Know Your Right Wingers
Frank Luntz
SOURCE: August Pollak
Even if you’ve never heard him give a speech, chances are you’ve heard the words of Frank Luntz. A conservative political consultant and pollster, Frank Luntz is to conservative message strategy what some would say Ohio State Coach Jim Trussel is to college football. Like him or not, he writes the best play-book in town. As ridiculous as it sounds when conservatives all spout exactly the same message, it is exactly what Frank Luntz wants you to hear. In other words, when “The Daily Show” producers patch together clips of conservatives’ puppet-like repetition for our comic benefit, the joke is on us and Luntz is the one laughing.
Luntz, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, is the founder of Luntz Research Companies, a polling firm that gives message and strategy advice to multi-billion dollar corporations, politicians, and major media outlets. Luntz was a pollster for such conservative triumphs as Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract with America and the 2003 recall election in California. He is often featured as a pundit on television news shows and their election night coverage. Luntz has even consulted for the writers of “The West Wing.”
West Wing Fans might see a few similarities between Luntz andBruno Gianelli, the hot-shot consultant that everyone loves to hate but who always has his polling right. Unlike the fictional Gianelli, however, Luntz’s work goes further behind the scenes than calling the shots on the campaign trail or handling the candidate.
The play-book that Luntz writes for conservatives is a linguistic guide that teaches conservatives what to say and how to say it. It covers most major political issues and uses polling data to find the angle that will resonate with the most voters. Like the policies in the Contract with America, Luntz’s advice in the play-book focuses not on the task of governing, but on winning votes. (All of the policies in the Contract polled at 60 percent favorability or higher.)
Far from the vagaries of most political advice, Luntz recommends what he calls “Words That Work,” the title of his new book. These are words, phrases, and even whole speeches that will appeal not only to conservatives, but to crucial moderate voters. By repeating these messages over time, conservatives aim to alter the common wisdom until their policies and positions just seem like common sense.
However, not everyone considers Luntz’s numbers quite so bulletproof. In 1997, the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) reprimanded Luntz for being secretive about his focus group methodology, leading some to question the accuracy of his findings.
Since polling data often conflicts with reality, so do the words that Luntz prescribes. For example, during the 2000 election, Luntz’s data on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge showed that most Americans believe that “ANWR can be developed and the environment protected." Based on this polling, Luntz challenged conservatives who use talking points, arguing that “energy exploration and the environment can co-exist. In fact, they can thrive. ”
For Luntz, good political messaging is not about finding long-term solutions to Americans’ problems; rather, it is about finding out what people are afraid of and selling them a conservative agenda based on rhetoric and emotional appeal. Take the issue of immigration, for example. Instead of talking about undocumented immigrants who come to America to do an honest day’s work and provide a better life for their families, Luntz recommends that conservatives discuss immigration in a way that exploits Americans’ fear of terrorism: “Right now, hundreds of illegal immigrants are crossing the border almost every day. Some of them are part of drug cartels. Some are career criminals. Some may even be terrorists.”
Even something as simple as the term “illegal” strategically frames immigrants as immoral or outside the system, leaving their contribution to our country and our way of life out of the conversation. Pushing Americans to equate border control with having control over their own lives allows conservatives to be “for” the supposed benefits of tight borders while ignoring America’s reliance on cheap, imported labor. Instead of talking about immigrants as the backbone of our economic system, Luntz casts undocumented labor as a “burden on the taxpayer” that “undermines the economy.”
Luntz consults primarily for conservative politicians and corporations, but remains a hired gun who just happens to be very good at reading polls and predicting the language that will appeal to voters. For Luntz, whether politicians follow his advice is just business, not personal. In fact, he has even distanced himself from the Bush administration’s policy of discrediting global warming science because it no longer matches up with his polling, which now shows that “most people would conclude that there is global warming taking place, and that the behavior of humans are affecting the climate.” It’s not that Luntz has had a change of heart on this inconvenient truth, just a change in data.
Luntz on…
The Environment: "Say you poll on an environmental issue, and on eight of the 10 questions the numbers are in your favor. Why release the other two? It’s like being a lawyer."
Hillary Clinton: “[M]en 50 and older hate [Hillary Clinton]. And the No. 1 reason why older men don’t like Hillary Clinton is that she reminds them all of their first wife.”
Image: “A caricature has taken hold in the public imagination: Republicans seemingly in the pockets of corporate fat cats who rub their hands together and chuckle manically as they plot to pollute corporate America for fun and profit.”
Truth: “A compelling story, even if factually inaccurate, can be more emotionally compelling than a dry recitation of the truth.”
Illustration: August J. Pollak
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