Justin's Political Corner
The official pollster of Fox News, Frank Luntz, is the man who renamed the estate tax the “death tax” and told Republicans to lie and call healthcare reform a “government takeover” of the medical system. It turns out he’s also the guy who tested anti-Obama films, including one that features nude photos of President Obama’s mother and depicts her as a prostitute, for a shadowy GOP donor. Now DVDs of the scurrilous film, “Dreams from My Real Father,” are finding their way into mailboxes in swing states.
Luntz won’t say who commissioned his anti-Obama focus group, and he reportedly counseled his client to go with a milder anti-Obama film by conservative Stephen K. Bannon. That’s showing up on cable television stations in swing states soon. Another film screened was Dinesh D’Souza’s fantasy “Obama: 2016,” which Luntz said didn’t test well with voters.
But the lurid anti-Obama film is showing up mailboxes in Ohio and Florida. It purports that Obama’s real father is the leftist Frank Marshall Davis, and it claims to have found photos of Ann Dunham in bondage magazines. It’s the creation of Joel Gilbert, reports Jeremy Peters in the New York Times, a conservative who has claimed he found Elvis Presley alive in a witness protection program and that Paul McCartney is actually dead. Gilbert wouldn’t disclose the donors behind his film and its distribution though he claimed he was sending out four million copies. He taunted Peters for being part of a mainstream media that hasn’t adequately vetted Obama, saying “I hope you’re not angry or jealous that I beat you to it and might win the Pulitzer Prize.”
Luntz claimed his client had doubts about the political wisdom of backing the Gilbert film, and that their approach to Luntz’s work was “I want to know if it’s as bad as I think it is.” Still, the idea that the Fox News consultant is part of testing the most lurid anti-Obama messages in a season full of them is kind of appalling. But it shouldn’t be surprising.
The greatest irony in the National Hockey League pulling together a focus group to test its messaging in the lockout: That hiring GOP toad Frank Luntz to handle said focus group probably further tarnishes their image.
(This isn’t meant to be a partisan comment, mind you; rather a definition of terms, in that Luntz frequently works for the GOP and is, in fact, akin in his demeanor to an amphibious reptile that lives in a bog and devours insects for sustenance.)
Barry Petchesky of Deadspin on Monday published an inside look at an NHL focus group facilitated by Luntz Global, which previously brought the world such memorable messaging as “the death tax.”
From Deadspin:
As for the owners’ slogan, one laughable phrase kept coming up: “Shared sacrifice.”
“Maybe we asked for too much at first,” Luntz’s mock-NHL-exec speech went, “but we’re willing to give. The NHLPA has to be willing to give as well, if we’re going to give the fans back their hockey. There’s no way we’re going to do this without both sides bringing something to the table.”
The NHL is losing the publicity war. While most fans categorize the negotiations as the rich vs. the richer, there’s almost no sympathy for Bettman and the owners for promulgating their third lockout in 18 years. That’s a perception they’re desperate to change. While concessions will come at the bargaining table, the court of public opinion will dictate which side feels the most pressure to compromise. And, of course, when hockey does come back, the league doesn’t want fans to feel so bitter that they stay away from the game. That’s where Luntz’s research fits in.
Check out the eight exercise packet and Barry’s take on the matter over on Deadspin. A few reactions to an insightful piece …
(A little background: I’ve worked in politics and in market research before, so this stuff is in my wheelhouse.)
• The NHL does market research fairly regularly, but we’ve learned this was the first lockout-specific focus group since the work stoppage began.
What does that mean regarding the potential duration or intensification of the negotiations? I actually read it as a positive sign that we’re going to get meaningful talks on the big issues soon, as the NHL is attempting to ascertain how public opinion could weight on the players depending on the timing or contents of a League offer. You don’t go down this road, strategically, unless you believe the information will be vital.
So for this complete non-issue, the NHL commissioned one of the world’s biggest market research firms to ask a specific question about public sentiment on revenue sharing. OK then.
• Not a single question about giving Bettman sunglasses and a surfboard to increase his demographic appeal? Really, Frank?
• If you’re wondering what the NHL will be shoveling your way in the near future:
Deadspin
• Imagine our surprise when we discovered Puck Daddy’s “What We Lost When The NHL Lost Opening Night” column — word for word for word for word — served as the basis for one of Luntz’s exercises.
Divide and conquer, the formula from the 2005 lockout victory.
The players and their agents have fruitlessly tried to make the same play with the owners — there’s actually a reference in the Luntz materials to a “group of eight owners” shutting out the rest of their brethren in talks. But there’s a better chance that the NHL succeeds with that gambit because you’re dealing with players of different ages, salary levels and personal lives.
It’s one of the reasons Donald Fehr encourages the swift, mass exodus of players to Europe: Both as a show of solidarity, but also as a way to stay happy by playing hockey and making coin.
Clearly, the NHL still feels like there’s a chance to break the union by playing up a schism between the players and Fehr. But Fehr’s worked for more than a year on solidifying that support. It’s not going to be as easy as it was seven years ago.
Luntz has been the Republican Hate-Propaganda Minister since at least 1993 and his list of words to stop policies that help America are vast:
Don’t say “oil drilling.” Say “energy independence.”
Don’t say “inheritance tax.” Say “death tax.”
Don’t say “Capitalism.” Say “Economic Freedom.”
Don’t say that the government ‘taxes the rich.’ Say Government “takes from the rich.”
Don’t admit Lobbyists are Collective Bargainers for Corporations. Say “Union Collective Bargaining steals your tax dollars.”
Luntz says people hate government so:
Don’t say “healthcare reform.” Say “government takeover.”
Don’t say “Public workers.” Call them “Government workers.”
Frank Luntz is the doubletalk machine for the GOP. He’s the reason your grandparents believe Obama is killing Medicare and taxes are evil.
CBS News has reportedly hired Frank Luntz, the Republican strategist and pollster best known for helping Republicans craft often-deceptive messaging to torpedo liberal policies. In his post announcing the move, Politico media reporter Dylan Byers writes that Luntz will “make a number of appearances across the network between now and Election Day.” Luntz’s hiring comes only a few months after New York Times Magazine contributor Robert Draper reported that Luntz orchestrated a 2009 meeting where prominent Republicans formulated a plan to win back Congress and the White House.
In his book Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives, Draper reported that Luntz “organized a dinner” on Obama’s inauguration night featuring a handful of “the Republican Party’s most energetic thinkers.” The attendees — which included current vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan — reportedly emerged from the nearly four hour dinner “almost giddily” after having agreed on “a way forward.”
Luntz’s influence in GOP politics isn’t limited to organizing high-level strategy dinners — he’s been credited with coining some of the most infamous lines from conservative media figures and politicians.
Luntz has been a regular fixture on Fox News for years. His appearances have featured him praising dishonest conservative ads and asking focus groups questions about whether Obama is a socialist. During a 2010 appearance on The O’Reilly Factor, Luntz praised the Chamber of Commerce for having “done some of the best advertising across the country” without disclosing that the Chamber was one of his corporate clients.
h/t: Ben Dimiero at MMFA
It seems obvious to many that advocating for regulating the sale, ownership, and use of guns is a political loser. Indeed, there is a wealth of polling data suggesting Americans oppose “gun control” and favor “gun rights.” However, new research obtained by ThinkProgress indicates that this opposition exists only in the abstract. According to a poll conducted in May by Republican pollster Frank Luntz for the group Mayors against Illegal Guns, gun-owning Americans, including National Rifle Association (NRA) members, overwhelmingly support a raft of common-sense measures typically described as “gun control:”
1. Requiring criminal background checks on gun owners and gun shop employees. 87 percent of non-NRA gun-owners and 74 percent of NRA gun owners support the former, and 80 percent and 79 percent, respectively, endorse the latter.
2. Prohibiting terrorist watch list members from acquiring guns. Support ranges from 80 percent among non-NRA gun-owners to 71 percent among NRA members.
3. Mandating that gun-owners tell the police when their gun is stolen. 71 percent non-NRA gun-owners support this measure, as do 64 percent of NRA members.
4. Concealed carry permits should only be restricted to individuals who have completed a safety training course and are 21 and older. 84 percent of non-NRA and 74 percent of NRA member gun-owners support the safety training restriction, and the numbers are 74 percent and 63 percent for the age restriction.
5. Concealed carry permits shouldn’t be given to perpetrators of violent misdemeanors or individuals arrested for domestic violence. The NRA/non-NRA gun-owner split on these issues is 81 percent and 75 percent in favor of the violent misdemeanors provision and 78 percent/68 percent in favor of the domestic violence restriction.
The poll, which sampled 945 gun owners around the country and had a margin of error of +/- 3, also found broad support gun-owners for the principle that “support for 2nd Amendment rights goes hand-in-hand with keeping illegal guns out of the hands of criminals.”
Fox News contributor Frank Luntz on Monday made a suggestion about running over the nation’s first black president with his car.
Appearing at an event with Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum in West Michigan, the GOP pollster warmed up the audience with a few jokes. Video of the event was captured byThe Grand Rapids Press.
“I actually have a ‘Run, Barack, Run’ bumper sticker, but I put it on the front of my car,” Luntz said.
In some parts of the country, people joke of a fictional racist game where players are awarded “points” for running over minorities.
Update (2:00 p.m. ET): Raw Story commenter Michelle Black points out that “Run, N*gger, Run” is a bumper sticker seen in some Southern states. There is also a Skillet Lickers song with that same title.
(via GOP Strategist Frank Luntz on FNC’s Hannity: ‘Conservatives Should Not Be Defending Capitalism’)
Last year, Mitt Romney told a Tea Party gathering, “I believe in free enterprise, I believe in capitalism.” Now, Romney’s practice of “vulture capitalism,” in Rick Perry’s words, is coming under attack. As Rush Limbaugh observed recently, “Here we have capitalism being attacked by Republicans, capitalism under assault by Republicans.” In the face of this assault, one of the GOP’s chief strategists is advising Republicans to stop defending capitalism.
Recall, just over a month ago, GOP pollster Frank Luntz offered strategic advice to Republican governors, in which he expressed concerns about the increasing strength of the 99 Percent movement, the Occupy protests, and the waning support for “capitalism.” Luntz told the group that the public thinks “capitalism is immoral. And if we’re seen as defenders of quote, Wall Street, end quote, we’ve got a problem.”
Now, as Romney faces heat from within his own party, Luntz is worried about a “nightmare” scenario where conservatives will go “down the tubes” if they are forced to defend “crony capitalism.” Last night on Fox News, Luntz said the solution is not for conservatives to support a fairer tax system or rid corporate loopholes; rather, just change the language they use:
Conservatives should not be defending capitalism. They should be defending economic freedom. And there is a difference. The word capitalism was created by Karl Marx to demonize those people who make a profit. We’ve always talked about the free enterprise system or economic freedom. Suddenly, they’re trying to defend something that has only 18 percent support.
There’s more than a few problems here. Of course, the Republicans have been long-time defenders of the worst elements of unregulated capitalism. Moreover, conservatives have pilloried Obama for his “war on capitalism,” for wanting to put “capitalism on trial,” and for his purported lack of knowledge about capitalism. As Jeb Bush said succinctly, “I think President Obama has used the bully pulpit as a way to attack capitalism.”
