DON'T THINK OF A MASSIVE BOONDOGGLE:

Obama Allies Find Words Fail Them (JONATHAN WEISMAN, 8/25/09, WSJ)

In the rhetorical battle over health care, the forces backing President Barack Obama's overhaul have spent years polling and using focus groups to find the precise language that would win over voters -- an effort that doesn't at the moment appear to be working.

When Mr. Obama told grass-roots organizers last week that the mandatory purchase of health insurance would "be affordable, based on a sliding scale," the phrasing precisely mirrored language that had been poll-tested and put before batteries of focus groups by Democratic consultants over the past few years.

The words had been carefully chosen in an effort to take away the rhetorical targets of health-overhaul foes and replace them with terminology that would bring ordinary Americans on board. But under steady attack from opponents using more-emotional language, some of the president's allies are rethinking the linguistic strategy.

That's what you get when you take George Lakoff seriously and pretend that it isn't your politics that is unpopular, just your phraseology.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 25, 2009 7:49 AM