One thing I had not considered until this morning was how your average right-wing mouth-breather reacted to the news that Frank Luntz has basically given up on being able to message the GOP over the finish line and win them back control of the White House. It must be dispiriting news, no?
Having spent his career telling politicians what the people wanted to hear, Luntz now believed the people had been corrupted and were beyond saving. Obama had ruined the electorate, set them at each other’s throats, and there was no way to turn back.
Why not? I ask. Isn’t finding the right words to persuade people what you do? “I’m not good enough,” Luntz says. “And I hate that. I have come to the extent of my capabilities. And this is not false modesty. I think I’m pretty good. But not good enough.” The old Frank Luntz was sure he could invent slogans to sell the righteous conservative path of personal responsibility and free markets to anyone. The new Frank Luntz fears that is no longer the case, and it’s driving him crazy.
I agree that Frank Luntz is “pretty good” at what he does, but what if he is right that he’s not good enough to win presidential elections for the Republicans anymore?
How much will it hurt the GOP in congressional elections if Frank Luntz isn’t working for them but is instead holed up in his mansion drinking Coke Zero and watching reruns of The Newsroom on his ten-foot plasma television?
What does it do for the morale of the right to learn that their Svengali is morose and despondent?
Probably just rationalize that he wasn’t truly conservative enough and move on.
Paraphrasing Star Wars, there is another. (Somewhere)
I can’t find it but I seem to remember that early on in the ’12 season Luntz went through a similar public soul searching. Now I’m wondering whether his portrayal of himself as humble is more a tactic to wipe his own slate clean of goo. Once his goo is behind him he can go back with clean hands and do what he’s always done.
Luntz wakes up each morning already calculating, and like the old parable of the turtle and the scorpion crossing the river, the scorpion can’t help himself.
Presicely nothing.
Frank Luntz’s job wasn’t get get people to vote for the GOP. It’s to get people to not vote for Democrats. And he’s realized that while the current crop of Republicans make his job impossible at the Presidential level, as far as state and Congressional races go, he doesn’t need a lick of help that we’re not already providing for him.
2010 proved that. 2014 will prove that in bunches.
Can’t say what it does for the morale of the right, but I can tell you that it makes this progressive Democrat very very happy.
“watching reruns of The Newsroom…”
And really, there must be some explanation why the right is always identifying with fictional characters. Every aspect of life must be a “movie of the week” to them? Are they so devoid of imagination they must rely on fabrications of reality for meaning in life? There must be a reason why Jersey Shore has an audience of avid conservative viewers, as if they can’t resist watching that train wreck. Let’s not even talk about Duck Dynasty, which is the penultimate fabricated reality. What is it, confirmation bias run amuck?
Stranger than fiction, I say.
Frank Luntz is being mainstreamed at CBS as a “political consultant”. He’s upping his sneaky game with the imprimatur of the big eye. It shows how far CBS has fallen since the days of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite.
I never believe poor-mouthing GOPers. Newt used to poormouth all the time.
Yep, the more I think about it, the more I think that this is just the latest in Luntz’ psyops. Even if his malaise is being sincerely expressed, I could care less, since he hasn’t rethought the GOP’s repellent policies themselves. That “you shouldn’t expect a safety net” rant places him as extreme as any Tea Partier. And in this interview, his views are (supposedly) stripped of his advocacy work- he claims to BELIEVE this shit.
So, I think it’s worth returning to Bill Hisks to explain the likely ploy here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo
“I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now: ‘Oh, you know what Bill’s doing? He’s going for that anti-marketing dollar. That’s a good market- he’s very smart.'”
People said similar stuff about Atwater and his deathbed confessions. Personally, I believed the guy. Death is a huge event in one’s life, the sort of thing that cause one to seriously reevaluate.
I don’t know if Luntz is sincere but I hope so (and I don’t rule it out). Just because someone was a deeply cynical hypocrite doesn’t mean that he can never change. And recognition of failure can catalyze a reevaluation.
But that’s what damning in this reporting by the Atlantic on Luntz. At the least, Atwater was somewhat contrite in his confessions, took some responsibility for the destructive things he had done, and even offered an apology:
“My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood…In 1988, fighting Dukakis, I said that I ‘would strip the bark off the little bastard’ and ‘make Willie Horton his running mate.’ I am sorry for both statements: the first for its naked cruelty, the second because it makes me sound racist, which I am not. Mostly I am sorry for the way I thought of other people. Like a good general, I had treated everyone who wasn’t with me as against me.”
Contrast that with Luntz’ despair, which is centered in his own accounting by his inability to prevent the 2012 electorate from making a decision that, in his absurd view, ruined the United States. Frank portrays himself as devastated by his inability to save Americans from their own entitled, slothful stupidity and immorality. The differences between these two personal crises are stark.
Re-read what Luntz actually said.
The piece of trash didn’t apologize.
He’s lamenting that he’s not smart enough to trick people into supporting the GOP.
My point exactly. I dislike him MORE now. The “bipartisan” illusion that Luntz liked to cultivate for himself is now gone. I always felt strongly that he had gulped from the Kool-Aid he’s been selling; good to know.