[progchat_action] Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton and Big Tobacco
Steven L. Robinson
Bob Burton
SourceWatch
Tue, 07/03/2007 - 00:05.
Mark Penn, CEO of the global PR firm Burson-Marsteller (B-M) and president
of the polling firm Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates (PSB), feels
misunderstood.
Penn was recently in the news when several union officials expressed concern
that Democratic Presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton had hired him as a
"key strategic adviser," even though B-M has a specialist unit that advises
clients on defeating union campaigns. Not surprisingly, Clinton's campaign
shrugged off the criticism, insisting that he is a "vital member of our
team." In an email to Atlantic Online, Penn wrote that that he had "never
personally done such [anti-labor] work" and insisted that he has "strong
personal sympathies with the labor movement." (Why someone who proclaims
their pro-labor sympathies would even head up a PR firm that runs an
anti-labor unit went unexplained.) Even if one accepts Penn's explanation at
face value, it left me wondering who he had worked for.
A little digging reveals that, for well over two decades, both Penn and his
opinion polling company have advised the tobacco industry on how to counter
the campaigns of the tobacco control movement. Based on internal tobacco
industry documents, it is clear that Penn and his colleagues have little
personal sympathy for those promoting policies that put public health ahead
of the interests of the tobacco industry.
Heading for Harlem Penn's work as a strategist and pollster for the tobacco
industry goes way back. In 1989 Gus Weill from Penn and Schoen Associates
(PSA), as it was known at the time, dispatched a proposal to Elizabeth
Veanus of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (RJR) outlining how PSA would go
about researching the company's prospects of establishing a branch of a
smoker's rights group in Harlem. Weill wrote that his colleagues were
"extremely excited" about the project. The polling, he wrote, would be
undertaken by Penn and his partner Douglas Schoen, who "have more than a
decade of experience conducting groups around the country and performing
research on smoking issues."
The goal of PSA's proposed research project, Weill emphasized, was
"identical to your goal in entering Harlem: to get smokers' rights groups up
and running with utmost speed and effectiveness." The proposal outlined some
themes to explore as a way of identifying which Harlem residents could be
receptive to a smokers' rights campaign. "Do they understand the ways in
which smokers are penalized by society? Sure, they know about non-smoking
areas but do they know that smoking is over-taxed and over-regulated?" he
wrote.
To help sell the proposal, Weill included brief biographical sketches of
himself, Penn and Schoen. Penn, the proposal stated, had "designed and
managed all Latin American projects" for the firm, including political
campaigns for Presidents Campin and Peres in Venezuela, President Barco in
Colombia, President Blanco in the Dominican Republic, President Paz in
Bolivia and Premier Swan in Bermuda. It is unclear from the tobacco industry
records whether the "smokers' rights" project ever proceeded.
Another longstanding client of PSB, as PSA became known after Michael
Berland joined the firm, is the world's largest private tobacco company,
Philip Morris (PM). Like RJR, PM had tried to mobilize "grassroots"
opposition to tobacco control measures. It was a strategy that relied on
using a front group - in PM's case the National Smokers Alliance - to shore
up political opposition to reforms while it attempted to rebuild its
political defenses via traditional lobbying and PR campaigns. But as the
court findings against tobacco became more frequent, PM and other tobacco
companies' political standing evaporated. As the evidence of the dramatic
health impacts of environmental tobacco smoke grew, support for bans on
smoking in public spaces - such as bars and restaurants - grew. Once more,
PSB volunteered to help defend the indefensible.
Hi-ho, Hi-ho, It's Off to Work We Go
On April 14, 1994, the seven CEO's of the major tobacco companies gave
testimony before Congress, each swearing under oath that they did not
believe nicotine was addictive. This spectacle became so infamous that the
CEO's were dubbed the "Seven Dwarfs" by the mass media.
Just one week before this public-relations fiasco, PSB sent PM a proposed
research plan on the company's Accommodation Program, a PR campaign designed
to help deflate controversy over secondhand smoke in the workplace and
preempt local and state legislation to end smoking in public places. PM also
hoped the program would provide the company with an entrie to hospitality
business owners and associations who could be used as third party allies in
fighting smoking restrictions.
The proposal made it quite clear that the research would dovetail with PM's
defensive battle plan: "comprehensive, independent, and credible Penn +
Schoen research can help promote accommodation as the reasonable alternative
to bans and demonstrate that smoking bans are bad for business."
The proposal, which came with a $479,000 price tag, then sketched the
three-stage research PSB would undertake to arrive at predetermined
conclusions. To help demonstrate how "reasonable" PM's position was, PSB
proposed:
undertaking an economic impact analysis of restaurant owners/bar managers in
a city with a smoking ban to "demonstrate the cost of smoking bans in terms
of lost jobs, lost taxes and lost profits . Demonstrating the economic power
of smokers will be essential to reversing bans, and extremely valuable in
stopping them in the first place"; undertaking a series of polls at both a
state and national level to "tangibly demonstrate the opposition to bans and
support for accommodation . we recommend a focus on privacy and lifestyle
concerns including a light-hearted approach"; and "a census of Accommodation
program members to identify potential activists for grassroots
mobilization . We can prove that a smoking ban is virtually the last reason
people choose to frequent a particular restaurant and that bans may create
rather than solve problems." As part of its pitch, PSB stressed that it
sympathized with PM's political plight: "We want to help re-frame the
smoking debate in terms that will contrast with the extremist notions often
portrayed in the media as the norm, and that are increasingly dominating
public discourse."
The proposal identified Doug Schoen from the firm's New York office and
Robert Green from its Washington DC office as the two staff who would work
directly on the project. Once more, there are no records indicating whether
the project proceeded or not.
In May 1995, PSB did a survey for the New York Tavern and Restaurant
Association on what New York city residents thought about restrictions on
smoking in restaurants. The following month they worked for the now defunct
Tobacco Institute (TI), canvassing restaurant owners in New York City and
New Jersey on what they thought might happen to their businesses if a
smoking law was enacted.
For the tobacco industry, surveys based on subjective views about potential
economic effects of clean indoor air standards are doubly useful. They can
be waved under the noses of wavering politicians. More importantly, they can
help create anxiety amongst bar owners fearful of the potential impacts of
clean indoor air standards. Once fearful, bar owners are easier to mobilize
to oppose smoking restrictions. However, reviews of hard data such as sales
tax receipts tell another story. Americans for Non-Smokers Rights, which has
reviewed the major studies on the topic, concludes that in nearly all cases
the long term impact on business from smoking bans is either negligible or
beneficial.
Regulatory "Compromise" In 2001, PM hired Penn to help develop strategies to
convince the Democrats in Congress "to support reasonable regulation" of the
tobacco industry. PM's plan was to have surveys conducted by both Democratic
and Republican pollsters; the results would support a "compromise"
bipartisan position on tobacco regulation by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration.
For PM, the strategy was based on a shrewd assessment that short-term
concessions would bolster its medium and longer term position in the market
relative to its main competitors, such as British American Tobacco and
Reynolds. It figured that PM-approved changes with bipartisan support would
be more palatable than tougher standards that could emerge later.
In a summary memo of its 2001 poll, Penn and his colleague Josh King
explained that they tested what they referred to as the two "extreme"
positions: "do not regulate tobacco at all" and "regulate tobacco out of
existence." The pollsters then presented PM's preferred elements of FDA
regulation. This approach allowed them to conclude that "there are broadly
appealing 'third way' approaches that voters can accept by a large
majority."
"The poll shows people are looking for a constructive approach to tobacco,
one that limited FDA regulation represents, and that they are more likely to
support both companies and political figures that support the basic idea,"
they added. It was just the result PM was looking to use in its lobbying
strategy, which continues today. Later that year, PM unveiled the results of
polling by PSB and the Republican firm American Viewpoint. In the
accompanying media release, Penn proclaimed that the results indicated that
the public supported "tough meaningful FDA regulation of cigarettes that
works towards goals like stopping kids from smoking and reducing the harm
caused by tobacco." The research, he continued, "shows they [voters] want
real action and an end to the bickering among alternatives."
As TobaccoWiki Editor Anne Landman observed in early 2007, if PM's
preference for limited regulation is successful, it would:
generally preserve the status quo of "adult choice" about smoking; assure
that cigarette manufacturers don't create any more risks than their products
already pose; place FDA in charge of informing citizens about the risks of
smoking; and prevent FDA from getting any authority to reduce or eliminate
any naturally-occurring harmful constituents in cigarettes (by relegating
this power only to Congress) ... If the currently-proposed bill to have FDA
regulate tobacco preserves the status quo, then smoking rates will continue
to fall at a painstakingly slow rate. That will be bad for public health,
but great for Philip Morris.
Beyond Tobacco Yucca Mountain, Nevada: The site of a proposed high-level
nuclear waste dump (White House photo) In addition to the tobacco industry,
PSB has worked for clients on other controversial projects. In one 1994
document, the firm listed its work in advising the American Nuclear Energy
Council on developing "a proactive strategy to limit opposition to further
study of the [Yucca Mountain nuclear waste] storage facility, and for
immediate acceptance." (It failed.) Another campaign was for the oil
company, Texaco, on "key regulatory issues affecting the oil industry
including gasoline taxes, alternative fuels and reformulated mandates, and
global warming." Another was a study for an unspecified "industry coalition
on regulatory issues," which PSB boasted "was cited as a justification for a
90 day moratorium on federal regulations imposed by the Bush Administration
in 1992." Another was for the Council on Packaging in the Environment
(COPE), a packaging industry organization. Penn's firm claimed that they had
been able to "guide COPE in influencing current policy making with regard to
the environment." When he joined B-M as its global CEO, the press release
crowed that PSB had been "closely associated with Burson-Marsteller on
developing and implementing deregulation informational programs for the
electric utilities industry and in the financial services sector."
Like many in the PR industry, Penn declines to list publicly the clients for
whom he has worked. As a result, our knowledge about whose interests he
represents is limited. We know even less about what advice he has offered to
companies and industries mired in controversy.
But what we do know is troubling enough. Penn and others in his firm have
worked for the tobacco industry, the nuclear industry, the packaging
industry, an oil company and other industry groups. Notably, Penn's official
Burson-Marsteller biographical note avoids mentioning his work for the
Tobacco Institute, R.J. Reynolds or Philip Morris. It does mention that he
has has worked for Hillary Clinton "for over six years, since he ran the
polling and messaging for her successful election to the US Senate in 2000."
What is on the public record about Penn's work is just a tiny sliver of what
he has been doing during the thirty-plus years that he has been in the
business of interpreting what citizens think, so that his clients can better
shape public policy to their commercial or political ends. The omission of
tobacco interests from his official biography is itself an example of
spin-doctoring, and it begs the question of who else he may be representing
behind the scenes.
Of particular interest is that that Penn has been advising Hillary Clinton
since 2000. During that time, he has worked for Philip Morris on at least
one project aimed at getting bipartisan support for legislation affecting
the tobacco industry. In May 2007 Bloomberg reported that in a blog post,
titled "Workin' With Hillary," Penn wrote that one of the benefits of
"mixing of corporate and political work" was that it was "helpful in
cross-pollinating new ideas and skills." "And," he added, "I have found it
good for business."
With Penn working for a U.S. presidential candidate, we are entitled to know
more about his work. The question is not whether his dual roles are "good
for business" - which is undoubtedly the case - but whether it is good for
public policy. Now is the time for Penn to publish his full client list,
covering at least the period that he has been advising Hillary Clinton.
Clinton should insist that he does.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Bob Burton is the SourceWatch Managing Editor.
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6213
This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from
http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/progchat_action/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/progchat_action/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:progchat_ac...@yahoogroups.com
mailto:progchat_actio...@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
progchat_acti...@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/