Yahoo News reports on a session at the Republican Governor's Association where the GOP spin-meister told the crowd how they should package their ideas to respond to Occupy Wall Street.
The first thing that struck me about the Luntz list is how defensive it is. David Atkins goes through each point giving chapter and verse but just consider the words Luntz does not want Republicans to use: capitalism, taxes, middle class, jobs, compromise. Luntz is running away from the very vocabulary he established as the GOP canon. It polls badly for Republicans today because it reminds people of the last Republicans who used it.
Luntz has made his career out of applying the same techniques of spin and media management that Peter Mandelson used to create New Labour. What he does not seem to be able to grasp is that people in the US have grown as tired of media spin techniques as the British public did. Most people can tell when politicians who try to manipulate them rather than listen to them and they are sick of it.
As Main Street points out, the contempt of the Luntz approach is demonstrated by the following.
7. The three most important words you can say to an Occupier:What Luntz does not get, what he will never get, is the fact that one of the main reasons that people distrust politics and politicians is their use of the very techniques Luntz is selling.
'I get it.' "First off, here are three words for you all: 'I get it.' . . . 'I get that you're angry. I get that you've seen inequality. I get that you want to fix the system."
Then, he instructed, offer Republican solutions to the problem.
How can anyone 'get it' if they don't listen?
The three most important words to say to anyone in politics is 'I am listening'. Luntz does not care what people believe, what they want, what is best for them. All he cares about is working out how to maipulate them into accepting whatever policy or politician he is being paid to promote.
Nobody who follows the advice of Frank Luntz 'gets' what Occupy Wall Street is protesting.
