Pollster Smackdown: Greenberg vs. Penn

Mark Penn haters will undoubtedly get a kick out of this. Democratic pollsters Stanley Greenberg and Penn, who have both worked for former President Bill Clinton, are butting heads after Greenberg fired several criticisms at Penn in his new book Dispatches from the War Room.

Pollster.com’s Mark Blumenthal reports that Greenberg wrote Penn’s methods were “errant,” “biased” and “rigged.” Greenberg is referring to Penn’s work on then Prime Minister Tony Blair’s re-election bid in 2005, on which Greenberg also worked.

Penn fired back by saying, essentially, that Greenberg doesn’t know what he is talking about. Greenberg, he told Blumenthal, was out of the loop on the campaign and acted unprofessionally.

As Blumenthal wisely notes, Greenberg’s writings appear to substantiate previous criticisms of Penn’s work that surfaced during Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign last year but were always attributed to anonymous sources.

jeremy.jacobs@digital-stage.thehill.com