YOUR DAILY POLLING UPDATE

OBAMA APPROVAL AVERAGE: 47%
(down 1 from yesterday; no change from a week ago)

DIRECTION OF COUNTRY — WEEKLY AVERAGE
27% right/64% wrong
(right track down 3, wrong track up 1 from a week ago)

UTAH: 2012 SENATE*

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) 47% v. Jim Matheson (D) 47%
Jason Chaffetz (R) 47% v. Matheson (D) 45%

GOP Senate Primary

Chaffetz 41%
Hatch 40%

MONTANA: 2012 SENATE**

Denny Rehberg (R) 47% v. Sen. Jon Tester (D) 45%

Job Ratings
Approve/Disapprove
Sen. Baucus: 41%/50%
Sen. Tester: 51%/39%
Rep. Rehberg: 44%/45%

NEW JERSEY: JOB RATINGS***

Approve/Disapprove

Pres. Obama: 50%/46%
Gov. Christie: 44%/47%
Sen. Menendez: 45%/38%
Sen. Lautenberg: 46%/40%
NJ State Assembly: 27%/51%
NJ State Senate: 21%/52%

WORSE OFF THAN IN 2009****

Asked of U.S. adults: Are you better off or worse off than you were
at the beginning of 2009?

Better off 34%
Worse off 44%
About the same 21%

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE****

Asked of U.S. adults: When do you expect the U.S. unemployment rate
will return to about 5%, where it was before the recession hit in
2008 — ?

Next 2 years 8%
Next 3-5 years 41%
Next 6-10 years 28%
Longer than 10 years from now 9%
Never 10%

SOURCES:
Presidential job approval and direction of country: average of the
three most recently reported nationwide polls.
* Deseret News/KSL-TV, June 13-16
** PPP(D), June 16-19
*** Quinnipiac, June 14-19
**** Bloomberg, June 17-20

Stan Collender, Qorvis partner and leading expert on the U.S. budget and congressional budget, will be speaking today  directly with constituents at No Labels’ Illinois telephone town hall—where an anticipated 7,000 people will be in attendance. Collender will participate in the conference call alongside former Comptroller General David Walker.

No Labels is a social welfare advocacy organization dedicated to bringing bipartisanship to the United States government. The organization encourages public officials to prioritize national interest and shared common goals over party interest. In the words of No Labels, “It’s not about politics, it’s about the politics of problem solving.”

During the Illinois Telephone Town Hall, No Labels will strive to promote understanding of the rhetoric behind the 2012 budget reduction debate and examine the likely impacts on both individuals and the State of Illinois. Collender will play a major role in dissecting these issues with the participants.

This event marks a new way of engaging constituents in today’s most pressing matters; over 21,000 Illinois residents will be phoned and encouraged to participate.

Event details in brief:
What: Illinois telephone town hall
When: June 22, 2011 9 p.m. eastern time
Who: No Labels

Qorvis is proud to have co-sponsored last week’s Disruptathon Media Event, co-hosted by USA Today, Gannett, and Cynergy at the USA Today headquarters in McLean, VA.

Peter Erickson, Founder and Creator of the Disruptathon and its event series, paving a way through the quickly evolving world of digital media, and continues to lead the charge to create a more connected world. The Disruptathon series highlighted young companies that are media-based technologies, specialty blogs and publishing sites, as well as companies that provide products and services in this arena.

Encompassing the spirit of the event and awards, Erickson arranged for attendees to check in to the event and enter a raffle by registering on available iPad devices. Attendees with iPhones then were instructed to download the “Disrtuptathon” iPhone app with functionality allowing them to take surveys and rate event presenters on a 10-point scale, contributing to real-time results. Those without iPhones certainly did not miss out—they borrowed event-specific mobile voting devices, already downloaded with the app, and participated enthusiastically throughout the evening.

Attendees, sponsors, and hosts of the event happenings were pleased to “meet” eight businesses in the media industry that differentiated themselves from a national field search of over 100 companies. Finalists demonstrated strong leadership and innovative spirit in the changing world of media – their presentations demonstrated more than talent – attendees were treated to viewing the results of dedication and continually pushing the boundaries of the “traditional”. The big winners of the evening include: Socialize and ProConIT. Finalists included: NearSay, OneNews, Publish2, Stry, WatchParty, and Yowie.

Disruptathon and its supporters look forward to next year’s batch of newsmakers and ground shakers, as the landscape of the media world will expectedly have transformed, if not once, multiple times between now and then.

Award recipients:

Presentation: Runner-up — STRY, Winner — Socialize
Uniqueness: Runner-up — Socialize, Winner –ProConIt
Design: Runner-up — Socialize, Winner — ProConIt
Most Disruptive: Runner-up: WatchParty, Winner: ProConIt
Likes: Runner-up — Socialize, Winner — ProConIt
Overall: 3rd Runner-up — WatchParty, 2nd Runner-up — Yowie, Runner-up — ProConIt, Winner — Socialize

As you might or might not have heard, Apple is releasing the latest iteration of it’s OS X software, Lion (or, 10.7 depending on who’s counting) next month. One of the more interesting, but less reported, features of this could finally spell the death of the fax machine.

At this point, I wouldn’t blame you for wondering loudly who still uses a fax machine, but I promise you, there are still times when it can be useful. Often in business, a signed piece of paper is needed in order to prove agreement or intent. This is used in executing a contract to do business, or, as I have just recently done, to buy or sell a house. It might seem silly, but the act of selling your house, even today, takes no fewer than 30 ink-on-paper signatures.

As this Slate article states:

“Many countries have laws allowing for electronic signatures on documents, but it’s the rare institution that will accept your click as proof of agreement. So it seems we’re stuck. As long as people want to see your scribble on a piece of paper, you need to have a fax machine, or at least a way to approximate one.”

All well and good, but what does this have to do with OS X Lion? By way of an answer to the dilema of inking papers, the newest version of OS X is going to come with a feature that will let you hold a signed, blank, piece of paper up to your webcam, and it will create a digital signature to be put into a document for you.

This is a great advance if you measure technological advances in things you don’t have rather than you do have (For example, I don’t have a landline, a printer, a scanner, cable TV.…); however, it still leaves us with putting ink on paper (even if it’s fake ink at this time).

When will we get to a point where we are no longer putting ink on paper? When will we be able to prove enough identity and intent (or, at least as much as a signature proves) that an email can seal a contract?

My personal email has 2-factor identification, as do many corporate email systems. This makes it, for all intents and purposes, impossible to send a real email from my account. Why then, can I not use that email as my bond? Maybe Apple will fully take that on in its next OS iteration.

To usher in the week, this morning’s staff meeting featured an amazing performance of by Grace Fenstermaker (on the flute) and Madeleine Jansen (on the violin), who played Vivaldi’s “La Primavera.” They accompanied our announcement of the monthly Letter of Qommendation winners:

• Greg Hudson—for his timely video production work and creative thinking.
• Erica Flint—for her impressive, easy going, can-do attitude.
• Megan Kirkpatrick—for her outstanding job a number of high-profile projects.
• Stefan Nagey—for his leadership making the creative team stronger and more capable.
• Robel Kassa—for his ability to step up last minute and deliver quality work.
• RJ Pittman—for his “mind-blowing” work and ability to meet tight deadlines.

Such musical performances are not rare at Qorvis—as we have an incredibly talented staff; however, Grace and Madeleine certainly have raised the bar for future performers.

Qorvis’ partner-in-charge of international and sovereign strategies and public diplomacy, Matt J. Lauer, was named by Washington Life magazine as one of the most influential people under the age of 40 in the nation’s capital.

Washington Life magazine states: “Its Young & The Guest List feature is known for containing the names of accomplished, dynamic, and successful Washingtonians, all under 40 and devoted to making the nation’s capital a place that attracts (and keeps) the best and the brightest.” The magazine listed Matt J. Lauer in its 2011 February edition.

Since joining Qorvis in 2004, Matt J. Lauer has worked to bring this spirit to Qorvis by dramatically expanding its public diplomacy operations. Qorvis has used the highest-end and most contemporary means to get the truth about its clients told. The company has invested heavily in the technology and talent necessary to tell a nation’s story to the audiences it needs to reach.

“Qorvis is simply the most competent at providing nations and high-profile individuals with reputation management. Our staff of experts delivers real results for countries and other foreign sovereign organizations. Qorvis is not about bringing in the big names who talk a lot and do little,” said Matt J. Lauer. “What we have done at Qorvis is develop an agile and nimble force of public diplomacy practitioners to provide demonstratable progress and geopolitical solutions for our clients. We are loyal to our clients and our clients are loyal to us. This because our clients can actually witness the progress we make for them.”

Prior to joining Qorvis, Matt J. Lauer was the executive director of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy at the Department of State. The commission, a bipartisan panel appointed by the president, analyzes and evaluates the U.S. government’s international public relations capabilities. Lauer brought some of the most cutting edge tactics of public diplomacy with him to Qorvis.

Through Qorvis, Matt J. Lauer has represented the interests of Sri Lanka, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, the Brunei Investment Agency, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Equatorial Guinea, the Dubai International Financial Center, Bahrain, and Mexico among many others.

Following an event for our pro bono client, the Creative Coalition, which launched the new NBC show The Philanthropist, Pamela Sorenson had some nice things to say about Qorvis. Thanks!

It seems in doing what we do best here at Qorvis (that is, win public affairs battles), we’ve struck a nerve launching our latest endeavor: the No Choke Points Coalition. From Kenneth Corbin’s blog at internetnews.com:

“You’ve got to tip your hat to Qorvis — they really know how to pick a fight. The Washington-based PR and advertising firm, which spearheaded the tech industry’s campaign last year to open access to TV white spaces over the objection of the broadcasters, is now taking on another lobbying goliath: the incumbent telecom providers….”

Yes, we’re at it again. Beyond the hard work put in by all parties involved, however, this is perhaps more reflective of having great clients with worthy causes. That’s what made us Holmes Report’s Public Affairs Agency of the Year this year.

This Thursday, Qorvis and National Journal will be hosting Political Pursuit, a light but engaging event ahead of the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner weekend. This is a part of our ongoing series “The Road to 2010.” Be sure to check it out.

Qorvis Partner Stan Collender made some interesting comments in a PR Week article today, “Public affairs pros discover new areas of opportunity.” Stan discusses the blurring of the line between lobbying and public affairs communications support, and the resulting benefit:

“Public affairs communications, where you raise visibility of an issue in a way that policymakers can’t ignore, has become increasingly popular,” Collender says, adding that Op-Eds and news stories produce the best results. “This cuts across all issues that are on the front burner—taxes, spending, financial services—and others that proponents would like to move to the front burner…. Washington is now the center of the business and financial universe,” Collender says. “Public affairs communications needs will be substantial for quite some time.”

Qorvis is honored to be able to cap off another great year with today’s news that PRWeek has named us a finalist for the category of Midsize PR Agency of the Year 2009! We’re all clearly thrilled about this recognition.

What helped driving our nomination were several achievements, including the launch of Clarus Research Group, a full-service, in-house polling and research firm; a number of new clients, including an advertising campaign for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM); the hiring of some top-tier talent, such as Karen Hanretty, former Communications Director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, and Lisa Bushey, a public relations veteran; and the expansion of the company’s headquarters in Washington, DC.

Qorvis is starting the year with the launch of the 2009 Presidential Inauguration Mobile App. The new, free mobile application, named “Phone App of the Week” by the New York Times, will provide visitors to Washington in January the ability to easily navigate the city with a glance at their iPhone or BlackBerry.

The PRWeek awards are among the industry’s highest accolades. Qorvis was nominated for the category for agencies whose annual revenues range from $15 million-$65 million.

To cap off a great week, Gadgetwise, the New York Times tech blog, has named the Qorvis / Patton Boggs 2009 Presidential Inauguration App the App of the Week.

Qorvis, Patton Boggs and PointAbout are really excited about the potential this app has to help people navigate Washington (which is the elegant metaphor for what we as companies do for our clients). The next iteration for BlackBerry should be out in the middle of next week, and new functionality for iPhone will be up soon too.

To experience the app, check out this video. Or to download it, go here. Enjoy!

Some articles from the week:

• Yahoo!Tech
• CNET
• National Journal’s Tech Daily Dose

So everyone in Washington is planning on throwing a party to celebrate Mr. Obama’s Inauguration. We decided to do it differently. As two companies that help people and organizations navigate the complexities of our nation’s capital (public affairs, legal services, issue advocacy, media and public relations, etc.), we thought we’d office this service on a different level: actually help you navigate the city. And the 2009 Presidential Inauguration App was born.

Qorvis designed the app and worked with our partner PointAbout to develop it. (As a fully-integrated communications firm, Qorvis has in-house capabilities to do this efficiently and effectively…) The application has evolving content—which will include RSS feeds on inauguration events and services and other related information, closer to the event date. Plans also include a polling component to gauge real-time user sentiment about the Inauguration. FortiusOne will be analyzing and visualizing the results through their GeoCommons platform.

Current services include:

• Zagat Restaurant Guide
• Walking directions to the Inauguration
• Metro train and bus schedules
• News and alerts
• Free Wi-Fi zone locations
• Local weather, traffic, and news
• Starbucks locations
• ATM-bank search

The Washingtonian blog covered the news first, and you can read our press release here.

The first iteration of the app is now available in the iTunes App Store. A Blackberry version will soon follow. Development of a version for the Google phone “Android” is slated for early January 2009. More news to follow, please check here for updates.

Although I will primarily be covering news and events at Qorvis, occasionally I’ll comment on governmental activities—a tempting topic for someone at a public affairs firm in Washington, DC. This will mostly be done with history in mind.

What caught my eye this morning is that, in addition to Valerie Jarrett being tapped to serve as “senior adviser and assistant to the president for intergovernmental relations and public liaison”, Mr. Biden is also going to have an adviser for Intergovernmental Relations. 

Following the meeting yesterday of Mr. Obama, Mr. Biden and the state governors, there was much to-do over the attention given to maintaining relations on this level. So perhaps they are aiming to have the next Vice President do some additional liaison work—which would be an interesting concept.

The current Vice President did not have such a position on his staff. Clearly, however, the Biden folks are thinking of something somewhat different. Obviously, each and every Vice President is completely different from every other Vice President. And what we’ve become used to with Mr. Cheney will certainly not continue.
 
For example:

• John Nance Garner spent most of his Vice Presidency ruing the fact he’d given up being Speaker of the House to become Vice President. 
• Henry Wallace under FDR had no interest whatsoever in the usual Vice Presidential tasks, such as presiding over the Senate or running for President himself. He had a deep interest in South America and traveled there—becoming the first Vice President to speak to a Spanish group in their own language. In the summer of 1944, he took a three month trip to Soviet Asia and later wrote a book on his visit. This is probably one reason—his lack of interest in politics—why he was bounced from the ticket.
• Hubert Humphrey was genuinely miserable as VP under LBJ. The President kept him on a very short leash indeed. Humphrey never once in four years as Vice President set foot in Camp David.
• Nelson Rockefeller never wanted to be Vice President of anything. He did spend time presiding over the Senate, but infuriated many Senators by making a ruling (quickly reversed) against the filibuster.
• Gerald Ford spent his eight months in office waiting for Nixon’s other shoe to drop.
• Dan Quayle spent his four years handling the Council on Competitiveness and the National Space Council—and he seemed very happy with the assignments. However, the first thing the Clinton Administration did in 1993 was abolish the Council on Competitiveness.

However, the bottom line on the whole issue: if you were the Governor of New York or California or Florida, would you prefer a meeting with Vice President Biden, or with President Obama?  Would you want to talk to the number two man, or would you want to go straight to the Oval Office? I am afraid that human nature being what it is, no Governor is going to want to stop and see the Vice President on anything.  They’re going to want to be able to say to their constituents, “I went straight to the President.”
 
As proof, we can look to At the President’s Side, edited by Timothy Walch, 1997:
 
“As the first man since Calvin Coolidge to step directly into the vice presidency from a statehouse, it was logical that Agnew be put in charge of relations with other state executives. The Office of Intergovernmental Relations was thus created as part of the Office of the Vice President in 1969.  However, Agnew was far from diplomatic in his dealings with his former colleagues. Rockefeller, for example, simply refused to talk to him, sending his messages to Nixon through National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger.”

Usually the day after an election fight ends the victor can slap high fives and re-live the great moments of a winning campaign while the loser goes off to a corner for months to lick wounds, analyze what went wrong and hope history will prove them correct. But in this closely fought democratic battle for President there will be no such downtime for reflection.

Sen. Hillary Clinton is set to concede on Saturday and not a moment to soon. The way she does it could be the most pivotal moment of this long campaign. The nearly 18 million voters who went to the polls will be looking for their cue as to what their next move will be. It’s time that she drop the bogus “popular vote” canard she’s been selling. It’s highly questionable and does nothing to signal to her supporters that the time is now to switch allegiances to Sen. Obama. She must also lose the thinly veiled demands that she has earned the right to be the Vice Presidential candidate. It is true she has earned the respect and admiration of the nation, that should be enough. If Sen. Obama chooses her it would be a great day for the party and for the country, but that will be HIS decision to make. He’s earned that right to select the VP nominee and will diminish the accomplishment if she and her supporters are seen as “forcing” him to pick her. Sen. Clinton is qualified and would make an excellent VP selection in her own right, she cannot force it.

The Associated Press is reporting this morning (and Clinton camp denying) that Senator Hillary Clinton will tonight acknowledge that Barack Obama has claimed enough delegates to be the Democratic nominee for President. So at long last it appears this grueling contest may finally be over. Now the hard part – healing the fractured party. Again this morning on the Bill Press Show several callers said they were now going to vote for John McCain in retaliation for the outcome of the Democratic nomination process. This baffles me. And it worries me a great deal. One of Senator Clinton’s most staunch allies and campaign spokespeople was a guest and is clearly disappointed that her candidate will not prevail. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz spoke eloquently about how short sighted and dangerous that position is and urged Clinton supporters to rethink that view and support the Democratic nominee. One of the things that could be extremely helpful in this process is for the Clinton campaign to stop claiming that Sen. Clinton has won the popular vote. To begin with, it is simply not true – unless you have a tortured view of what the popular vote entails. Two pieces this morning in The Washington Post and The New York Times spell out the portrait pretty well. If you believe that she won the popular vote, you have to exclude hundreds of thousands of voters who showed up at caucuses. Sen. Clinton’s team does not count these as popular votes. To believe she won popular vote also means that in Michigan she gets all of her votes and Barack Obama doesn’t receive a single vote from the nearly 500,000 voters who voted for ‘uncommitted.’ Does anyone actually believe that he wouldn’t have received any of those votes? I can fully understand Sen. Clinton making the claims in the heat of battle, but now that it appears over it is critical that she and her supporters stop using this language. It brings up images of George Bush’s hollow ‘victory’in Florida in 2000 and will make it that much more difficult to bring Sen. Clinton’s voters into the Democratic tent in November.Tonight, Sen. Clinton has a chance to begin writing a new chapter in her amazing life story. Let’s hope she starts by using the facts and using her vast political skills to start bringing the party together for a November victory.

Yes. And I predict the end will come quickly, perhaps later this week. But, I know, I know: ‘What about all the Hillary Clinton supporters vowing to take their fight to the Democratic Convention in August?’ Fair point. I’ve been in both winning campaigns and losing campaigns, and as I’ve discussed before, there is nothing worse than losing. Losing by very small amounts (as Hillary Clinton likely will) is even more difficult. It seems clear from her remarks that she has begun to see the light and to come to terms with it. Her supporters, volunteers and campaign workers on the other hand will need some more time to adjust. It hurts right now for them. They feel like they’ve been cheated and harassed and have been victims of sexism on the part of the national media. Some of which may be true. But it doesn’t change the cold hard facts that, try as they might, they will not make up the difference and Barack Obama will soon be the nominee of the Democratic party this fall. Hillary Clinton knows that it is her historic legacy that is on the line. Does she want to be remembered as the gallant fighter who came back time and again and fought almost to the bitter end and then rallied her troops to help Democrats win in November? Or as some suggest, will she pout and sit it out? History suggests she is a fighter and will take a few weeks off after the campaigning is done tomorrow and then strap on battle gear for the long fight to November in Barack Obama’s corner.If she does that and (God forbid) he loses, she’ll be well positioned to build on her new found brand and come roaring back to challenge a President John McCain (even typing those words frightens me) in 2012. If, as I suspect, Barack Obama wins, she will have played an enormous role in helping to elect the first African American in the history to the White House.One final word today. This morning while sitting in on the Bill Press Show I heard from a few callers (not a majority) that said they would vote for McCain as a protest to the DNC for the way Hillary was treated. One caller compared her decision to that of Rosa Parks refusing to stand up in the back of the bus after a long day at work. While I admire this caller’s passion and commitment to her candidate, let me say that Rosa Parks refused to get up, but I cannot imagine she’d have voted for George Wallace as a ‘protest’ vote. The next President of the United States may appoint two or three Supreme Court Justices. John McCain has said he would appoint ‘clones’ (his words not mine) of Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Sam Alito. Is that really a protest vote? Or is it cutting off your nose to spite your face? 

First, let me say that while watching last night’s debate, I knew I was seeing the next President of the United States. Whether Barack Obama’s momentum continues and he is the nominee, or if Hillary proves to be the real ‘Comeback Kid’ and wins decisively in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania and captures the nomination, BOTH candidates looked, sounded and acted like Presidents last night. Democrats should all be proud of the two remaining contenders.Obama did what he needed to do and turned in one of his most solid debate performances of the campaign. He remained above the fray and didn’t let the attacks go unchallenged, but was also respectful yet dismissive of the childish attack about plagiarism. That was probably the only low moment of the two-hour debate, when HRC gratuitously threw in the canned line about change you can get from a Xerox machine. The line was too clever by half and actually backfired in an auditorium half-filled with Obama supporters. The line had the desired effect of being the one line used in newscasts all over the country and all over cable TV, but when that line is followed by boos and hisses from a DEMOCRATIC crowd, it made her look childish and snarky. That said, her closing was as eloquent as I’ve ever heard her in the campaign. Had she been that authentic and approachable during the last six months, the race would be over in her favor. The question people are asking now is, was her comment about ‘however this turns out, we’ll all be fine’ the opening salvo of what will be a graceful exit from the race if she performs badly next week in Ohio and Texas? Only time will tell.