Rant: "Doctor" Frank Luntz

[rurallib]

I saw this guy on Maher the other night and I just seethed. How did he ever get known as a genius? Like many other Republicans these days he is little more than a smart-mouthed punk who exudes arrogance like a cheap perfume.
While he may have come up with a catch phrase or two it was really the selling of said phrases that should get the credit. Luntz's utterances would go nowhere if it weren't for the spineless media repeating his words as if they were truth and the only way of describing a situation. Were it not for especially FuxNoise, but also the spineless so called anchors at CBS, NBC and ABC not to mention CNN, Luntz would be only another footnote.
And let me add to the Mr. Maher and Mr. Luntz, Democrats are proposing solutions. They just do not get the media play that Luntz's smart-mouthed, snarky, bumper-sticker phraseology does.
To me Frank Luntz has always been an over grown teen ager who tries to get attention with his smart-mouthed. It is just so sad that our society has degenerated to the point that arrogant little pricks like this become leaders.

[Matsubara]

1. I agree. He is a horrible, snot-nosed punk.

That being said, his focus groups and catch phrases have revolutionized the way the GOP does its campaigning and has made them a formidable foe. The democratic party would do well to find their own Luntz to counteract Luntz's Orwellian doublespeak (like "Death Tax" instead of the Millionaires' Estate Tax, or "School Choice" for voucher schemes to defund public schools).

[rurallib]

3. I would argue that the Dems need more media outlets

I just don't think his little catch phrases are all that brilliant, but the sales job on them has been spectacular. 24X7X365 we hear his and other phrases as being the only talking point on an issue.
I will admit maybe I don't give him enough credit because I am so pissed at what has been wrought by use of his words, but I still think it has been the worthless spineless media that has been responsible for his phrases getting so much play.
Besides he is an arrogant punk.

[Th1onein]

5. Arrogant punk or fuc%king liar? Hmmmm........

Which phrase sounds the best?

I'm going with fuc%king liar. I don't know why--it's just got a ring to it, you know?

The truth usually does.....

[rasputin1952]

8. Their not brilliant...they do stick to the group that

supports the GOP though. No brains needed there...:rofl:

I think Luntz is far from being Mensa material, he's just another mouth that doesn't have much of a brain attached to it.

[Evergreen Emerald]

2. "catch-phrase" = LIES

He is nothing but a fuc*in liar. He gets paid to lie to the American people. I don't think that is something to applaud. I could not watch him.

[pansypoo53219]

4. but

the sheeple eat the crap he says.
democrats NEED to get smart about how they say stuff to make it easy for the sheeple. little hors d' ovres of truth easy to digest ad it would behoove them if they FED the teevee gnews whores the way republikkkans do.
we're right, we just have to PROVE it. not expect the lowly masses to 'get it'.

[mrcheerful]

6. Thats because of the Reagan syndrome, remember how Reagan speech writers would write a speech and

when it bombed they would write Reagan another speech that said the same thing only key words were changed? Thats all people like Luntz do, estate tax became death tax, anti abortion rights became pro life rights. You can't blame media for americans being stupid when a change of a word will get them to change their opinion. Remember its what they did with democratic tax and spend, before Reagan, Democratic's were just known as the spending party. Then Reagans people also changed their word for tax give aways to the rich, they call it tax cuts and imply that everyone gets a tax cut equally, which we know is a lie, but look at how many of the stupid out there believe their taxes go down with republicans when in fact they pay more.

[Kagemusha]

7. I'll say that arrogance and the appearance thereof goes a long way.

I don't really go for that stuff, but I'd be a fool to deny it has great attraction to the personalities in the Republican party. Whatever his virtues or lack thereof as a pollster, his arrogance makes him a wealthier man because the cheap perfume works very well on the target audience.

[rocktivity]

9. Like Gingrich, Luntz is totally oblivious to the fact that he is OUT OF BUSINESS

--a business that HE helped create--but he hasn't got enough class to be embarrassed by his hypocrisy. Now he's moved to California, and his reason for being on the show is to peddle a book--a book he wrote most likely because he has no other source of income.

There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. And there is nothing more pathetic than an idea whose time has come and gone.

:headbang:
rocknation

[rurallib]

10. I hope you are right

[MADem]

19. No, he knows--that's why he wrote the book. He needs money.

He's been dumped by the GOP. See my post downthread on the subject.

[eleny]

11. Kicked and Recommended

He irritated me, too. I thought Huffington did a good job of illustrating what he is.

[rurallib]

13. Agreed - Huffington did an excellent job

with well thought out responses. I even thought Paula Poundstone got a couple good needles in.

[eleny]

14. Poundstone picked her spots

I couldn't help but think she was so much better as the comic relief than Shandling was last week.

[Mabus]

21. Definitely better than Dana Carvey was a few weeks ago

Poundstone made some really good observations. She pointed out that the Democratic message is clear on issues like, (paraphrasing) "End the war and bring our troops home." There's no ambiguity there.

At least when comedians like Belzer, Poundstone and Shandling are on they don't feel the need to takeover the show with their prepared one-liners. Carvey and others seem to have their one-liners and/or whole routines figured out and they look for openings, no matter how tenuous, to do them. It really distracts from conversation and is painful to watch.

[otohara]

12. He Looks Like Herman Munster

his "evil" twin brother.

[alcibiades_mystery]

15. Luntz is a sophist, and not even a good one

He also attributes much more credit to himself than he deserves.

It's shocking that the clowns from Free Republic and other venues - well-known online for castigating so-called "ethical relativism" - would idolize this clownish sophist to such a degree.

[MADem]

18. Well, they are behind the times--he is now persona non grata by the GOP leadership on the Hill

He's been cast of the temple, like an evil moneychanger, by Boehner the Bonehead!

See my post below on the subject.

[MADem]

16. Well, he's tooting his own horn now because he's not feeling the GOP love so much anymore.

The fat baaaastid has to eat, now, doesn't he? He's shopping his book.

Now, I don't care for this website I'm citing, and the columnist is Robert "I ain't goin' to jail for NO ONE, NO-how, NO-way" NO-Vak.... but what he says about Luntz and the GOP is the flat-out truth: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/RobertDNovak/2007/02/01/the_gops_cassandra

Pollster Frank Luntz for the past decade issued warnings to his fellow Republicans that they did not want to hear, but never has been so out of touch with them as he is today. "The Republican message machine is a skeleton of its former self," Luntz told me. "These people have no idea how the American people react to them."

Luntz sees a disconnect between Republicans and voters that projects a grim future for the party. That contradicts what House and Senate Republicans are saying to each other in closed party conferences. While Luntz views 2006 election defeats as ominous portents, the party's congressional leaders see only transitory setbacks and now dwell on bashing Democrats....Luntz's prophecies of impending disaster have been both accurate and disregarded. Republicans never have been that comfortable hearing critics in closed conferences. He is not invited to such meetings today. "They do not want to hear the truth," Luntz told me. While truth-telling is celebrated by Republican reformers who include presidential front-runner John McCain, it is a decidedly minority view in the GOP......Except for momentary defection to independent candidate Ross Perot in 1992, Luntz has been a Republican operative who has counseled Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani and Trent Lott. But he often has worked for the media, making comments too harsh for the ears of reclusive Republicans. He has clashed frequently with Rep. John Boehner, the current Republican leader of the House who stifled ethics legislation last year when he was still majority leader.

Boehner, elected chairman of the House Republican Conference when the party took control in 1995, tried then to keep Luntz from addressing closed-door meetings but was overruled by Speaker Gingrich. When Luntz in October 2005 publicly warned of rejection by voters in 2006, he was forced to deliver an abject apology before he could speak at a retreat of House Republicans held at the Library of Congress. After seven straight years on the program, Luntz was kept off last week's 2007 session at Cambridge, Md., by Boehner ......

The whole article is most instructive.


Many years ago, I used to make it a habit to write to media outlets every time that fucker was on the TV and they didn't mention that he was a Republican. NBC and MSNBC, FWIW, were the biggest offenders.

Nothing's changed, though; now CNN is doing it (gee, elections are getting closer, see?): http://mediamatters.org/items/200702160004

That Media Matters article I cite also gives you a pretty good idea of why this scuzzball is so famous. He's the bum who invented shit like "Clean skies" and was behind the ousting of Grey Davis in California.

He IS an evil, fat, baaaastid.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

17. He'll be on BookTV tonight

along with Joe Conason, David Goodman and Michael Isikoff. :evilgrin:

:popcorn:


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=870952&mesg_id=871093

[Jim Warren]

20. Is he calling himself Dr. now?

This pasty little cherub?
He's the equivalent of a Mood Ring to the GOP. His job is not rocket science but it has been effective, wiring focus groups behind one way mirrors and test driving language. It's effective, but you know what, some people are easily hypnotized and others are not. It works best on the willing.

He's made a good living soft peddling lies.

[mopinko]

22. it's not that luntz lies are brilliant- it's that people get paid to

catapult them. that's all. period.

[rocktivity]

23. DING DING DING! Mopinko, you're our grand prize winner!

It's not that Luntz's lies are brilliant--it's that people get paid to catapult them...

Disciplining the message was only half of Luntz's battle--the other was ensuring that it couldn't be questioned or disagreed with. Do you think the Rethugs would have gotten this far if there were also a left-wing equivalent to Fox News?

Luntz was successful until 2006 because now the Rethug noise machine has real competition--AirAmerica, left-wing blogs, Keith Olbermann, the Daily Show. Disciplining the message doesn't work any more, but even if it did, you STILL can't fool all of the people all of the time.

:headbang:
rocknation