If Frank Luntz was a bit more modest, maybe he'd be completely perfect. Luntz, "the world's top pollster" according to this week's Spectator cover story, has been active in promoting himself and his new book, Words that Win, supposedly the lessons for success from his experience in crafting messages for the Republicans, in the British media. He's also been appearing quite regularly on British TV, most famously being the first to highlight the potential appeal of David Cameron in a televised focus group for Newsnight and then repeating the exercise a year after Cameron's election as leader.
Nick Cohen was sceptical in an article in the Observer in December on the boy wonder - I'm not so sure whether this species of market research, used to such effect by (Lord) Philip Gould in the 1997 campaign is accurately portrayed in Luntz's work on British and Irish TV.
Cameron came from nowhere because Newsnight commissioned a focus group run by American pollster Frank Luntz that appeared to prove that the young politician could become extraordinarily popular and the Conservatives believed him. The desperation of the Tories in 2005 produced an election without precedent. The findings of a focus group drove a hitherto obscure politician to the leadership of a major political party. Not a focus group hired by party managers anxious to uphold the best interests of their cause, but by a broadcaster as interested in entertainment as reputable market research.
...But New York journalist Dante Chinni noted in 2000 that normal judgments of broadcasters never applied in Luntz’s case. He was part of ‘a new class of media personality, the celebrity pollster… [who] gets the heavy-hitter treatment, frequently getting called in by the networks to offer colour commentary on politics even when he has no poll to cite’. Producers feted Luntz because he gave television what it wanted: strong opinions expressed with absolute certainty in a populist style. Here, awestruck hacks have lapped up Luntz’s pronouncements on who should lead Labour and the Lib Dems ever since his Cameron gig.
But British pollsters tell me that Luntz’s work for Newsnight shouldn’t have been allowed to influence a parish council election, never mind the future of a great party. If you can’t follow their case against him, their overall explanation is easy to grasp: a well-run focus group could never fill 15 minutes of airtime. It would be too boring. To begin with, standard focus groups have six to eight members, but a handful of people isn’t an impressive sight on television, so Newsnight had Luntz meet 28 voters.
Focus groups are also meant to be focused. Market researchers want volunteers from a similar background so the guinea pigs will lose their inhibitions about speaking freely in front of strangers. But Newsnight mixed up people who had always voted Tory with people who had once voted Tory and people who had never voted Tory. The danger of a large and diverse group is that the loudest voices will dominate and a herd mentality will take over. Watch the footage that made Cameron leader and you will see that’s what happens as the dynamics of crowd psychology convert everyone in the room to his charms.
The standard way to stop easily impressed interviewees going along with the crowd is to have secret ballots. Luntz and Newsnight didn’t use them because a show of hands looks better on TV. After they hear Cameron saying he wants to appeal to people’s hopes rather than their fears, the reaction of the voters on dinky hand-held dials that measure their instant responses was overwhelmingly positive. But they would have been as pleased if you, I or our next-door neighbours had said the same, which is why serious researchers are wary of instant reactions. I could go on, but the big point is that Newsnight produced infotainment, not research.
My concern remains that Cameron's tacking to the left means that he is taking positions he himself doesn't believe in the slightest - which shows he's a character even more amoral than Bill Clinton - or he really believes this stuff, in which case we now have two Labour parties, the real one and the Tories. Neither gives me much grounds for hope.
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