Inside Obama's polling operation

Ben Smith:

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. … 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.

“A political aide, Larry Grisolano, confirmed the outlines of the White House polling operation, which is paid for through the Democratic National Committee. ‘Harstad and Benenson poll for the DNC, which shares data with some folks in the admin[istration], as has been the practice in past administrations,’ he said in an e-mail. Obama, early indications suggest, combines elements of the Clinton and Bush models. He is polling more than Bush – a bit less than once a week for most of his young term, two people involved said.

“Elements of Obama’s approach bear the hallmarks of message testing, like the introduction of the words ‘recovery’ and ‘reinvestment’ to rebrand the ‘stimulus’ package, and aides said the polling has focused almost entirely on selling policy, not on measuring the president’s personal appeal. A source familiar with the data said a central insight of more recent polling had been that Americans see no distinction between the budget and the popular spending measures that preceded it, and that the key to selling the budget has been to portray it as part of the ‘recovery’ measures. Axelrod convenes a Wednesday political meeting and is in regular contact with the pollsters, but the pollsters don’t brief Obama directly.

The highlighted bit is discouraging. I see quite a difference between the medium and long-term budget planning vs. deficit spending in the midst of a recession. Obama's balooning deficit after 2012 should not be sold as "recovery".