Thread: DC: Mark Penn's two firms awarded millions from stimulus for

Mark Penn's two firms awarded millions from stimulus for PR push
By Alexander Bolton - 12/09/09 12:00 AM ET
A contract worth nearly $6 million in stimulus funds was awarded by the Obama adminstration to two firms run by Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton's pollster in 2008.



Federal records show that a contract worth $5.97 million, part of the $787 billion stimulus Congress passed this year, helped preserve three jobs at Burson-Marsteller, the global public-relations and communications firm headed by Penn.

Burson-Marsteller won the contract to work on a public-relations campaign to advertise the national switch from analog to digital television. Nearly $2.8 million of the contract was awarded through a subcontract to Penn's polling firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland, according to federal records.


Federal records also show that a former adviser to President Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign received nearly $70,000 from that contract to help alert viewers in difficult-to-reach communities that their televisions would ssoon no longer receive broadcast signals.


RELATED ARTICLESSenate GOP point out 'pure waste' found in stimulus package
The adviser, Alfredo J. Balsera, who heads a public-affairs firm based in Coral Gables, Fla., helped craft Obama’s Hispanic advertising message.

Republicans on Tuesday criticized the federal spending on the advertising project as a waste of taxpayer dollars. They noted that the advertising campaign took place on May 5, only 39 days before the digital television transition was scheduled (June 12).


GOP Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.) held a news conference Tuesday to blast 100 “wastefulâ€

six million and two jobs saved.

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