Obama uses polls to pick language used to sell programs

Back to the polling of the Clinton administration? From the Politico:

As President Barack Obama works to sell the American people on a sweeping agenda of domestic spending and policy changes, he’s relying on three men who have gone through neither Senate confirmation nor cable news spin cycles.

Data from pollsters Joel Benenson and Paul Harstad has become increasingly important to shaping the White House’s message as the crucial battle over the president’s budget intensifies.

“The pace [of polling] is picking up,” said one source familiar with the data.

In addition, David Binder, a San Francisco-based focus group expert, also has been traveling the country taking the national temperature on issues like energy and health care, others close to the White House said.

Presidents have long pooh-poohed polls while privately conducting them. Jimmy Carter had Patrick Caddell, Reagan had Dick Wirthlin, and Bill Clinton relied on Mark Penn for weekly, personal briefings on the numbers.

George W. Bush, reacting against Clinton’s perceived reliance on polls, sharply cut back the practice, according to spending tallies. His main pollster was the no-profile Jan van Lohuizen, but Karl Rove still conducted six major surveys a year, a senior Bush White House staffer said, and employed an aide to pore over the growing pile of publicly available data. . . . .