The Exotic Art of RNC Poll Dancing

"What caricature is in painting, burlesque is in writing; and in the same manner the comic writer and painter correlate to each other; as in the former, the painter seems to have the advantage, so it is in the latter infinitely on the side of the writer. For the monstrous is much easier to paint than describe, and the ridiculous to describe than paint. "
- Henry Fielding

Satire is the right hand of burlesque.
- Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire

( Burlesque is)The keenest of political weapons.
- William Cullen Bryant

Strippers gyrate on brass poles to exploit lust for money.

The RNC position on the Steele Poll is just as provocative (some would say dirty), equally unsubtle, except it exploits fear for money, instead of sex. So many of their targeted audience seems to reward attempts to frighten them by turning over their hard earned cash, that it suggests they must enjoy it, seeking out being told scary, albeit improbable stories.

Not as good perhaps as Stephen King stories or Hitchcock movies, but spinning off as many sequels as the multi-part Halloween saga, or the endless Nightmare on Elm Street series. Bloody slasher horror fiction has finally come to the sphere of contemporary Republican fundraising. Or you could read the questions as comedy, like the vaudeville question, "Have you stopped beating your wife?", or maybe the old "Who's on first?" routines.

One such story was the mass mailing sent out recently that asked the following 'in artfully worded' questions.

Wouldn't you think that when someone expends the time, energy and $$$ to send out a mass mailing, they would take a little more time, expend a little more energy to word the poll 'artfully' before they spend the money to make all those copies of it? Wouldn't you expect a little more care before they have them placed in envelopes that are then addressed - presumably with some further effort to guarantee they reach the 'right' people (in every sense of the word) - and pay for the postage?

You would think Michael Steele, if he is any good at his job as the chair of the RNC, would read what it is he signs, and read what he has mailed along with the letters carrying his signature. Of course he does that. As chair of the RNC, he does his job. He words darn hard to make sure the RNC is 'artful' in its fundraising; not honest, not factual, but artful. He is a master of the art of fear.

Here are the questions which were declared 'in artfully worded' by the RNC; declared in artfully worded ONLY AFTER they received attention by at least one of them going to an in artfully selected recipient.

Decide for yourself how artful or in artful they are:

1. Do you believe the state of America's health care is in crisis? YES NO UNDECIDED (12 word question, 3 word choice answer)

2. What is your biggest concern regarding health care in America as it is today?
COST QUALITY AVAILABILITY OTHER __________ (14 word question, 4 word choice answer)

3. Does it concern you that the liberal media has gone to unprecedented levels to only give Obama's views on health care and no one else's?
YES NO UNDECIDED (25 word question, 3 word choice answer)

4. It has been suggested the government could use voter registration to determine a person's political affiliation, prompting fears that GOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment in a Democrat-imposed health care rationing system. Does this possibility concern you?
YES NO UNDECIDED (41 word question, 3 word choice answer)

5. Do you believe it is justified to ration health care regardless of whether an individual has contributed to the cost of treatment?
YES NO UNDECIDED (22 word question, 3 word choice answer)

6. 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 (23 word question, 3 word choice answer)

7. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has that the Democrats' plan could cost upward of $1.6 trillion dollars. Do you believe that America can afford this added debt when the deficit has already reached record levels?
YES NO UNDECIDED (36 word question, 3 word choice answer)

8. If you have private health insurance, please rate your level of satisfaction with your coverage:
EXCELLENT GOOD SATISFACTORY UNSATISFACTORY N/A (15 word question, 5 word choice answer)

9. 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. Are you concerned that this would be inevitable in the U.S. under the Democrats' plan?
YES NO UNDECIDED (41 word question, 3 word choice answer)

10. Do you approve of the Republican plan to give small businesses tax breaks to cover the cost of their employees' health care insurance?
YES NO UNDECIDED (23 word question, 3 word choice answer)

11. Over 120 million Americans currently receive health care insurance through their employment. Should this private sector health coverage be preserved in any health care reform plan?
YES NO UNDECIDED (26 word question, 3 word choice answer)

12. Does it concern you that Democrats will try to ram health care legislation through Congress before the August recess to limit the public's opportunity to evaluate it?
YES NO UNDECIDED (27 word question, 3 word choice answer)

13. Do you believe it is right for the government to use age and life expectancy as criteria for determining access to health care?
YES NO UNDECIDED (23 word question, 3 word choice answer)

All of which is followed by paragraph after paragraph, page after page, soliciting money IMMEDIATELY following a good 'booga booga BOO!' scare effort. That is artful, carefully organized, appealing to emotion, building steadily to a deliberate big climax, the big finale.

Buried near the end was the denouement, a single two sentence paragraph requesting completion and mailing of the Steele poll. That doesn't suggest the poll answers are very important to anyone. It suggests that the only poll result the RNC is interested in is in the form of cash, check, money order, or credit card. You can count on it; count it word by word, paragraph by paragraph, page by page.

This was very carefully crafted poll, where each question was deliberately worded for effect of creating fear for the purpose of raising money, at the expense of fact. The order of the questions were as calculated as any ecdysiast's gyrations to get money out of the readers pockets and tucked into Michael Steele's G(OP) strings. For the RNC to claim this was accidental, that it was 'in artfully worded', is as reasonable as equating bump-and-grind with ballet.