New York Times - February 23, 2003
To Bush, the Crowd Was a Blur By TODD S. PURDUM
WASHINGTON -- Most politicians around the world were impressed by the scale and intensity of last weekend's global protests against a probable war with Iraq.
Not President Bush.
"Size of protest -- it's like deciding, well, I'm going to decide policy based upon a focus group," Mr. Bush said.
Not quite.
A focus group is a handful of people, carefully culled to reflect diverse viewpoints, chosen to help politicians or companies figure out how to sell a policy or a product.
Led by a facilitator, they are poked and prodded in a private room, asked about their likes and dislikes and encouraged to speak while strategists eavesdrop behind a one-way mirror.
And while Mr. Bush may not like to acknowledge it, his administration does use focus groups, most recently to help determine how best to couch its public messages about domestic security.
The technique was developed to test the effects of Army training and propaganda films in World War II, and politicians and Hollywood studios have since perfected it into a minor art.
"I hate to see them maligned," Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster and focus-group maestro, said. "They're tools. They're no replacement for leadership. But they have their place. The interesting thing is that a public demonstration is actually not a representative sample, because the protesters share the same beliefs on the issue. In many ways, focus groups are more representative of public opinion."
Focus groups are used to measure the whys behind the public's view of a given issue, while polls typically reflect the whats and how-muches. A moderator can test how audiences respond to even the smallest changes in wording or emphasis.
What President Bush doubtless meant was that confronting Iraq is necessary, whether or not that makes him popular in Paris or Peoria. But he, too, is well aware of public opinion.
"They do as much polling as the Clinton administration," said Alan K. Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming. "I used to think they didn't, but they do."
Mr. Luntz said what he saw of the protests "shook me up."
"The fact that these were the biggest demonstrations in three decades does say something about underlying public opinion around the world," he said. "You can't ignore it. You don't have to accept it. You don't have to follow it. But you can't ignore it."