The architect of the GOP takeover flees Washington.
Ancient History
by Isaac Chotiner
It's just like they have become one giant whining windbag," Frank Luntz says to me when I ask his opinion of Republican leaders in Washington. Luntz may be the GOP's most recognizable and famous pollster, but he is none-too-happy with the current state of his party.
"They are adrift and they are leaderless," he exclaims, his voice rising.
"When they came into the House they held a press conference and I was just sickened. It was all complaints about process." His tone shifts to a higher pitch as he mimics a generic Republican lawmaker: "'We're not being allowed to offer amendments; we're not being allowed our time on the floor.' It was the worst sort of partisan whining." Many in Washington might agree with this analysis, but Luntz is more than just any member of the establishment.
In 1994, he not only helped write Republican House member Newt Gingrich's Contract with America; he was also responsible for its presentation to the public. Four years later, he advised Republicans trying to impeach Bill Clinton. And, over the last decade, his memos and ideas have been more influential and widely circulated than those of any other message guru. And yet, like other GOP stalwarts who helped usher in an era of conservative dominance, Luntz isn't happy with the results. From Gingrich to former Representative Dick Armey,
it seems that, the closer you were to the Republican Revolution, the more despondent you are about what that revolution has become. For his part, Luntz is going farther than other GOP critics--literally. He recently bought a condominium in sunny Santa Monica, California, and he's intent on dispensing with the capital city altogether.
But, in his anger and disappointment with the politics and culture of Washington, he is forgetting one thing: He, as much as anyone else, is responsible for the very mess he desperately wants to escape.It's hard to argue with Luntz's take on the state of intellectual debate in Washington.
But Luntz's career has been about nothing so much as cheapening language and obscuring honest discussion. During the debate over tort reform in 2005, a memo written by Luntz, which eventually leaked to the press, classily counseled Republicans with the following:
"It is tempting to counter-attack using facts and figures. Resist the temptation. ... The President's language works because it speaks to a series of individual proposals that common sense suggests will lead to job creation."
When House Republicans wanted to gut Medicare in 1995, Luntz advised them to be, well, blatantly dishonest about what they were doing: If the cuts would be perceived as long-term savings, he said, then the public would go along with benefit cuts. "We want a solution that preserves and protects Medicare," Gingrich said at the time, echoing Luntz's advice.
Luntz's most notorious memo may be the one he sent out in 2003 about the threat of global warming: "Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue"--even though no such "lack of scientific certainty" exists.And,
yet, if you ask Luntz about his role in Washington over the last decade, he has no regrets. "I wouldn't change anything," he says. Pushed on whether his snappy and often misleading slogans hurt political debate, he is circumspect, saying only that sloganeering has been going on for 150 years. As for partisanship, which he lists as one of his main reasons for wanting to escape the Beltway, he is equally remorseless. But didn't the Clinton impeachment, which he helped bring about, play a crucial role in creating the climate he so detests? "He should have resigned," Luntz says curtly of Clinton, although he does later admit that Republicans were too angry during this time. Talking to him,
it's hard not to get the sense that what he really doesn't like about Washington is that Republicans simply are not winning as much. In short, message discipline can't mask what most Americans see as a failed administration and a corrupt party. And, for this message shaper, nothing could be more frustrating.http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w070129&s=chotiner012907
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