Democratic Messaging Follies

About a month ago, the Democratic National Committee mailed me a survey. It's called the 2007 Democratic Strategy Survey (see pictures below), and it appears to be an attempt to learn what rank and file donors want from the party. But sometimes these voter surveys come across as a little clunky or ideological. One wonders if the purpose is to reinforce the Democratic message in the minds of the donors. To paraphrase Lisa Simpson, what's the deal with these surveys?


The first thing I notice about this survey is the instruction section. It says that my answers will be kept confidential, which is something any IRB will like because it protects privacy. However, an IRB would like it more if you also keep people's answers separate from any identifying information beyond a case ID. The instructions are therefore the first indication that this survey might be about finding out what is important to the donors who give the most.

But right near the top of the survey are a couple questions about withdrawing troops from Iraq. Maybe it is about planting the Democratic message.

Skipping down to question #5, the survey asks us donors whether we "support raising the minimum wage from its current level of $5.15 per hour". The response choices are essentially yes and no, but the survey provides a whole bunch of superfluous rationale, too. Instead of just being "yes", the affirmative option reads "Yes, the minimum wage should be increased to help workers make ends meet." The negative option reads "No, raising the minimum wage will hurt small businesses and cost jobs."

Does it seem like question #5 is designed to measure opinion, or is it intended to implant talking points? It doesn't do either well, so it's hard to tell.

Assuming for the moment that the point is to measure opinion, then adding the detailed rationale is not a good idea. It confuses the data. What if I oppose raising the minimum wage, but not because it will hurt small businesses and cost jobs? Or what if I support the minimum wage increase, but only because I think it will reduce government expenditure on food stamps? What answer do I choose? The DNC would end up with a pretty skewed version of what respondents think no matter what someone who doesn't fit the question chooses to do.

Since gathering information doesn't appear to be the real purpose, let's assumed the survey is designed to expose me to the Democratic platform. To do so, it should expose me to a false choice. That is, both options should be in line with the Democratic agenda. By choosing between degrees of liberal, instead of between liberal and conservative, the reader is anchored to a leftward conception of what the available options even are.

But that's not what the survey does. The "yes" option, is appropriately in line with the Democratic agenda, based on its emotional appeal to nurturing the less fortunate. But the "no" option reflects the traditional Republican rationale that distributing money more fairly throughout a community will hurt jobs.

As a side note, the supposed harm of minimum wage hikes has been pretty much objectively disproven, as even many small business owners will tell you.

If Democrats were trying to convince me about their talking points, they wouldn't actually give me the choice between their version and the opposing version. The "yes" option as written would be fine, but the negative option should be something like this: "No, there are more pressing and efficient ways to promote economic justice." If I disagree with the minimum wage raise, there's no reason to remind me why I feel that way.

The rest of the survey proceeds pretty much along the same lines. Question #9, for example, asks whether I support tax cuts for working families. It happens that I don't, but not just because of their suggested rationale: "additional tax cuts at this time will only worsen the federal deficit."

The reason I don't support more tax cuts is that I support a civic culture where everyone contributes their fair share to the common good (government). Constantly talking about tax cuts makes people feel like they're entitled to always pay less and less. Remember that under a classically liberal form of government such as ours, the government is the people. Constantly putting the government on sale encourages the conception that you need to go bargain hunting like you would at Wal*Mart.

In the end, I can't tell what the DNC is really trying to get out of this survey. The DNC survey distribution list comes from previous donations, the DCCC's list, and so forth. They know the people they send the survey to are not Republicans. If they were really trying to gather information, they wouldn't bother trying to find out whether I like Republican talking points. (They should know damn well that I don't. ) They would also provide a more methodologically sound opinion instrument. Likewise, if they want to keep Democratic messages in my head, they shouldn't be exposing me to reasonable-sounding iterations of Republican rationale.

The DNC should be able to use surveys like this both to read Democratic opinion and solidify messaging. We're not talking about some mom 'n' pop charity that gets the receptionist to design the survey because they operate on such a small scale. In improving this survey, you wouldn't want to make the questions too stilted or too dry. People won't fill it out if they think the survey is pure manipulation, but draining too much slant from the questions will eliminate the messaging benefit. By way of closing this entry, let me suggest a few relevant changes to #14.

• Old question: "What is your opinion about our environmental laws in America?"
• New question: "What is your opinion about laws protecting America's environment?"
• Old choice 1: "We need stronger environmental laws to protect our air and water, clean up toxic waste, safeguard wildlife and habitat, and combat global warming."
• New choice 1: "Current environmental laws do not go far enough protecting our world, our neighborhoods, and our families from polluters."
• Old choice 2: "Our environmental policies are about right; no new laws are needed." (This choice can stay as is.)
• Old choice 3: "Our environmental laws burden businesses and hurt our economy."
• New choice 3: "We have too many laws protecting our environment."