Small is Beautiful

I was wondering how the right would respond to repeated debunkings of the Canada-health-nightmare ads now running on television. After reading Phantoms in the Snow, what can you say?

Well, Canada does have ten times less population than the US. . . .

Do You Want Rats in YOUR Baby’s Crib? The RNC Poses Some Questions

Accompanied by images of a sprawling mass of big black rats, and then a close-up (separate) of a baby asleep in its crib, that’s what the ad for the local TV news said: “Do You Want Rats in YOUR Baby’s Crib? News at 11.”

It was maybe ten years ago, but I remember then just sitting before the TV astonished. I had babies, but I had never been asked that question before. I hadn’t even realized that that particular group of words could amount to a question. After much consideration of what seemed to be a rather limited set of options, I decided to go with “No,” but watched the news anyways just in case I had missed something.

I had not.

It was with similar feeling recently that I pored over the latest health care reform survey from the Republican National Committee. The survey was sent to the RNC faithful and is destined, I’m sure, to be spun into the latest “facts and figures” about the “pulse of the nation.” The introduction to the survey promised the putative survey taker that through the magic of Republican survey math:

Your answers represent the views of thousands of other Republicans living in your area. And your active membership in the new RNC will help us fight the Obama Democrats and recruit and train new Republican candidates nationwide. (emphasis added).

The survey itself is well worth taking the moment or two to read through, if only to get a better idea of how the spin works.  But there are a few questions that simply need to be highlighted.  As follows:

3. Do you believe that your health care decisions should be made by you and your doctor, and not government bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.?

Yes

No

Undecided

7. Rationing of health care in countries with socialized medicine has led to patients dying because they were forced to wait too long to receive treatment. How concerned are you that this would be inevitable in the U.S. under the Democrats’ plan?

Extremely Concerned

Mildly Concerned

Not Concerned

Don’t Care

11. Does it concern you that the Democrats are trying to ram health care legislation through Congress THIS MONTH to limit the American people’s opportunity to evaluate it?

Extremely Concerned

Mildly Concerned

Not Concerned

Don’t Care

12. Does it concern you that the liberal media has gone to unprecedented levels to only give Obama’s views on health care reform and no one else’s?

Extremely Concerned

Mildly Concerned

Not Concerned

Don’t Care

Though I’m told the study is one of subtle difference, I make no claims of expertise regarding the art or science of survey and polling. But in the Law there is an old adage about courtroom practice that one is taught very early on: “Never ask a question that you do not know the answer to.” It is a cardinal rule. No one could accuse the RNC of having broken it.

As we laugh at the crude and unabashed manipulations in the survey above, it may however behoove us to consider this: as the RNC mounts its attack on the Health Reform bills emerging from the House & Senate, Chairman Michael Steele accuses President Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and key congressional committee chairmen of being part of a “cabal,” and then further states that “Republicans will stop at nothing,” perhaps we should believe him.

And when question #7 gets spun into an ad that starts:

“A Majority of Americans polled are ‘extremely concerned’ that the Democrats’ health care plan will ‘inevitably’ kill them. Shouldn’t you be too?”

Some people will listen. Just like I listened to the rats in the baby’s crib story (rat only seen somewhere in apartment building, woman in building had baby). But not everyone who listens will laugh.

Baucus: Not So Fast with that Swift Boat, Attack Ads = Lose Your Seat at the Table. Some Hold Fire.

Yesterday, we ran a post (Health Care Reform in 60 seconds or Less, or “Was That a Swift Boat I Just Saw Carrying Away Meaningful Reform?”) in preparation for what we perceived to be the onset of a deluge in Health Care Reform advertising as we approach the 4^th of July recess. And although Roll Call reports that for the recess

A long list of industry and interest groups have taken out advertising spots, are activating grass-roots networks and are planning Member meetings outside the Beltway.

Roll Call also reports that

Several major industry stakeholders, however, will be noticeably absent from the advertising airwaves over the July Fourth recess….AARP, the American Medical Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans, the Federation of American Hospitals and AdvaMed all say they are sitting out this recess when it comes to advertising campaigns.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America will be running positive ads touting health care reform.

The groups have been holding their fire in response to threats from the staff of Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and White House aides, who have warned that any groups that run ads attacking reform efforts before the bills have been crafted would lose their seats at the bargaining table.

Presumably, the Republican Senators on the Finance Committee are exempt from the decree, and will not lose their seats at the table despite a recent offering from the Republican National Committee which, as we posted yesterday, seeks to explain the complexity of health care finance through the following: “President Obama talks about a quote, ‘public option.’ When he says public option, that means putting government bureaucrats in charge instead of patients and their doctors. It’s a bad idea.”

But maybe, in a real sense, the Republicans lost the table a little more than 6 months ago–which is why the tag line in this ad is: “Republicans want bipartisan health care reform.” I’m sure they do.

Health Care Reform in 60 Seconds or Less, or “Was That a Swift Boat I Just Saw Carrying Away Meaningful Reform?”

USA Today has run an interesting article about recent advertising efforts regarding Health Care Reform. USA Today reports that

Business groups opposed to health care bills floated by House and Senate Democrats launched print ads this week. The Republican National Committee ran its own TV ad as well.

Until now, ads for and against President Obama’s proposed health care overhaul have been run by lesser-known groups. Interested groups are stepping up their efforts during Congress’ July Fourth recess.

“It’s probably the starting gun,” says Evan Tracey of Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political advertising.

And so it begins. 30 to 60 second assaults on reason designed:  to grab the reins of the angels of our better (or worse) nature (see RNC ad which states:  “President Obama talks about a quote, ‘public option.’ When he says public option, that means putting government bureaucrats in charge instead of patients and their doctors. It’s a bad idea.”); to remind Congressman where their bread is buttered (last week “the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ran a full-page ad in Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper,” and “the National Federation of Independent Business ran an ad in The Hill” –see list of health industry contributions to Health Committee Congressman here, page 16); and, last but not least, to protect the interests of those who have paid for the ads.

In short spots, the key is to evoke emotion (fear and anger work well) under the flag of the “informative” (in the RNC ad listen to the gentle voice and piano meant to convey dispassionate, grandfatherly “reasonableness” while stating the conclusory). The trick, of course, is to make the viewer believe that his or her interests and that of the producer of the ad are coextensive– all in 30 to 60 seconds.

Even a cursory glance through the pages of this blog will show a multifarious complexity sometimes difficult to grasp even with hours if not years of study. Very smart people can, and often do, disagree. There is minutiae to contend with and, as always, the devil is in the details.

In an NPR All Things Considered piece about lobbyists we covered in a post the other day, one of the lobbyists, “Sharon Cohen, head of the health-care practice at the Podesta Group, one of Washington’s biggest lobby firms,” made a point well worth noting regarding the legislative process and the importance of details in the form of amendments. NPR spoke with her after she had attended the initial health care overhaul panel of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions:

Cohen later told us that, as she sat in that first health care session, she was listening to the senators position themselves in their opening statements, but “it’s really about the amendments, in terms of how they’re being discussed and the ultimate votes on those amendments.” The committee didn’t get to any amendments that day. The 22 opening statements consumed morning and afternoon sessions.

In the first quarter of this year, the expenditure for health care lobbying reached $1.4 million per day.

Ultimately, the devil is in the details. The Big Print giveth and the small print taketh away. The obscure clauses in the depths of the amendments are as likely as not to make big differences in the reality of reform. The ads we will be seeing most assuredly will not provide details–they will be Big Print–”opening statements”–more likely to obfuscate than educate. They will help provide clatter and cover for the lobbyists to do what they need to do, and help provide justifications for Congressman to vote against their political opponents and in favor of their benefactors (see list of health industry contributions to Health Committee Congressman here, page 16).

The ads may be dumb, but that doesn’t mean they can be ignored. To quote the snake oil ad above: “It is under such conditions that the seeds of disease are sown which bear bitter fruit in the present and future generations. “The danger here is that we will ultimately wind up with “Health Reform” in name only– and it will be another 10 or 20 years until anyone seriously talks about overhaul again. Whether through advertisement or amendment or a combination of both, to be “swift boated” is to lose.