Lest any GD readers are labouring under the misapprehension that Frank Luntz is actually a serious pollster (unlikely, I know), feast your eyes on this excerpt from a 2 page orgy of huff-and-puff in the last issue of GQ:
The public have now decided, wisely, that a bigger, more powerful government won’t solve the problems that government itself created. In fact, roughly 70 per cent of Americans agree with the following statement:
“Washington doesn’t have to get rid of everything that’s right with America to fix what is wrong with our country. Even though our economy faltered, we must not replace the economic freedoms that made this country great with new regulations, new bureaucracies and a government takeover of individual opportunity.”
Awesome in its scientific rigour, isn’t it? Put like that, the real surprise is that Frank managed to find 30% of Americans to disagree. Oh, and if you were wondering who the pollwas conducted for – yeah, Fox News.
Frank ends his diatribe with a call on politicians to commit to “find at least one per cent of waste to cut in current government spending”. Perhaps we could start with that portion of the TV license fee that pays for Frank’s appearances on Newsnight.
