ProLog

Frank Luntz, has been getting a lot of press lately, particularly on Fox, over his recently published book “What American’s Really Want…Really” (amazon.com).  Luntz is a conservative political pollster with a talent for identifying words and phrases that steer public opinion, usually over actual facts.  In the book, he conducts a fairly in-depth series of surveys, asking Americans how the relate to the following statements:

• “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.”: 72%
• “My kids will have a worse quality of life than I have.”: 57%
• “Live free or die.”: 88%
• “The 10 commandments are a good guide to live by.”: 89%
• “I want it all, and I want it now.”: 35%

If you’re one of the few that look at polling data as a tool (really), you must be scratching your head at these numbers.  While conservatives have taking these data to underscore the momentum of townhall gatherings, liberals could make exactly the same claims to bolster the current administrations plans.  If polling data is to be useful, it must look past rhetoric and phraseology and into the public’s will.