Obama bookends his chastising of Chinese trade practices with sections on the need for government help for American manufacturers and the need for government help for American workers. This decision belies the coherence of his stance. When other countries take steps to make their industries more competitive, it’s cause for indignation. Yet Obama proposes an array of policies that would give special treatment to favored sectors here at home without any sense of irony.

His proposals include a double-size tax deduction for high-tech manufacturers and public financing for the building of plants and the purchase of new equipment. He calls for federal funding for job-training programs and wants Congress to step in to keep student loan interest rates artificially low.

Read more at dailycaller.com.

Perhaps most striking was Winston’s messaging advice: It showed that GOP talking points over the past year have been largely useless. A recent poll that he presented in a slideshow indicated that when considering the 2012 election, 58 percent of the country thinks the phrase ““Where are the jobs?” is more important than what the size and role of government should be, which registers at 37 percent.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/

But what people often fail to recognize is that the state is itself the tool by which the haves keep the have-nots without. Removing their secret weapon would, in fact, level the playing field for all participants in a way no amount of government intervention ever could.

To read the full piece, turn to usnews.com

The debate performance didn’t help, Republican pollster David Winston said.
“It was a very difficult thing to watch,” he said. “Anything is possible but this is a really deep hole.”

To read more, turn to usatoday.com

“The electorate is following this election very closely and they are going to think through every piece of information that is put in front of them in the most thoughtful way they can,” he said. “This is an election where everyone is concerned about direction of the country

Read more: The Olympian

“He has a clear track record at this point and that’s what his job approval reflects. He can’t avoid his record but it’s not like people are not willing to listen him.”

Click to read the full article.

“What’s going to decide this election is jobs and the economy,” says David Winston, a Republican pollster and strategist. “The door is wide open for Republicans.”

To read the full article, turn to businessweek.com

“Even if you’re talking about taxing some other group, at some point, voters think, ‘It’s going to come back to me,’” said David Winston, a Republican pollster. “It’s like opening Pandora’s box.”

To read the full article, turn to nationaljournal.com

“The challenge for the Republican presidential field is to stay on topic, to let the No. 1 issue be the No. 1 issue,” said David Winston, an adviser to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

To read more, go to therepublic.com

“Foreign affairs is important, but when placed against the scale of the problem with jobs and the economy, it’s dwarfed,” said David Winston, a Republican strategist. “It’s the equivalent of a house on fire: he’s fixing the window while the rest of the house is burning down.”

To read the full article, click to nytimes.com

“What he’s obviously trying to do is model himself on Harry Truman and the ‘do-nothing Congress,’ ” said David Winston, a Republican strategist. “The problem with that is that the unemployment rate in November of 1948 was 3.8 percent.”

To read the full article, access it at nytimes.com

“There’s a door open such that people are willing to look at him and his accomplishments,” says Republican pollster David Winston. “Voters want candidates who say what they’ll do and try to lay out solutions.”

To read the full article, turn to csmonitor.com

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

“While people view what’s occurred as positive, it’s not enough to offset the concern about how he’s handling the No. 1 issue — jobs and the economy. And that’s what he’s being judged on,” said David Winston, a Republican pollster.

To read more, check it out at nytimes.com

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“What’s that compelling idea that says to the electorate: You should be president?” he explains. “I think that’s what [Gingrich] would like to be able to present; I think that’s what all the Republican candidates would ultimately like to present.”

To read the full article, access it at usnews.com

“Having this particular issue emerge right in the middle of the presidential campaign draws attention back to the fact that, while the economy was tanking, he was focusing on health care,” said David Winston, a Republican pollster.

To read more, check out wsj.com.

David Winston, a GOP political strategist, told The Fiscal Times on Tuesday afternoon before the speech: “[Christie] is a major figure. But his impact on the primary race at this point is unclear.”

To read the full article, turn to thefiscaltimes.com.

“I don’t think what happened to her is unusual,” said Winston, who is based in Washington, D.C. “But she clearly missed an opportunity in growing her support.”

To read the full article, turn to desmoinesregister.com

After two-and-a-half years of Reaganomics, by this time in 1983, second-quarter growth had hit an astounding 9.3 percent and would be followed by three more quarters of 8 percent or higher growth. In contrast, Obama’s second-quarter growth this year was an anemic 1.0 percent, with no light at the end of the tunnel.

To read the full article, turn to nationalreview.com

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

He pointed to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that found voters prefer a Republican-controlled Congress by the widest margin, 6 points, in more than a year.

“The House is going to take the proposals the White House put forward, look through them and try to find out where there can be clear common ground, and once that emerges, then we’ll see what the White House’s reaction is to that,” Winston said.

Read more on politico.com

“This isn’t about how you’re going to position Republicans,” Winston said. “This is about how are you going to position the president if he’s going to have a chance to win re-election.”

To read the full article, click to usatoday.com

“This was his ‘It’s not my fault’ speech,” said GOP strategist David Winston. “What he’s trying to do is take attention away from the fact that his job approval numbers have tanked.”

Read more at the Washington Examiner

“In terms of building a majority coalition within the Republican Party, he has quite a bit of work to do,” says David Winston, a Republican pollster. In addition, “his lead is based on some initial perceptions of him, things he has said that have intrigued people. But the Republican electorate has not gone through the vetting process with him yet.”

To read more, click to csmonitor.com

“There’s a difference between saying, ‘He’s slightly ahead,’ and saying, ‘He’s the front-runner,’” said Winston.

“For a lot of people, they’re hearing the specifics about him for the first time. They initially saw him as this charismatic speaker, had some interesting things to say that intrigued them,” continued Winston. “It’s a natural period of initial engagement, followed by some vetting.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/

And anxious independent voters, in the words of Republican pollster David Winston, “aren’t looking for a conversation, they are looking for a plan.”

To read more, check out politico.com

“This weekend’s speech is going to be critical because he is going to go through his whole reasoning, and explain how he is going to be positioning himself in relation to the other candidates and how he feels he is going to win,” said Republican pollster David Winston.

To read the full article, turn to thehill.com

That’s why David Winston said he reminds Republicans that “just because people are unhappy with the president doesn’t mean they’re going to vote for somebody else. The Republican candidates have the challenge to come up with that compelling idea that shows people they’re ready to govern.”

To read the full article, turn to realclearpolitics.com

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

At the very least, public opinion on the Ryan plan may be more in flux than it is on the health reform law. “They’re still working through what they think of the Ryan plan,” said Winston, the Republican pollster. “They’ve pretty much worked through what they think of Obamacare.”

Read more: politico.com

“It’s not an outcome difference, but there’s a pretty significant difference of opinion in terms of the process of getting there,” David Winston, a GOP strategist, told The Fiscal Times. “Some within the Tea Party are trying to get quite a bit of their agenda done right this second, using the debt ceiling. The business community wants to be more careful about how they use this device, and err on the side of caution, even if they do eventually want to go in the same direction.”

To read the full article, turn to: thefiscaltimes.com

To read more about the GOP and the debt ceiling, turn to washingtonexaminer.com

“Given how far out we are from the conclusion, it’s unclear how the public would assign blame, and if an agreement isn’t reached, it will be negative for the entirety of Washington,’’ he said. “Republicans fundamentally believe that raising taxes would cause the economy to contract when we want it to expand.’’

To read the full article, turn to nationaljournal.com

•About half have a college degree or higher. That’s more than Iowa adults or Americans in general.
•The proportion who consider themselves born-again Christians hits in the high-40 percent range, slightly above the range for the rest of the nation.
•Mirroring the national picture, they’re more likely to be male, evidence of the classic gender gap between Republican voters and Democratic voters.

But even knowing the type of person the typical Iowa caucusgoer is, it’s too early to tell how turnout will be.

“If it snows heavily it could be a completely different turnout,” Republican pollster David Winston said. “You’re trying to put your finger on mercury a little bit.”

To read more, turn to usatoday.com

“She clearly represents a segment of the party that is not enough, at least at this point, to get the nomination,” said David Winston. “Once she’s outside of Iowa, if she gets there, she needs a strategy to try and reach the majority of Republicans and some Independents. I haven’t seen that yet.”

To read the full article, turn to thefiscaltimes.com

“Are those folks right to be nervous about where the organization is right now? Sure,” said Winston, who has done work in Iowa. “For Bachmann, it’s: ‘What do we do to catch up?’ But I don’t think at this point anyone could say, ‘No, she can’t do that.’”

To read the full article, turn to desmoinesregister.com

Mr. DAVID WINSTON (Republican strategist): There’s a lot he’s going to have to do to develop the substance and content because it clearly was not in that speech. And I think that’s the challenge. And part of what he’s got to manage here is how does he make having been governor of Utah and ambassador to China for President Obama appeal to Republican primary electorate? Ultimately, he hasn’t answered the substance question yet.

To read the full transcript or listen to the story, turn to npr.org

And if he gets in the race, says GOP strategist David Winston, “His challenge will be to translate what he’s done in Texas to what he’ll do for the rest of the country.”

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2011/06/17/rick-perry-and-the-vienna-convention/#ixzz1PZ2ucODE

“He’s struggling to find something he can go out and talk about,” said David Winston, a Republican strategist.
The president is relying on the fact that “Chrysler still exists and didn’t disappear under his watch,” Winston said. “It’s not really a great statement of success.”

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/

“It’s the macro-situation that matters in terms of how people are going to ultimately view his success or lack thereof with the economy,” Mr. Winston said. To the extent Mr. Obama boasts selectively, “that tends to reinforce the idea, ‘Maybe he’s disconnected.’ ”

To read the full article, click to nytimes.com

“One of the reasons that no one has broken away from the pack is because no one has come up with a clear set of economic policies … at a time when people are unhappy with the president’s economic policies,” Winston said.

Read more at the Washington Examiner.

“The key for Newt is to focus on his policy ideas and solutions for problems facing the country, which is his strength,” said Republican pollster David Winston. “When the discussion about him is not about that, he does not do as well.”

To read the full article, turn to washingtonpost.com

“The challenge to Republicans is to offer an alternative that builds a majority coalition,” said David Winston, a Republican strategist. “At this point, where you’ve heard the policy discussions occurring have not been within the Republican presidential primary but among the Republican members of Congress.”

To read the full article, turn to cnbc.com

“The Democrats want to cherry-pick issues and make it just about Medicare, whereas the challenge for Republicans is to broaden it to make it about economy, jobs and making government solvent, and Medicare is part of that,” Mr. Winston said.

To read the full article, turn to wsj.com

“Gingrich needs to focus on his own plans for the country,” said GOP pollster David Winston, who has advised Gingrich over the years. “If he doesn’t make it about his policy, other things are going to intervene. That is going to be his challenge.”

To read the full article, turn to wapo.com

Winston says the difference between this effort to rein in Medicare and past Republican attempts to do the same is that more voters are aware of the nation’s dire debt situation and that more of them understand Medicare is going broke.

“Dealing with Medicare is how we’re going to make the government solvent so that we can get the economy back on track,” he said.

Read more: politico.com

What Gingrich has going for him is that presidential elections are about something beyond gauzy biographical ads and rehearsed debate one-liners. “We’re in the personality phase of the campaign,” says Republican pollster David Winston, who worked for Gingrich when he was House speaker. “But eventually it’s going to move from personality to policy. GOP voters are going to ask, ‘What are your solutions to fix the nation’s problems?’ And that is the moment that plays to Newt’s greatest strength.”

To read more, turn to tnr.com

The Republican challenge is “making sure this discussion is broader than simply Medicare,” said David Winston, a GOP strategist who advises House leadership.

To read the full article, check out chicagotribune.com

“There are certain things with individuals that if they have to cut back, they will cut back,’’ said David Winston, a Republican pollster in Washington and an adviser to Boehner. “Gasoline is not one of them. What are they supposed to do? Go half way to work?’’

To read the full article, turn to daytondailynews.com