On Wednesday, October 6th, Doug Schoen, noted pollster and coauthor of the new data-rich book, Mad as Hell: How the Tea Party Movement is Fundamentally Remaking our Two-Party System (Harper 2010) visited the Young Leaders Circle for a pre-election discussion.

He discussed why Tea Party candidates are winning primaries and threatening establishment candidates all over the country. They don't seem to be the strongest candidates, so why are they winning? In their new book, Mad as Hell, Schoen and his coauthor Scott Rasmussen show that the ideas they are running on have broad support. It turns out that honest platforms calling for smaller government, a lower tax burden, and individual responsibility really are what the electorate wants, and the Tea Party is making the establishment on both sides of the political aisle wake up.

Doug Schoen, who founded the landmark political polling firm Penn and Schoen, appears regularly on national news programs to analyze how ideas and policy trends are shaping the political landscape. Schoen graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School and attended Horace Mann High School in New York City. He has worked on the campaigns of many Democratic Party candidates including Ed Koch, Bill Clinton, and Hillary Clinton, as well as on behalf of corporate clients.

Suggested reading:
Three-part series by Doug Schoen and Scott Rasmussen in the Washington Examiner September 14-16, 2010:
One nation under revolt
Evolution of the Tea Party movement
It's not too late for the GOP or Democrats

212-599-7000

communications@manhattan-institute.org