The media continues to report that the Massachusetts vote was a referendum on health care reform—and that this has the White House worried.
If so, the White House is wrong.
Take a look at polling conducted by Hart Research Associates for the AFL-CIO on the evening of the election, revealing who voted for Brown –and what those voters said. Then consider separate polling done by the Washington Post together with the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University. Read both reports, and you’ll have a very hard time believing that Scott Brown’s election represents a mandate on healthcare legislation.
Finally, factor in the eye-opening Kaiser Family Foundation January tracking poll, and what it reveals about what voters do and don’t understand about health reform legislation. If most voters have only a hazy idea of what is in the legislation, you really can’t say that they voted against the Senate bill.
Who Voted for Brown ?
Democrats who are disillusioned that Obama has not pushed further on health care reform? Upper-middle-class voters who believe that Obama doing too much, going too far, and may well hike their taxes?
No, the surprise is that Brown was elected by Massachusetts’ working class, and they were not focused on health care legislation.
Non-college men voted for Brown by a 27-point margin (59% to 32%), and non-college women also voted for Brown by 13 points (while college women went for Coakley by 13 points).
If you look at all college graduates, Coakley won this election by five points among college graduates, but lost the non-college vote by a 20-point margin. This represents a huge swing among non-college voters since 2008, when Obama won by 21 points, for a net swing of 41 points.
What happened? How did Democrats lose so many working class voters? Many of the non-college voters who chose Obama a year ago were Latinos and African Americans. This time, they stayed at home, according to election eve and election night polling done jointly by the Republican firm American Viewpoint and the Democratic group, Lake Research Partners on behalf of the nonpartisan group Women’s Voices. WomenVote. (Unmarried women and younger voters also came out in fewer numbers. ) http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=57E6E10A-18FE-70B2-A8D34DD1CF39BA36.
Keep in mind that a minority of white voters pulled the lever for Obama in 2008—he needed non-white voters to carry him over the top. Apparently this time Democratic organizers in Massachusetts didn’t work very hard to bring out their vote, or to explain to minority communities that, even if they didn’t particularly warm up either candidate (which I can well imagine), this vote could be important for health care reform.
The Hart poll was done on the evening of January 19, when pollsters conducted a telephone survey among 810 voters in the special election for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. The survey has a margin of error of ±3.8 percentage points. ( The pollsters note that “the survey data were weighted to be consistent with the actual election results, yielding a five-point margin for Brown –50% Brown, 45% Coakley, 1% other candidates, 4% refused).
In the end, the pollsters observe that the results of this election “were not a call to abandon national health care reform.” 82% of voters were aware of Scott Brown's opposition to health care legislation supported by President Obama and congressional Democrats, but “it had virtually no net impact on the Senate election.” Here is the money line:
“Those who knew Brown’s position [on reform] were as likely to say it made them less likely (39%) to support him as to say it made them more likely to support him (41%).”
A few HealthBeat readers have suggested that Massachusetts elected Brown because they have seen health care reform in their own state, and don’t like it. But the poll reveals that two-thirds (67%) favor the Massachusetts health insurance law that ensures nearly universal coverage, including 53% of Brown voters
Moreover, the poll confirms HealthBeat reader Pat S’s argument that the vote had more to do with personality than issues: “Considerable evidence exists that this election was largely about the individual candidates, Coakley and Brown, more than a referendum on President Obama or the Democratic agenda.”
By 61% to 33%, Massachusetts voters said they were picking the best
candidate to be their U.S. senator, rather than “sending a message to
Washington.” Drill down, and look only at Brown’s voters, and you’ll find that they, too, say they were selecting the best candidate, not sending a message to Washington about the direction of the country (52% to 42%).
People simply liked Scott Brown better. His personal rating from voters was 51% positive to 32% negative (net +19 points), while Coakley had much weaker personal ratings at 40% positive and 37% negative.
Voters were not expressing dislike for the president: Massachusetts’ electorate give Obama much better ratings than Coakley (52% positive, 33% negative), and approval of the job he is doing (52% approve, 38% disapprove).
Insofar as they were voting on issues, those polled reported that they were most concerned about the economy and jobs. Electing a candidate
“who will strengthen the economy and create more good jobs” was the single most /very important factor according to 79% of those polled.
Health care reform placed a distant second: “Electing a candidate who is committed to controlling health care costs and covering the uninsured” (single most/very important factor)among only 54% of all voters.
The working class voters who elected Brown have been hit hard by the economy. That is their immediate concern. As Hart notes: “Economic dissatisfaction played a large role in Brown’s victory. The majority of voters who said the Massachusetts economy is not so good or poor (52%) voted for Brown by 56% to 39%. However, voters who said the economy was excellent, good, or fair supported Coakley by 52% to 43%.”
A Second Poll
Over at the Washington Post, Ezra Klein reports on the Post/ Kaiser/ Harvard poll http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/WaPoKaiserHarvard_MassPoll_Jan22.pdf , a second survey that tried to determine why voters chose Brown. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/
This Washington Post-Kaiser-Harvard poll was conducted by conventional and cellular telephone Jan. 20-21, among a random sample of 880 voters in the Massachusetts special election. The margin of sampling error for the sample of voters is plus or minus four percentage points.
After reviewing the results, Klein observes: “The results make it untenable to argue that the election had nothing to do with national issues in general or health-care reform in particular. But it makes it similarly hard to argue that the state is firmly opposed to health-care reform, or that Scott Brown's election is a mandate against the bill.”. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/ .
I agree, but I would go further. When I took a close look at the questions and the results in the Post/Kaiser/Harvard poll, I discovered that it tended to confirm much of the Hart research.
First, 91% of Brown’s voters considered the economy and jobs “extremely important or very important” compared to 84% of Coakley’s voters.
More importantly, 88% of Brown’s voters thought “leadership and personal qualities” were “extremely important or very important” compared to just 69% of Coakley’s voters. (This supports the notion that, to a large degree the folks who picked Brown were selecting someone they liked, without worrying as much about the issues. )
Granted, 93% of Brown’s voters said that health care reform is “extremely important or very important,” but as Ezra notes, “48 percent of Brown's voters think that Brown should work with Democrats on the health-care reform bill rather than partner with Republicans to sink the effort altogether. Which suggests that though Brown's election was far from an affirmation of President Obama's agenda, nor was it a call for relentless obstruction.”
There are many contradictions in the way Brown voters responded to the Washington Post/Kaiser/Harvard poll’s questions. (This is not unusual. Human beings are, well, peculiar creatures.. We often disagree with ourselves. And Brown's voters do not all agree with each other.)
On the one hand the vast majority of Brown voters who were polled say they are opposed to the health reform legislation—but their reasons for disliking it vary widely.
Many in the media have suggested that those who voted for Brown were disgusted by all of the deal-making and the way Democrats cave to special interests.
But when Brown voters who said that healthcare was “extremely” or “very important” were asked to be more specific, only 13% of Brown voters said they “Didn’t like the way it was being handled; politics; deal-making; closed doors lack of transparency."
What is striking is just how varied the responses were: 9 percent of Brown voters said healthcare is important because they “generally support reform or the current bill. Just 22 percent said they put healthcare reform near or at the top of their list because they are generally opposed to reform or the current bill.
Fourteen percent said healthcare is important because they’re concerned about the cost of the bill—increased taxes, government spending and the deficit.
Twelve percent of Brown voters said health care reform mattered to them because they are opposed to government involvement in health care.
What may be most telling is that among Brown voters who think health care and health care reform is “extremely or very important” only 2% agreed that “everyone should have health care; healthcare is a right.”
When explaining why healthcare is important to them, none named the “ need for more/better coverage for the uninsured. ” This suggests that many of Brown’s voters may be opposed to the legislation because they are opposed to the basic idea of universal coverage—whatever form the legislation takes.
By contrast, when explaining why they are focused on healthcare 21 percent of Coakley’s voters said “everyone should have healthcare; it is a right;” and 8 percent mentioned the need for better coverage for the poor.
This suggests that many of Brown’s voters are conservatives or libertarians who don’t believe that a civilized country has a responsibility to make healthcare available to everyone. They believe in “personal responsibility.” Everyone should take care of themselves and their own families.
The fact that so many African-Americans, Latinos, didn’t turn out helped skew the results; the majorityin these communities do believe that healthcare is a right.
.
How Can People Oppose Legislation They Don’t Understand?
But the strongest argument suggesting that the Massachusetts vote was not a vote against reform can be found in a Kaiser Family Foundation study that polled households shortly before the Massachusetts election. http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/8042.cfm
The survey showed voters sharply divided on the legislation along Democratic and Republican party lines, with Independents evenly divided ( 41 percent support the legislation; 43 percent don’t)
But most importantly, the polling showed that most voters have only a dime idea of what is in the bill. According to Kaiser, “The poll finds that even after a year of substantial media coverage of the health reform debate, many Americans remain unfamiliar with key elements of the major bills passed by the House and Senate.”
—Nearly 40 percent did not know that the bill would prohibit insurers from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
— The majority of seniors had no idea that the Senate bill would help close the Medicare “doughnut hole” so that seniors would no longer face a period of having to pay the full cost of their medications.
— Forty-eight percent of all Americans had not heard that the legislation would offer tax credits to small businesses to help them buy insurance for their employees.
–Forty-one percent are not aware that if they have employer-based insurance, the reform legislation will not change existing arrangements.
— More than one quarter of all Americans had no idea that reform legislation would provide subsidies to help low-income families buy insurance.
–Thirty-seven percent did not realize that insurers would be forced to provide a basic benefit package, defined by the government—no more “Swiss Cheese policies” filled with holes.
–Sixty-three percent were unaware that insurers will no longer be allowed to charge women more.
In each case, those polled responded more favorably to the legislation as they heard about these provisions. For instance, when they were told about the tax credits for small businesses 73 percent said they would be more likely to support the bill.
In general, the more that respondents learned about the bill, the more positive they were. “It’s one thing to talk about the public’s perception of health care reform legislation, which right now is in some ways negative, but it’s another to tell people what’s actually in the bill and when you do that people are more positive,” said Kaiser President and CEO Drew Altman.
Why do so few Americans know what is actually in the legislation? A blizzard of misinformation has created much confusion. In newspapers and on television, you regularly hear that ordinary Americans will be forced to buy insurance they cannot afford (no mention of subsidies or caps on out-of-pocket payments which should virtually eliminate medical bankruptcies.) You read that small businesses won’t be able to afford a mandate (no mention of tax credits.)
Americans have been told that the Democrats are making no effort to rein in spending (no mention of the pages and pages of proposals that would cut Medicare costs, paving the way for lower health care bills throughout the system.) They are warned that Medicare beneficiariies will be hurt (no explanation that Medicare cuts are targeting unnecessary care that puts patients at risk without benefits; no mention that the bill will help close the donut hole that now forces Medicare patients to pay for their drugs out-of-pocket.)
We have been told that insurers will continue business as usual (no mention of the provision that prevents them from putting a lifetime cap on benefits, or the plank in the legislation which says that insurers must spend a certain percentage of the premiums they receive on healthcare. If they don’t spend it, they are required to give their customers a partial refund.)
The other reason most people aren’t aware of what the Senate bill would do is because they are busy. They are working. They are raising children. They don’t have time to pay attention to the devilish details. In some cases, they don’t have the education or the powers of concentration needed to absorb and analyze this legislation. That’s not what they do for a living.
Why can’t some of the analysts boil the bill down to a few pages, and six power-points? Because the benefits are all in the details, and often those details are interlocking. You cannot understand one without understanding another. (I’ve written a three-part post that tries to cover all of the important points—both the pros and the cons. See Glass Half-Empty, Glass Half-Full, parts 1, 2 and 3)
But the truth is that re-forming a $2.6 trillion industry that serves (or at least should serve) millions of very different people—young and old, sick and healthy, poor, working-class, middle-class, upper-middle-class and wealthy requires thousands and thousands of adjustments. Just spelling out what will be covered requires many pages, and many amendments.
For instance, did you know that the legislation would require that insurers cover vision and dental care for children? That’s just one of those adjustments that will make all of the difference for some families.
Finally, it is true that some Americans are strongly opposed to both the Senate bill and any reform legislation.
As Kaiser’s January tracking poll observes: “Views on the proposed legislation seem indelibly partisan: A solid majority of Democrats (64 percent) support the proposals being discussed, while an even larger
majority of Republicans (76 percent) oppose it. When it comes
to the enthusiasm gap, strong feelings are significantly more
predominant on the right, with twice as many Republicans saying
they ‘strongly oppose’ the proposed legislation as Democrats
saying they ‘strongly support’ it. "
“Political independents, that critical swing group, are divided down the
middle: with 41 percent supportive and 43 percent opposed.”
The bottom line is this: the Massachusetts special election does not serve as a referendum on health care legislation. The voters who chose Brown chose him for myriad reasons. They say that they knew he opposed the legislation; about half of his voters counted this in his favor, while half counted it against him. Go figure.
The White House should ignore the Massachusetts election.
Nationwide, most voters have only a sketchy idea of what is in the bill. . So it’s impossible to talk about whether they favor or oppose current legislation. People can’t reject something they don’t understand –unless they are simply against reform on first principles, i.e. they don’t believe in universal coverage.
Voters’dissatisfaction with representatives who vote on bills that admittedly they’ve not had a chance to read hit the tipping point. The message was loud and clear enough last summer. If the lesson continues unheeded, the din in November will be deafening.
Maybe people can’t reject something they don’t understand (I don’t agree with this really, but I will give you this for now), but they can reject someone who can’t explain what they are trying to do.
Like it or not the “healthcare reform” is attached to Obama and the dismaying turn of events over the last six months have had a huge impact on people’s perceptions of him.
Obama is the leader of our country and has done a miserable job of explaining what the reform is all about. I’m sure part of this is because he let congress take the lead, but also it’s because the White House consistently took no stand on anything other than saying they wanted a bill. “I prefer a public option, and I think it’s a great idea, but it’s not necessary.”
This kind of wishy washy, anything for a deal politics is not leadership. People want a president who stands for something and can explain clearly and simply what that is and Obama has failed miserably at this. He’s too much of a wonk for his own good.
I have been following this debate closely and still cannot figure out what insurance would actually cost me if the bill ever gets through. And that’s sad, considering the amount of time I’ve spent reading up on this. For someone in my postion, self-employed in a very difficult state to buy insurance (Maine), I feel that any president who is going to pass something like this ought to be able to give some concrete idea what it will cost me in the real world, not a bunch policy concepts that can be hacked apart in back room dealmaking.
It may be true that the voters of Massachusetts did not specifically vote against the health care plan, but they surely have been influenced by watching a White House that is clearly out of touch with the every day concrete concerns of ordinary people. And when the leadership cannot show that they are listening, they will surely not last for long.
I think the election was a result of the health care bill not going far enough. Obama promised a public option, no mandates and no taxes on the middle-class. There is no public option in it, we are mandated to buy private insurance company policies, and they added the Cadillac tax. The people, via Massachusetts, spoke this issue.
Gary–
Thanks for a thoughtful comment.
Let me say that I agree that Obama has been “wishy-washy.”
I was a Clinton supporter, not because I wanted a woman in the White House, but because I wanted an experienced person in the White House who understood
what we would be up against.
I feared that Obams would be too soft, didn’t really understand the challenges ahead of him, and too young. He has had little experience dealing with devastating losses.
People mature when they learn to deal with terrible disappointment.
Hillary is a fighter, and during 8 years in the White House she dealt with devastating disappointmens . She came out of that experience angry, but calm and determined.
She understands who the neo-conservatives are. (I am not talking about garden-variety conservatives; I am talking about the conservatives that Rove/Cheney allowed to stay in Congress. )
Obama vs. Hillary is, of course, all water under the bridge.
I’m just suggesting that there’s no point in blaming Obama for being who he is. Who he is was pretty clear from the beginning.
He’s enormously articulate very intelligent and charming, but that doesn’t give him the depth of experience to deal with what is probably the most difficult presidency since
Abraham Lincoln’s.
Sadly, I agree that this White House seems “out of touch with the every day concrete concerns of ordinary people.”
Real unemployment is now 16 percent–that includes people who have just given up looking for work and people working a part-time job who were/are looking for a full time job.
Sixteen percent of the population unemployed. And the White House still hasn’t begun to respond to this in an active way.
Returning to heatlh care: I’m not persuaded that Obama could “explain” health care reform to the American people.
The truth is that the vast majority of Americans have employer-based coverage. This reform won’t give them any immediate benefits (except the security of knowing that if they lose their jobs or their employer drops the benefit, they will still be covered. But they don’t want to think about that.)
“Explaining” to the American people that this will help poorer Americans and those who don’t have employer-based insurance and suffer from pre-existing conditions probably wouldn’t have helped Obama.
I would like to think that an appeal to our concern for Americans who are less fortuante would be effective–but I’m afraid that might not be true.
As to what reform will cost us: No One Knows.
No one knows what will happen to health care inflation over the next 3 or 4 years (before reform kicks in). (For the last 10 years, it has averaged 8 percent a year. I’m not talking about how much insurers have hiked premiums. I’m talking about how much more they hve had to lay out in reimbursements to doctors, hospitals and paitents for care.
If that continues, in 4 years, your health care premiusm will rise by more than 35%. No poltician wants to tell you that. That’s one reason why they can’t talk about what universal coverage might cost in 2013 or 2014.
Between now and then, we may be able to bring costs down.
But we don’t know how well doctors and hosptials will
respond to the financial carrots and sticks in the health care form legislation that aim at bringing down costs.
We don’t know how much more care the uninsured and under-insured will need if they finally get good insurance.
So it’s impossible to guesstimate the cost.
But we do know that if we don’t have reform, your premiums will continue to spiral, far, far, faster than your wages
Obama has explained this–on more than one occasion. But people just don’t want to hear this–or think abou it.
And they are afraid of change, especially because change means dealing with unknowns.
Gregoy–
Did you read the polling information in the post?
Voters were pretty definite in saying that this was NOT why they voted for Brown.
The majority of Brown’s ovters said they knew he was opposed ohealth care reform and while half of his voters said this made them like him more, half of Brown’s voters said that his oppositin to the reform legisation made them like him less. (Yet they still voted for him )
Greg–these voters have a better idea of why they voted the way they did than either you or I can possibly have.
I thought probably it was all about jobs and the econeomy–but the exit polls show that this isn’t true either.
.
of course people can reject something they don’t understand. they do it all the time — and rightly so. that’s called prudence.
so what’s the message for the majority who have pretty good insurance that we’re more or less content with? once you get beyond the communitarian spirit of providing coverage for all, what’s in it for us?
figure out what message and it should be a piece of cake to enact the bill.
It is simply a utopian fantasy that voters send people to Congress who they think will do good things for the country. They send people to Congress to do good things for their state.
Before the Federal government was viewed as a manager of the economy, that worked. But not any more. As the Federal government is viewed more and more as controlling all the money (the liberal vision of utopia), self-interest Ponzi-izes the public treasury.
The founders understood this. Modern progressives have decided they were unenlightened rubes.
In the modern era, voters send people to Congress who they think will bring lots of money back home; the entire congressional apparatus is a competitive game of trying to get more money out than you put in. As the size of the Federal government grows, and the treasury therefore grows, this Ponzi-like atmosphere dominates more and more.
Since the biggest factor in producing largesse is just seniority, and whether your party is majority or not, and the voters of one state can’t control the latter factor at all, in the end you just vote for the incumbent until he or she dies. When it’s time to start over, like in Massachusetts, you just vote for the one you like the best, since it matters little what party they belong to.
So you go with whether or not the candidate dissed your sports team.
Jim–
Rejecting something that you don’t understand because it’s nonsense (for instance “voodoo economics) is prudence.
Rejecting something that you don’t understand because you either lack the time–or the ability–to study it is not prudence.
You have two choices. You can find two or three experts that you trust, who share your values, read what they say about it and form an opinion.
Or you can decide “I just don’t have time to look into this”–and when asked, acknowledge that you don’t know enough to have an opinion.
There are many areas –trade policy, for instance–where I don’t know enough to have an opinion.
What you shouldn’t do is form a strong opinion and express it loudly when you don’t know what you’re talking about.
And if you don’t have time to look into the issues driving an election, you shouldn’t vote.
Doc 99
There is no way taht members of Congress could read and study every page of every piece of legislation that they vote on.
No single human being could know enough about enough different subjects to do that well.
This is why legislators have staffs– a person who specialize in health care, a personal who specializes in international trade; a person who specializes in energy policy, etc.
Staff are responsible for thoroughly understanding the details of the legislation and “briefing” the Congressperson about the pros and cons of the legislation (in writing as well as verbally.)
Lou Dobbs tried to make an issue out of legislators not reading legislation–
Lou was something of a blow-hard.
Tim–
The notion that a modern economy could be regulated (or not regulated) the way the founders envisioned running the tiny U.S. economy of the 18th century is the fantasy.
Unfortuantely, the problem of the past two decades has been too little government regulation, and as a result, excessive specualtion. Also, our central bankers have done a poor job. By printing money, keeping interest rates unrealisitically low, and ignoring bubbles, they poured fuel on a fire.
Maggie is right about members of Congress not being able to read and study every page of every piece of legislation they vote on. I know (from personal experience) that the staff members in the Senate are some of the most intelligent and able-bodied group of people (although I have a personal bias). Some of which, ARE the Senator’s brain.
Maggie:
How right you are about unrealistically low interest rates.
The fact we have had such low rates for most of thie last decade speaks to the seriousness of our fiscal situation, and how little has been done to rectify it.
Tim:
What you wrote seems to me to speak to the “enlightened” self interest of states on down to individuals.
It used to be that incumbents won 98% of the time.
I believe that figure has reduced somewhat, but, still, people tend to like their Congressman, while believeing that Congress, on the whole, is performing very poorly.
To me, this is a large disconnect between feeling and reality.
A similar feeling has been expressed about health care.
I like my particular health insurance, but the system, on the whole, needs a major makeover.
If it works for you, individually, but not on a larger level, the system is broken for you, too.
You just have not realized it yet.
It has not filtered down through your filter!
Don Levit
Women’s Voices Women Vote post-election poll in Massachusetts confirms what other polls and reporting demonstrate, that on the issue of health care, voters did not vote to send a message against health care reform. Overall, health care reform was tied with taxes and spending as just the third most important issue to voters. More importantly, voters who said their vote was primarily about health care voted 46 to 35 in support of reform. Among the RAE who said their vote was primarily about health care—the margin was 52 to 29 in favor of reform.
Other polls produced similar findings:
A health care poll conducted by Hart Research and commissioned by the AFL-CIO found that people voting for Brown were not driven by their opposition to health care reform. In the polling memo, Hart states that: ”Those who knew Brown’s position [on health care] were as likely to say it made them less likely (39%) to support him as to say it made them more likely to support him (41%).” Hart also found that 82 percent of voters knew Brown’s position on health care.
A Rasmussen Reports election night poll in Massachusetts found that voters who said health care was their top issue voted for Coakley in greater margins than Brown. 63 percent of Coakley voters said health care was the most important issue in determining their vote, while 52 percent of Brown voters said it was their top issue.
A Research 2000 election night poll co-sponsored by MoveOn.org Political Action, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and Democracy for America questioned only Obama voters. The poll surveyed 1000 registered Massachusetts voters who voted for Obama in 2008, half of whom voted for Brown and half of whom did not vote in the special election. The findings: Nearly half (49%) of Obama voters who voted for Brown “support the Senate health care bill or think it does not go far enough. Only 11% think the legislation goes too far.”
By contrast, an exit poll conducted by Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates stated that opposition to health care reform “was the most important issue” in Brown’s victory in Massachusetts. However, the integrity of that poll has been called into question based on the firm’s ties to the health care industry. As Media Matters noted, some of Fabrizio, McLaughlin and Associates’ clients have opposed aspects of the current health care reform legislation, including the U.S. Chamber of Congress, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and the American Health Care Association.
Finally, Washington Post reporter Alec MacGillis wrote that Brown’s victory “was hardly a repudiation of health reform,” explaining that Massachusetts voters had few sympathies for national health care because they already have universal health care coverage from the state, and noting that even Brown himself did not attribute his election to his stance on health care.
Maggie, I was reading quietly, like I usually do, but then I found that sentence where you said that people who don’t understand the drivers shouldn’t vote, and I have to respond to that.
People should always vote. Voting is not a privilege reserved for the educated, or those with high IQ and/or lots of free time to study politics. People should make an effort to understand at least the general nature of what’s at stake and if all fails, vote for someone that seems to share your values and priorities.
And that is probably exactly what happened in Massachusetts. Mr. Brown’s campaign did a fantastic job at presenting their candidate as someone regular folks can identify with, truck, boots, cute family and everything.
By the same token, on a national level, conservatives did an equally fantastic job at defining the health care bill. The 3K pages didn’t prevent them from distilling it down to death panels/exploding deficits/higher taxes.
So where was/is the Obama PR machine that worked so well on the campaign trail? How about the rest of the Democrats? Is it complacency? Is it lack of belief in one’s own position? Is it weakness? Plain incompetency?
The State of the Union address is two days away. People will be watching. Going once… Going twice…..
If Kennedy’s seat can go red, who else is on deck to be shipped off? The Democrats need to get their butts in gear if they hope to last another term.
The State of the Union address is two days away. People will be watching. Going once… Going twice…..
Posted by: Margalit Gur-Arie
———
So just where does this country go if Obama is out, going the third time????? Do we just go back to the conservative yearnings of George Bush and his clueless, ultra greedy buddies in the Senate that got us into most of the mess we are now in??? Curious minds want to know just where is it that we are going to go?
Gregory, Earln DC
Gregory,
As a reporter I also have come to know Congressional staff, and have found them to be remarkablly intelligent, hard-working and well-informed.
The best legislators– people like Ted Kennedy and Carl Levin– go out of there way to find extraordinarily good staff.
That’s how they do their job.
Don–Yes, too-low interest rates set us up for too much borrowing, too much debt.
And people do tend to think their own Congressman is honest and good–while also believing that most of Congress is corrupt. . . .
Earln DC–
Welcome to the blog.
Yes, there are questions about McLaughlin & Associates . . . .
The rest of the polls seem to agree on one point: this election was neither a repudiation of health care reform nor the Senate bill.
But enough pundits reported that the election was about reform that others believed them, and repeated the tale.
Margialit–
I have often not voted for individual candidates if I didn’t know enough about them.
It’s very hard to know anything about a person’s values without knwoing how they voted on various bills, which politicians they have supported in the past, etc.
Too often, voters judge values based on something like: “He’s Catholic and I’m Catholic too.”
Much reserach suggests that Americans tend to vote for politicans based on personality and how they look.
This explains how we woudn up with Reagan as our president for 8 years, George W. Bush our president for 8 years . ..
To me, the fact that “Mr. Brown’s campaign did a fantastic job at presenting their candidate as someone regular folks can identify with, truck, boots, cute family and everything”
is a pretty good summary of what’s wrong with the way our candidates are “sold” to the American people by PR people.
I really don’t care if a candidate has a “cute wife” or a truck.
“Regular people” equals “someone you would like to have a beer with”–which explains hos George Bush was elected.
(Here, I’m assuming that, in retrospect, msot of us agree that electing George Bush for 8 years was a catastrophic mistake. By lying, he took us into a war that has killed so many . . .and that we will never win. Meanwhile, he dug such a deep hole for tne economy that it will take years to recover–if we do.
And no, I conservatives did an equally fantastic job at defining the health care bill” “distilling it down to death panels/exploding deficits/higher taxes.”
These were all lies. I don’t think that lies stand as a fantastic example of good PR.
Finally, I’m not looking for “the Obama PR machine that worked so well on the campaign trail?”
What worked so well ont he campaign trail was not a “PR machine,” but Obama himself. There was an authenticity there, intelligence and charisma that created a political movement in the old-fashioned sense–not a fabricated PR campaign but people, at a grassroots level, who truly belived in Obama.
This is something that PR people cannot invent.
Robert– I agree that the Democrats need to get their butts in gear. And while doing that, perhaps they will discover their spine.
NG–
Obama has been in office only one year.
Traditoinally at the end of two years, a new president is extremely unpopular.
That said, wise and experienced people who I respect have begun to suggest that if Obama fails us, the Democrats might replace him in the next election–and run Hillary.
I’m not sure that woudl be a godo idea. But ertainly, tchat would be preferrable to running failed president whoconservaitves can paint as another Jimmy Carter (unable to govern).
This country–and this economy– cannot afford another conservative administration.
Well Maggie, in the few cases where I didn’t know enough about a candidate, mostly state level, I will admit that I just voted Democrat and hoped for the best.
There is enough difference between Republicans and Democrats for people to vote on general inclinations if the issue at hand is too complex. Democrats will most often push for the little guy and Republicans for the wealthy guy, so it should be pretty straight forward to make a voting decision, barring extreme religion and bigotry considerations.
As to Mr. Obama, yes he has the charisma and the qualities necessary to inspire a grassroots movement. However, you cannot win an election without PR, and PR doesn’t necessarily have to be evil and dishonest.
Is there any reason that the response to the Republican campaign of lies was non-existent?
Couldn’t Democrats have pointed out that it takes more than a post-it note to reform 1/6 of the economy? Is there a reason why nobody on the Democrat side could distill the basic truth out of this bill (e.g. ending insurance discrimination, lowering costs, keeping America strong and its children healthy, etc.)?
A PR machine is not a bad thing. It is a necessary thing these days if you want to get your message across, no matter how obvious and virtuous the message is.
From all the polls you quoted, it is pretty clear that the President’s message did not get through. Wednesday night he will have a full house, what better time to let America know what this is all about?
Since the super bowl is almost upon us, let me just say that the best defense is a good offense and let’s remember that there are always FOUR quarters.
If I was an upset voter in Mass because the idea of being forced to buy insurance from a PRIVATE company instead of a public option was my deal breaker, what would I do to show my anger in this last senate election?? I mean voting for a repub to show that I was angry at the lack of a public option seems pretty foolish, yet going blindly along with a Dem plan that the conservatives SHOULD love, does not make sense either. So maybe that election shows something different than voter displeasure with any reform, but maybe it does show some kind of reform anger. As a public option supporter, I am going to interpret that it shows anger with a forced PRIVATE option. Would the public option instead in the bill have made a difference??
Margait–
A couple of months ago I was on a panel with Marshall Ganz, the legendary political organizer.
He talked about the difference between a “movement” and “framing issues” with sound bites.
A movement moves peoples’ minds from where they are now to where they could be. It educates them. It takes time.
In the years ahead, we will need to educate the public about health care– explain why more care is not better care, etc.
But so much of the truth about healthcare is counter-intuitive, and every commplicated. This is a process that will take a long time.
We can’t afford to wait for everyone to understand before passing health care legislation.
PR is made up of slogans which, like advertising slogans, are designed to make people stop thinking. The sound bites are short, snappy and click shut like a box.
Conservatives “frame” issues with sound-bites and bumper stickers.
Unfortunately, the truth is usually complicated and can’t be expressed in sound bites. This legislation is complicated–and the benefits are all in the details, hundreds of details.
Lies, on the other hand, are as simple as you want ot make them.
For instance: “there are no cost controls in this legislation.”
To describe and explain the way this legislation would lead to lower costs would take perhaps 15 minutes– and even then, people would have questions. So it might take 30 minutes or 45.
All the president can do in the state of the union is make it very, very clear that the alternative to reform is this: continued health care inflation with more and more people finding themsleves priced out of the health care market.
At the current rate of inflation, health care bills will double in 9 years. Your wages won’t double in 9 years.
By the way, voting for the Democrat is not always a good idea. People in CT voted for Lieberman for years–and he was always what he is today..
We have the Congress we have today because people voted for these legislators, often without understanding the issues, or what the candidate stood for.
Meanwhile, some very good people were voted out of office over the past 20 years.
NG–
What the polls show is that most people were not voting to express their opposition to the Senate bill.
Most of those who voted for Brown knew he was opposed to the legislation adn half of his voters said that made them like him less, but they voted for him anyway because they weren’t trying to send a message to DC about health care.
The were trying to pick the candidate they like best.
Health reform just isn’t that important to most people.
Maggie,
With all the absolute unknowns about the Mass Senate election, I am just choosing to go into the grab bag and pick out an answer that I like. My point is that maybe the traditional progressive power in Mass held back its enthusiasm and even voting clout because the current bill is too private insurance centered and not enough real change for them. The election was not that big of a numbers victory, so I am wondering what a powerful public option (Medicare for all) in the bill might have done to really energize the progressives in Mass. For me, this perspective does provide a different view as to how and what the public might really be upset over!
Hey its possible even if many voters don’t even know consciously that that is what is really bothering them.
Maggie, there is a big problem with the notion that things are so complicated that most “regular” folks can’t really understand any of it and that it takes half an hour to make a point.
My old professor used to say that if you cannot explain something in a sentence or two then you don’t really have a good understanding of the issue.
I don’t think PR is, or should be, “beneath” us. There is nothing wrong with framing the issues as long as you are honest and truthful in your framing. There is nothing wrong with slogans either. “Change we believe in” is a slogan. “ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country” is a great sound bite. “”It’s the economy, stupid” was a the must succinct “framing” ever.
A Public leader in a democratic country must have good and effective Relations with the public at large (not just experts) in order to lead and effect change. That is what I mean by Public Relations (PR).
Margait–
First of all, I’m not suggesting that “regular folks” cannot understand the legislation–just that most don’t have the time or the interest to read it, and if they did, they would find it pretty dense. There are so many details that apply to so many differen tpeople in so many different ways.
You just can’t pull out one-liners or bold statements.. For instance you can’t say “Everyone who needs a subsidy to help buy insurance will get one.” You can say people earning less than four times the poverty level will be elgible for a subsidy, on a sliding scale, taking the size of their family into account.”
If you want people to understand that, you then have to offer a couple of examples: “For instance, a single person earning X, would have to pay premiums of Y. By contrast a single person earning A would receive no subsidy and would have to pay B if he was buying insurance in the Exchanges.
OF course if he has employer-based insurance, he would pay much less than that since his employer would be paying much of hte premium. If you have employer-based insurance, the reform bill will not change how much you pay.
What did I mean when I said that the size of your family would affect whether or not you receive a premium? A family of 2 earning X would not qualify for a subsidy; but a family of 4 earning X would. They would have to pay only A for family coverage, while the family of 2 would pay B.
I don’t know who your old professor is, but as a former academic I have to say that very, very few professors who would agree with him.
Good jouralism professors make it very clear that you’re not aiming for sound-bites and that if you’re going to tell the truth, the statements you make in the “nut graph” have to be unfolded, refined and qualified.
Your professor reminds me of a new editor who came to Barron’s and explained that, from now on, our stories were going to be shorter, declaring “I’ve never read a story worth more than 10,000 words.”
And I thought “What a shame, Fred has never read a book!”
(Fred–not his real name.)
Health Care is a very complicated problem.
As Mencken says: “For every complicated problem, someone has a simple solution. And it is always wrong.”
You’re right “change we can believe in” is a slogan–and utterly devoid of meaning.
What kind of change? Who can believe in? Why?
The words means nothing. It’s a perfect example of ad slogans which encourage you Not to think.
“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. . .” on the other hand is a line from a poem. It asks you to reflect, to turn it over, examine it to unpack it, to discuss it–which could take half an hour.
Kennedy was purposefully echoing John Donne (17th century poet) “”Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.” Back then, most of his listener would have heard “Ask not for whom the bell tolls” — Hemmingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” was still very famous.
JFK didn’t talk in sound bites. He used classical rhetoric. Read some of his speeches. Read FDR’s speeches, Churchill’s, Ted Kennedy’s speech at that famous Democratic convention.
No slogans. No PR Classical rhetoric, poetry. Ted Kennedy quoted Tennyson.
It’s only in the last 30 years that conservatives brought us the idea of “framing” political ideas –assuming that Americans have thte attention span of an 8 year old (and the mental compentence of Ronald Reagan.)
Do you really not hear the difference between “Change You Can Believe in” and “Ask not what you can do for your country . . . ?
NG–
I’m just suggesting that most people aren’t as interested in health care and health care reform as you and I are.
I just went back to look at that Kaiser tracking poll of a broad sample of Americans–47% had never heard of the public option.
So even if it was in the legislation, it wouldn’t have changed their vote.
Real unemployment is now at 17%. 30% of the country is living in poverty–living on less than $23,000 for a FAMILY OF FOUR.
In hard times like these, this is what people think about. Health care reform legislation that will roll out in four years can seem pretty abstract . . .
Also, I think Obama supporters didn’t turn out because some are disappointed that he isn’t who they thought he was.
He’s not as liberal as they expected. He’s not a fighter. He likes to try to build a consensus and didn’t seem to realize that hte Congress and the country are too polarized for that to work.
Finally, of course, as everyone says, Brown has a certain charm that appeals to many people while the Democrat was a terrible candidate.
So many factors, hard to sort them out, but it seems unlikely that what is or isn’t in the Senate bill was the driving factor.
Ahem….
You can look at all the polls and come up with whatever rhetoric and framework you want. The result is still that the people of Massachusetts elected a republican who amongst other issues opposed the PRESENT reform bill. Remeber this was Ted Kennedy’s seat. For this to switch to a republican with healthcare reform on the line sends a huge signal.
The present reform bill stinks. It stinks for conservatives who want freer markets. It stinks for the left who want more government and a public option. Overall it stinks and it is a big reason Brown won.
I am ecstatic that Brown won. We need reform but not this type,and not a heavy handed govt type.
You can’t write and complain about how the govt messed up when the republicans were in charge, which they did, and then say it will be all better if the democrats are in charge. That is pure fantasy!!
It really does not matter who is in charge, if it is still the govt with all the power.
Give the power of the healthcare dollar back to the people and you will see true reform, you will see costs decrease, you will see an increase in charitable giving, you will see govt programs for those in need increase, yet cost less.
That is the American dream. Americans came from all over the world for freedom from govt tyranny. Giving the govt too much power in our lives, especially healthcare is not what America is all about.
Maggie, I apologize for my insistence, but I believe this is a communication problem that is intermittently plaguing the liberal quarters and, in my opinion, it is one of the main reasons Democrats are now failing to get their message across and therefore failing to garner continued support for the original agenda.
We tend to get into these complex learned dissertations because we feel that all should be thoroughly and fully explained, at an expert level, every single time. This is probably where the notion of liberals being elitist originates from. I read a statement the other day that floored me: “…liberals don’t understand the proletariat…”
I think it would be in the best interest of the liberal point of view to simplify the rhetoric.
For example, your 4 paragraphs describing coverage changes can be stated as follows:
Everybody will be required to get insurance and subsidies will be available to help you buy insurance.
If the listener has more questions, then by all means, there is a deeper level available. Most listeners, as you correctly note, will not care to explore any further.
The same is true for everything else in this bill.
I can guarantee that most of JFK’s audience has never heard of Donne, and most of them never made a connection with either Hemingway or Ms. Bergman. I am also certain that the speech was not intentionally peppered with sound bites. It was just a good speech and a fantastic oration.
This generation does not read Tennyson, or Cicero, or Hume. This is the internet/facebook/web 2.0 “me” generation.
JFK’s words resonated with his generation. They will most likely provoke giggles today.
Unless you have a deep disdain for your audience, you must tailor your speech to your target. Not by lies and not by obfuscation, but in this case, by brevity. And if it so happens that some of the contents lend themselves to being extracted as sound bites, so much the better.
Lastly, my old professor was a Professor of Aerospace Engineering and genius by all accounts.
Scientific papers are usually long and very complex and full of mathematical formulas and graphs. Nevertheless, they all have an Abstract that is readable by any layman.
This bill needed an Abstract.
Speaking of brevity, I apologize for the rant…. 🙂
“You just can’t pull out one-liners or bold statements.. ”
So what has been done up till now must have worked so well?
Public Option = GOOD
Direct to Consumer Advertising = BAD
Margait-
You write: “This is the internet/facebook/web 2.0 ‘me’ generation.
JFK’s words resonated with his generation. They will most likely provoke giggles today.
Unless you have a deep disdain for your audience, you must tailor your speech to your target”
A couple of comments: First
the “Face-book/web/2.0 /me generation” represents a relatively small segment of the U.S. population.
I “must” tailor my speech to that audience? Why would I possible want to “target” my blog to that one group? Especially when you describe thatgroup as solopsistic (a “me” generation) and semi-literate (don’t want to read anything too long; and would “giggle” if they read or heard JFK’s
speech?
You make your generation sound like a gaggle of giggling 12-year-olds girls.
Let me add that I think you mis-represent that generation. As it happens I have two children who belong to the Facebook generation and they have many friends who I have enjoy talking to. Some read the blog.
So I know that many people in your generation are literate, are interested in ideas, read non-fiction books, the best new fiction, etc. They “twitter” and they read the New Yorker. Their mouths don’t move when they read.
Some read HealthBeat; others read other blogs that delve into ideas in depth.
This is a blog for people of all ages who are looking for in-depth pieces on health care.
I’m happy to say that there are many such people–of all ages–which is why the blog is often cross-posted elsewhere.
On “Ask not . . . for whom the bell tolls.” I was a child when Kennedy made that speech, but even I knew the title of Hemmingway’s book “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” as did many people who hadn’t read the book. Many also knew the academy-award winning box-office hit movie based on the book “For Whom the Bell Tolls” (Gary Cooper and INgrid Berman.)
I take it your’re not a film buff.
Finally, simply telling people “and subsidies will be available to help you buy insurance” is to tell them nothing.
At best, it conveys the impression that everyone will be getting subsidies (“you” = i.e. each and everyone of you) which is a lie. To make the sentence truthful you have to say “some of you.” And then pople want to know who will be getting subsidies and on what basis? How big will the subsidies be? Will they really make the insurance affordable?
Maggie, there is a misunderstanding here. The “you” in the tailoring your message to the audience was a generalized term for a generic politician. I was not referring to you or your excellent blog. I should have said “one” instead of “you”. My mistake.
As to generations, I am giggling now :-). I have kids too and they are the ones that belong to the facebook generation, not me. I have one that wants to change the world and is as well read as I could wish for and then some. I have one that couldn’t care less about anything that is not Chicago Bears and fantasy sports, and I have one that reads Virgil, but is completely absorbed by her little world (she’s young, so I am still hoping).
I don’t want to sound elitist because I’m not, but it is incumbent upon a politician, particularly the leader of a free country to speak so ALL his constituents can listen and understand. Since only a minority is highly educated in economics or public policy or healthcare, and only a minority of those is highly interested, or has the time or the attention span, the message must be crystal clear.
Crystal clear communication requires a crystal clear direction and the ability to express that in a succinct format.
That’s all I was trying to say.
I am still hoping against all odds that the President will come through for all of us tonight.
Doctor SH–
Perhaps you can see into the minds of Mass voters and know why they voted as they did.
But here’s what they said in exit polls:
They knew Brown opposed the legisaltion.
Half of his voters said this made them like him more; half of Brown’s voters said this made them like him less–but they voted for him despite disagreeing with him on health care reform.
Finally, poorer people vote for more government help in their lives; richer people are more likely to vote against the government becoming involved and providing safety nets.
If you were among the 30% of all Americans livving below about $24,000 for a family of four, I suspect you would feel differently.
(See my most recent post, reporting on the economy and what Barron’s Roundtable had to say.)
Barron’s panel is not a particularly liberal group but they agree that whatever the govt does or doesn’t do, we are headed toward very tough economic times and major redistribution of wealth and services.
They predict that wealthier Americans are going to see their taxes spiral. Most members of the roundtable are not happy about this, btw, they just see at as a economic necessity.
So whether or not you like it, we’re likely to see more govt’ safety nets in our future.
The longer they delay, the more expensive those safety nets will be.
Neither the society nor the economy can afford to have 30% of Americans living in poverty– and the problem will only get worse until the govt’ does something.
Doctor SH–
Perhaps you can see into the minds of Mass voters and know why they voted as they did.
But here’s what they said in exit polls:
They knew Brown opposed the legisaltion.
Half of his voters said this made them like him more; half of Brown’s voters said this made them like him less–but they voted for him despite disagreeing with him on health care reform.
Finally, poorer people vote for more government help in their lives; richer people are more likely to vote against the government becoming involved and providing safety nets.
If you were among the 30% of all Americans livving below about $24,000 for a family of four, I suspect you would feel differently.
(See my most recent post, reporting on the economy and what Barron’s Roundtable had to say.)
Barron’s panel is not a particularly liberal group but they agree that whatever the govt does or doesn’t do, we are headed toward very tough economic times and major redistribution of wealth and services.
They predict that wealthier Americans are going to see their taxes spiral. Most members of the roundtable are not happy about this, btw, they just see at as a economic necessity.
So whether or not you like it, we’re likely to see more govt’ safety nets in our future.
The longer they delay, the more expensive those safety nets will be.
Neither the society nor the economy can afford to have 30% of Americans living in poverty– and the problem will only get worse until the govt’ does something.
Margait–
I’m very sorry. I’m glad to hear that you’re a grown-up.
(I like my youngest readers too–but I admit that the idea that a 20-something was telling me that I should target my blog to the least literate of his generation set me off.)
A great many people in this country really can follow a long and somewhat complicated argument and I think politicians should address many of their remarks to them or else No One among the electorate will understand what is going on.
People who could understand the legislation won’t understand because everyone assumes they have to talk in sound bites.
People who don’t have the time, interest or in some cases, attention span and abilty to follow the legislation also won’t understand it.
I think that when politicians address their remarks to those who can only follow sound-bites they do us all a disservice by underestimating what 60% or more of the poulation can understand.
Are Americans so much dumber than they were when FDR was talking to them, when Lincoln was speaking to them (and quoted in newspapers) or when Ted Kennedy gave his fabulous convention speech–quoting Tennyson?
Perhaps younger Americans are. Many are “lazy thinkers.” Our education system has failed them–both k-12, and colleges by pandering to students– much as the overly-protective and overly-indulgent parents of so many of today’s kids pander.
They think their kids should have be having a “good time” in grade school, that it shouldn’t be “so hard,” that their self-esteem may be undermined if they are told that they failed the math or spelling test and have to take it over.
Here I’m not talking about homework. Young kids in suburban schools are given a huge amount of pointless homework–mainly designed to impress parents. (Parents do much of that homework, and then feel that they are “involved” and that the shcool is a “good school.”)
Our colleges have relaxed requirements to a point that students can, if they choose, graduate from a brand name 4-year college with very little education.
Bottom line: the “dumbing down” of America has been going on for at least 30 years, maybe longer.
The whole idea that people have a very short attention span has been hyped and marketed– but we have little evidence of biological changes in the brain. People will have the attention span that you demand of them.
Notice how many people have learned how to use PCs that are far from user-friendly. The computer demands more of them than our politicans do. MOre than many of their parents and teachers do.
Our leaders should expect more of us–far more.
And when Americans are offered more intelligent fare (drama on HBO; political reporting on Rachel Maddow or Colbert; some of the superb, thoughtful, and long films that have been done in the past 20 years ) they find a large audience.
Clarity is great, but is only one of the 4 major goals of excellent writing. Eloquence, depth, evidnece and color are equally important.
Simplification of important ideas is always going to be misleahing, and I think, patronizing.
Having said that, if I had more time (or more help) I could revise my posts 4 or 5 time rather than 2 or perhaps 3 times, and tighten many sentences, avoid some repetition, etc.
But they still would be long–just not as long.
Thanks much for bearing with me and writing back.
Margait–
I’m very sorry. I’m glad to hear that you’re a grown-up.
(I like my youngest readers too–but I admit that the idea that a 20-something was telling me that I should target my blog to the least literate of his generation set me off.)
A great many people in this country really can follow a long and somewhat complicated argument and I think politicians should address many of their remarks to them or else No One among the electorate will understand what is going on.
People who could understand the legislation won’t understand because everyone assumes they have to talk in sound bites.
People who don’t have the time, interest or in some cases, attention span and abilty to follow the legislation also won’t understand it.
I think that when politicians address their remarks to those who can only follow sound-bites they do us all a disservice by underestimating what 60% or more of the poulation can understand.
Are Americans so much dumber than they were when FDR was talking to them, when Lincoln was speaking to them (and quoted in newspapers) or when Ted Kennedy gave his fabulous convention speech–quoting Tennyson?
Perhaps younger Americans are. Many are “lazy thinkers.” Our education system has failed them–both k-12, and colleges by pandering to students– much as the overly-protective and overly-indulgent parents of so many of today’s kids pander.
They think their kids should have be having a “good time” in grade school, that it shouldn’t be “so hard,” that their self-esteem may be undermined if they are told that they failed the math or spelling test and have to take it over.
Here I’m not talking about homework. Young kids in suburban schools are given a huge amount of pointless homework–mainly designed to impress parents. (Parents do much of that homework, and then feel that they are “involved” and that the shcool is a “good school.”)
Our colleges have relaxed requirements to a point that students can, if they choose, graduate from a brand name 4-year college with very little education.
Bottom line: the “dumbing down” of America has been going on for at least 30 years, maybe longer.
The whole idea that people have a very short attention span has been hyped and marketed– but we have little evidence of biological changes in the brain. People will have the attention span that you demand of them.
Notice how many people have learned how to use PCs that are far from user-friendly. The computer demands more of them than our politicans do. MOre than many of their parents and teachers do.
Our leaders should expect more of us–far more.
And when Americans are offered more intelligent fare (drama on HBO; political reporting on Rachel Maddow or Colbert; some of the superb, thoughtful, and long films that have been done in the past 20 years ) they find a large audience.
Clarity is great, but is only one of the 4 major goals of excellent writing. Eloquence, depth, evidnece and color are equally important.
Simplification of important ideas is always going to be misleahing, and I think, patronizing.
Having said that, if I had more time (or more help) I could revise my posts 4 or 5 time rather than 2 or perhaps 3 times, and tighten many sentences, avoid some repetition, etc.
But they still would be long–just not as long.
Thanks much for bearing with me and writing back.
You can blame the systematic dumbing down of our society on our news programs (one news station comes to mind with the most egregious programing) and America’s growing lack of understanding of what is actually going on in the world. News anchors create rumors, express their small-minded opinions and then announce to their viewers that “people are saying” something, leaving out the small fact that someone on the news program made it up. And low and behold, their audience is indeed repeating the rumors as if it were fact. A lot of people really have no idea what is going on. Too many don’t even know the basics of politics, good nutrituion or even simple geography. There is a lack of creative problem-solving skills. We are a country of whiners because people have become lazy.
Maggie:
If only 50% of Massachusetts voters were for the healthcare reform bill, it does not make a majority, especially with the rest of the country more conservative than Massachusetts.
Safety nets are not a problem. But safety nets that double and triple down on using other peoples money, and shirking individual responsibility is not a way to help the poor get out of poverty.
But that is a philosophical discussion for a different day.
I’ll end the discussion by saying that Government help is good, as long as the government does not enable individuals to continually ask others for help, when those that are able should fend for themselves.
I’ll gladly pay more taxes to help those who can not help themselves. But there are too many people who “game the system” and choose not to help themselves and instead rely on the government. If you can find a way to separate those two groups, I’ll gladly help the “can’t” group, but leave the other group to fend for themselves.
DoctorSH
very very nice post. it shows your command on the topic.
you did a justice with the subjects.
Bulging Disc
Kaiser Family Foundation January tracking poll, and what it reveals about what voters do and don’t understand about health reform legislation. If most voters have only a hazy idea of what is in the legislation, you really can’t say that they voted against the Senate bill.