Cottle on Luntz

At the New Republic, Michelle Cottle reviews Frank Luntz’s, “What Americans Really Want…Really: The Truth About Our Hopes, Dreams, and Fears“, and pretty much nails down the entire Luntz shtick. Luntz it a pollster who made/makes his fame driving the GOP message. He’s had very real successes to point to, but I’d argue those successes stemmed more from creating a single message that party leaders force-fed down the ranks and enforced message discipline on than the content of the message itself. Luntz works in banalities that would shame Chance the gardener/Chauncey Gardiner.

Cottle sums those banalities up perfectly in her review:

For Luntz, of course, these answers are jewels that provide a window into man’s true soul. But Luntz’s analysis of the data is awash in revelations most generously described as unstartling. Do we really need Frank Luntz and his methodologies to tell us that moms do most of the food shopping in your average American household?  That in recent years there has been a rise in the popularity of organic food?  That younger employees don’t have the same sense of company loyalty as did earlier generations?  And how about this paradigm-shattering observation: “Blackberrys improve the speed of communication, but the devices don’t necessarily improve the quality of communication.” (The helpful italics are his.) Thumbing through Luntz’s dissection of our hopes and dreams, the exclamation that leaps to mind most often isn’t “Aha!” so much as “Well, duh!”

This is why the left scares me …

… and ought to concern any freedom-loving American.

This link is a post from Michelle Cottle at the New Republic’s Plank blog. I like the Plank. I have it in my blogroll, but sometimes it reminds why the mindset of the political left really frightens me. (Not unlike how say, the Corner, does the same thing for me from the right.)

Cottle’s post is about the concept of banning fast-food restaurants within 500 feet of public schools, well more specifically on a study that hopes to achieve something along those lines. Cottle doesn’t totally agree with the idea but then this graf appears in the blog post:

I can, of course, already hear the logical response from objectors: Sure this move isn’t The Answer, but where is the harm in trying to make it An Answer. Like all political quests, tackling childhood obesity must be looked at in terms of strategic prioritizing. From a purely legalistic perspective, I can’t imagine that there wouldn’t be complicated, costly, time-consuming law suits (not to mention potential PR problems) if the government moved from controlling what takes place on public school grounds to dictating where private companies who products are in no way proscribed for use by minors can peddle their wares. I’m not saying it couldn’t be done. But whenever we’re talking about imposing new nanny-state limitations on private individuals and/or institutions, there should be serious cost-benefit anlyses conducted beforehand. I have to think there are more obvious, more useful, and less intrusive avenues to be attempted.
(boldemphasis mine)

I reiterate, Cottle isn’t going along with the left-wing groupthink here, but it’s just second nature for her to think (rightly I might add) the political left sees no problem with throwing government action — nanny-state bans in this case — at a “problem” regardless whether the cure might work, or if it’s even curing an actual problem facing our society. And any of the above is nothing more than very, very bad policy and ridiculous government overreach.

Hypothetical clowns like Cottle tacitly describes here were the only reservation I had in voting for Obama. The idea this mindset might feel some sense of entitlement to actual policy decision making was stomach churning. That churning was easily forgotten by simply thinking about “President Palin” and all the fail that reality would entail. (Also.)