Hankin

A crucial first step for every political campaign is deciding on the consultants that will help guide their candidate to victory. More>>

Who really abandoned the Dems?

November 18, 2010 | Anne Kim and Stefan Hankin

Conventional wisdom is hardening on two fronts in the aftermath of the election—among Democrats about how to regain power and among Republicans about what to do with it.

Many Democrats argue, and now believe, that disenchanted liberal base voters were the ones who stayed home and that this election was a referendum on the economy. Many Republicans, on the other hand, now believe their own press about a definitive, albeit tea party-tinged, mandate.

Conventional wisdom, it turns out, is wrong. More>>