Berkowitz:LUNTZ LEAPS INTO ELECTION 2008-Consider $upporting Media Transparency
 
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 12:54:47 -0500 (CDT)


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The Frank Luntz effect: 'Spraying perfume on dog  turds'

Often affable and self-effacing, Luntz hopes to transition from  GOP 
political operative to a non-partisan political  commentator

Bill Berkowitz, August 30, 2007, Media  Transparency

http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=209

Whether  he eventually winds up backing a particular candidate or not, when 
the story of  Election 2008 is told, Frank Luntz intends to have his name writ 
large over that  history. These days, Luntz, a corporate and Republican Party 
political  consultant/pollster, is all over the media; he's running focus 
groups during  many of the political debates where he declares winners and losers, 
he's being  quoted in various media outlets about all things political, and 
he's a regular  contributor to the Fox News Channel, where he pontificates at 
will.

In  addition, he has given marketing advice to the BBC, political advice to 
British  politicians, and was hired by Ireland's RTE's "The Week in  Politics."

While the televised Luntz often displays a disarming sense of  humor, is 
reasonably affable and self-effacing, he is also self-righteous and an  endless 
supplier of disingenuous blather. Watching him in action is to recognize  a 
master of style over substance; emotion trumps fact.

Luntz earned his  stripes by helping set the stage for the Republican 
Revolution of 1994 by  co-authoring Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America." Over the 
past dozen years,  he helped keep the national debate over global warming in 
a holding pattern by  counseling GOP candidates "to continue to make the lack 
of scientific certainty  a primary issue." He advised the Bush Administration 
to use the term "climate  change" instead of "global warming," because it was 
less  frightening.

http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=209

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