Penn & Schoen's Inaccurate and Dishonest "Exit Poll" on Chávez Vote

In November 2001, the British mega-media company WPP bought Penn & Schoen for an undisclosed amount of money. According to Washington Business Forward, it was "the deal of the year":

DEAL OF THE YEAR
Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates to WPP, undisclosed value

Seller: Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates Fairfax, VA

Buyer: WPP Group London, England

Consolidation is the name of the game on the Washington polling scene - and this deal shows how it's happening. Large public relations firms over the past few years have been snapping up - or trying to snap up - boutique firms. No one from Penn, Schoen would talk about the sale on the record, but WPP released some key details about the merger: Founded in 1973, the DC-based agency employs 81 people in five locations: Washington, DC; New York City, Denver; Aurora, CO; and Houston. The company had revenues of $31.4 million in 2000 and reports net assets of $4.3 million as of the end of 2000.

Industry insiders say the sale of a polling firm is different from many of the other deals on our list because polling companies tend to have no fixed assets, other than the principals of the firm itself and whatever ongoing customer relationships they have. So a polling sale involves keeping the key people involved, where other transactions frequently see the departure of the top executives. Pollsters say that a multi-year earn-out is common in the industry. Penn, Schoen's reputation is largely as a Democratic political polling firm, closely associated with both President Bill Clinton's administration as well as the Senate campaign of his wife Hillary. But the firm also worked for Republican Michael Bloomberg in his mayoral bid in New York City, generating huge fees from the multi-millionaire self-financed candidate that caught some press attention during the campaign.

But WPP officials and people in the polling business say Penn, Schoen's business lies largely outside the political realm, focusing on corporate clients. WPP says major corporate clients over the years have included AT&T, Coca-Cola, American Express, BP, Novartis and Microsoft. But most important for Penn, Schoen, the firm may now benefit from a wide base of client referrals. After all, WPP owns the advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide and the public relations firms Burson-Marsteller and Hill & Knowlton, among a slew of others.

The fact that Penn, Schoen & Berland is now owned by the same company that owns Hill & Knowlton - the public relations company that, representing the country of Kuwait in the early 1990s, brought us the knowingly false media myth of babies being cut from incubators as pretext for a war - is also interesting...

Especially considering this Hill & Knowlton press release from June 2004 that cites a polling firm - guess which one? - as an objective source of information on one of its own projects!

Also, when trying to figure out why the British-owned "United States polling firm" Penn, Schoen & Berland might play fast and loose with the truth, consider the factoids about Penn, Schoen & Berland from WPP's own press release about its purchase of the mercenary polling firm:

WPP announces that it has acquired 100% of Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates, Inc., (“PS&B”), a leading US strategic research and polling consultancy.

Founded in 1973, and headquartered in Washington DC, the agency employs 81 people across five locations: Washington DC, New York, Denver, Aurora (Colorado) and Houston.

The company had revenues of US $31.4million for the calendar year 2000 and net assets of $4.3million as at 31 December 2000...

PS&B’s most well-known political successes include its work on President Bill Clinton’s successful re-election campaign in 1996, and the election of Sen. Hillary Clinton in New York. The firm has been successful in the elections of 15 international heads of state. More recently the firm worked for New York City Mayor-elect Michael Bloomberg in his upset victory earlier this month.

But the vast majority of Penn, Schoen and Berland’s business has been applying these skills to corporate situations, in brand positioning and messaging, and especially helping businesses fend off competitive challenges in the marketplace. Major corporate clients over the years have included AT&T, Coca Cola, American Express, BP, Novartis and Microsoft.

The firm will operate independently within WPP as a stand-alone public affairs unit and will continue to be managed by Mark Penn and Doug Schoen and Michael Berland, the three principals. It will continue to do work in both the political and non-political areas...

That's BP... as in British Petroleum... could it be that the real client was not the Venezuelan opposition group Súmate, but, rather, forces that represent a much larger chunk of Penn, Schoen & Berland's $4.3 million-dollar-a-year proceeds?

Come to think of it, could oil interests have been behind Penn & Schoen's unethical behavior in the 2000 Mexican elections too, where privatization of that country's nationalized oil company is also on the agenda of foreign interests?

Wait! I'm not done yet! I just found another conflict-of-interest by Penn, Schoen & Berland in the Venezuela saga... Stay tuned!

Please comment, if you can as I'd like to make the point in anything I write on this.

"After a sufficient analysis from our own sources, we are in a position to say that our information coincides with the partial results of the CNE"

www.venezuelanalysis.com  click news and scroll down to stuff around late july to early august, various links to opinion polls showing clear double digit Chavez win (even opposition ones)

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/comments/2004/6/2 3/194224/927/2#2

(See also Justin Delacour's comment and link beneath mine.)

Also see this:

http://www.narconews.com/Issue33/article1004.html

And Amber Howard cites some others from her J-School piece analyzing the polls, pro and con:

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2004/8/1/18 5820/8839

Hope that is helpful.

CARACAS, Venezuela Aug. 19, 2004 — A U.S. firm's exit poll that said President Hugo Chavez would lose a recall referendum has landed in the center of a controversy following his resounding victory.

"Exit Poll Results Show Major Defeat for Chavez," the survey, conducted by Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, asserted even as Sunday's voting was still on. But in fact, the opposite was true Chavez ended up trouncing his enemies and capturing 59 percent of the vote.

... Critics of the exit poll have questioned how it was conducted because officials have said Penn, Schoen & Berland worked with a U.S.-funded Venezuela group that the Chavez government considers hostile.

Penn, Schoen & Berland had members of Sumate, a Venezuelan group that helped organize the recall initiative, do the fieldwork for the poll, election observers said.

Roberto Abdul, a Sumate official, acknowledged in a telephone interview that the firm "supervised" an exit poll carried out by Sumate. Abdul added that at least five exit polls were completed for the opposition, with all pointing to a Chavez victory.

Abdul said Sumate which has received a $53,400 grant from the National Endowment for Democracy, which in turn receives funds from the U.S. Congress did not use any of those funds to pay for the surveys.