GOP strategist Frank Luntz on communicating ourselves

[Bhaisahab]

FULL INTERVIEW: http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2007/01/31/luntz/index.html?source=weekly

I dont know how people here feel about this guy, but some of what he says makes sense. anyway, read without prejudice.
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In 2003, the media got hold of a memo you wrote declaring the environment "probably the single issue on which Republicans in general -- and President Bush in particular -- are most vulnerable." You've since said that the environment played a negligible role in the 2004 and 2006 elections. Why did this huge vulnerability fail to play a central role in the elections?

Because the environmental community hasn't figured out how to communicate effectively.

What do you mean?

People think environmentalists tend toward the extreme position -- they're considered uncompromising, unyielding, very political. I get yelled at by them all the time, and yet they keep losing and losing when they should be more successful.

The American people believe in clean air and clean water. The American people believe in open spaces. I know this, I've polled it. What they don't believe is the idea that you would close everything down, put it under lock and key. They believe that you can use the environment while still protecting and appreciating it, and the environmental community just doesn't understand that. It's why the word environmentalist, people don't like it anymore.

But you understand, I'm not in the business of trying to explain this to them. In my dealings with them, they're mean. Some of the most personally nasty people come out of the environmental community.

Why do you think that is?

I think that they believe so strongly in their point of view, and they believe that anyone who doesn't share what they share or believe what they believe is not only wrong but evil.

It sounds like you see it as a dogma almost, as religious zealotry.

I don't see environmentalism that way, I see environmentalists that way. I think it's like they've taken a very important issue and they've undermined their own case for it.

The problem the environmental community has is they don't listen to their opponents. When I do my research, I spend more time studying the opposition argument because that's what I need to respond to. The environmental community never listens. If they listened, they would have realized very early on that they would find common ground with other allies.

Can you give an example?

In trying to achieve protection of endangered species, they created the land-rights movement. It did not exist before. But because they were unbending -- not just in the rules and regulations, but even in the enforcement and how it's done -- a whole bunch of Western ranchers rose up, organized, and may now have tipped the balance too far against endangered species. The public wants a balance, and any time it goes too far in one direction, the public says no.

<SNIP>

Do you believe that climate change is real and happening?

I believe that it is, uh ... I have no solution to it right now.

But is it real and happening?

Yes, I believe that it is an issue.

FULL INTERVIEW AT LINK ABOVE

[tom_paine]

1. Anyone who worships Orwell's villains as heroes is a piece of shit

Like listening to a Nazi tell the Jews how to properly frame things.

Notice how he speaks strictly about the people, and attacks them personally as a reason for the movement's failure.

Luntz: "Some of the most personally nasty people come out of the Jewish community."

Oh, did I say that Luntz said "Jewish"? He said "environmentalist" but what I HEARD was a longtime worshipper of Orwell's villains, and a criminal poisoner of language (like his heroes in Orwell's novels) repeating the same kinds of personal attacks (a bit more sugracoated and focus-group tested but essentially them same thing...that the problems the Jews have with his people ARE THE JEWS THEMSELVES).

They are such bad and mean people, you know, those Jews, I mean environmentalists.

So fuck Luntz, and trust as much from him as you would trust a Nazi giving advice to Jews...or one of Orwell's smiling villians like O'Brien.

As I finished the article, and once again heard Luntz's staggering hypocrisy in words (which, coming from Luntz, probably mean they are simply untrue, but let's take them at face value for argument's sake) is unmasked. His "personal green life" :puke: vs. the damage he has done by recasting the English language as Luntzspeak/Newspeak in the service of environmental destroyers (not to mention murders and other Bushcriminals).

Just what one of Orwell's villains would say (if he couldn't simply have the bastard sent to Room 101).

[Bhaisahab]

2. Thanks for that perspective

Perhaps I'm forgetting my Orwell, or maybe I'm just getting old and its getting easier for me to swallow the blue pill.

[tom_paine]

6. Sorry to be so aggressively angry with you, pk.

Guys like Luntz and Goebbels (for they are very similar men, particularly in their approach to their work) get to keep their hands "clean" while helping murder innocent millions (ok, ok, the Bushevik tally of innocents is still only about 1,000,000...not yet Nazi numbers but well on the way!).

That pisses me off, as does Nazi/Orwellian/Luntz-like corruption of language, to no end.

My anger was not directed at you.

[Bhaisahab]

7. no offense taken tom paine

and this response is late because i'm like a few time zones away from you.

:hi:

[ClintonTyree]

3. Luntz is pond scum...

the man who brought us the "death tax" , "clear skies", "healthy forests" and the like. Aiding and abetting the Bush administration, EMBOLDENING them with catch phrases and carefully researched responses to maximize political effect.

Luntz can kiss my ass. As disgusting a human being that's ever walked the planet.

[unpossibles]

4. I personally feel he's full of it.

first of all, of the many environmentalists I know, very few are so hell bent that they do not always attempt to open a clear dialog about something. Most I have personally worked with are very human people who understand that if we live in a society we have to do what we can to enlighten and lead by example. Most - while perhaps not as vocal or seen as the few - aren't asshats about it.

Even fewer are monkey wrenchers, Earth First, or other groups that are seen as being terrorists. BUT, because of the smear jobs from the right (brought to you by people like Luntz through people like Rush, et al), most RWers refuse to see the human compromise side of any environmentally aware people. The ones I know assume that if you like animals then you think humans should die, or that if you want to reduce climate change, you will accept nothing short of a return to Luddite simplicity, and nothing could be further from the truth.

So sure, perhaps the green movement needs to frame its arguments better - we all do on some level, but ask any Rush listener how he feels about PETA or Al Gore or anything environmental, and they will spend hours spewing the right wing lies that they've been told for the past 10-20 years. It gets pretty frustrating.

The problem with things like what Luntz is saying is that it compromises our positions in a way that can be used against us, in my opinion. He is a marketer and little else, so while we could learn from him how to "sell our ideas to people" we could also perhaps try to change the idea that everything has to be marketed and packaged in the first place. I know this sounds crazy, but look at the trend of commercials which try to not be commercials - people are sick of being seen as nothing more than consumers and target audiences, and that sentiment seems to be growing.

[hatrack]

5. I hope Frank Luntz owns beachfront property

I really do . . .