Data! Run! Hide!

I find this tidbit from Michelle Cottle's latest reporting on Mark Penn fascinating:

What's more, being The Man With The Data gives Penn a formidable edge in any debate over strategy. It is almost impossible to argue Penn down, say colleagues, because he brandishes his polling data like a weapon. And so, his fellow advisers explain, in the eternal debate over whether to keep the message focused on Hillary's strength and readiness or to try and humanize her, Penn would simply whip out data showing that "readiness" was the way to go. When anyone argued against going negative on Obama, Penn would point to more numbers.

Pollsters really are the witchdoctors of modern campaigning. Possession of the secrets of The Numbers lends a mystical heft to their strategic arguments. And yet, if pollsters actually had reliable methods at hand for conducting this kind of work, pollsters wouldn't be brand names. You'd have to hire a pollster, of course, but pollsters would be commodity products where any one of several firms would all give you more-or-less the same methods and produce more-or-less the same results. Instead, though, we know that Mark Penn habitually produces different advice from a Stan Greenberg or a Celinda Lake.