Posted on 03/05/2009 7:16:34 PM PST by tobyhill
For the second time in as many weeks, President Obama pulled together dozens of lawmakers, community leaders and business representatives to solve a pressing issue -- this time, health care reform.
But the president's focus-group brand of governing is starting to wear thin for some who say the sessions are more style than substance.
Obama held a similar summit last week to promote fiscal responsibility. Over the course of three hours, the 130 or so in attendance broke into five groups and then reconvened, and the president said all their suggestions would be boiled down into a final report in 30 days. Soon after, the White House went ahead and released a $3.6 trillion budget anyway.
Now that the White House is using the same approach for health care reform, some wonder what Obama expected to learn from the folks he met with Thursday that he didn't hear during two years of campaigning.
"For the most part, these kinds of things are dog-and-pony shows that are hard to associate with any concrete, substantive results," said Michael Franc, a health care expert with the conservative Heritage Foundation.
"With 99.6 percent certainty, they're going to walk out of this summit wanting to do the same thing."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
So we have elected someone who will stage dog and pony shows, then will just do what he wanted to do anyway.
He wants socialism and he’s working towards those goals.
what focus group.... you mean the voices he hears in his head late at night.....
our government is insane...... they have destroyed the country....
and we cant hold them responsable...they are above the law.
Just another way to take a poll.
At some time, the roar of the rioting crowd outside the White House is going to become audible, and the Pres_ent will look outside (or at least check the TV monitors), and ask himself, “How did it come to this?”
!!!!!!!!!!
Did I forget to mention: !!!!!!! ?
Where in God's green earth did people ever get the idea that 'the Anointed One' is more about style than substance? Could 'Hope and Change' and 'Yes We Can' not be all they were cracked up to be?!?!?!?!?
Man!!!!!! You could knock me over with a feather!!!!!!
And by the way: !!!!!!!
I have about 16 contact hours in consulting a political non-profit toward a strategic plan - this included several small group (5 people) meetings and several large group (30). The plan has a good framework but goals and objectives are still being hammered out. We will be working on this for a long time.
To assemble 130 people for three hours is a ceremonial endorsement of a pre-ordained solution. Obamacare is not the product of diverse opinions - it is more likely a facist prescription.
Oh, and use of the term “focus group” in this context is painful to me. 130 people are going to be unlikely to all listen, much less focus. A focus group is a small assembly put together to bounce ideas off, to get opinions of. The concept comes out of marketing. Frank Luntz - when he assembles 20 people to tell him what they think of a presidential debate - that is a focus group.
Lefties will say that 130 people is *better* than a ‘focus group’, it’s a ‘consensus’ - like with global warming, you know?
He's a liar and his policy is a lie. A consensus can exist in politics but not in science. And a consensus in economics is a hybrid - it can exist policy-wise - it cannot exist with respect to the economic science.
“Could ‘Hope and Change’ and ‘Yes We Can’ not be all they were cracked up to be?”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
I kinda preferred “Drill here now”.
;-)
Cindy McCain had more subtance AND style in her pinky than the current occupants of the WH will ever have.
See my tagline...
At the bottom of their dark, proud little egos, I suspect the politicians find sitting with college professors and the like, and waiting for 0 to call on them in turn like school kids, a tad humiliating.
I think I heard Rush say that neither Pelosi nor Reid were present at the economic summit. They must have had better things to do.
This may be where 0 jumped the shark.
Delphi/Alinsky Alert.
Well, THAT was time well-spent now wasn't it?
He needs focus groups because he’s devoid of principles and therefore has no confidence in his own judgement.
Can you imagine Reagan doing this?
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