Pollster Frank Luntz says charges from Democrats that his talking points memo sets the GOP agenda are dead wrong. Luntz told Fox News this Sunday, “I dont even live in Washington anymore. My business is all corporate. I write one memo, which I thought was pretty good. I took the language that was being used at the time, and the language worked. And because I used the language, I verified it because I have a reputation of being right”
The memo being referred to was a 17-page memo Luntz wrote in January entitled “The Language of Financial Reform.” The premise of it basically boils down to this: “The single best way to kill any legislation is to link it to the Big Bank bailout.”
In recent weeks, several leading Republicans have referred to bank reform bill as just that — another government bailout. But Luntz says he was late to the game in terms of financial reform legislation language. He says, “Congressmen [Scott] Garrett (R-NJ) and Mike Pence (R-IN) were first. I just happened to get more of the attention.”
Luntz went on to say that what he does for a living is nothing new. “We know the Democrats and the White House did it last year with health care reform and I remember a top pollster for the White House going out and finding people don’t like insurance companies and that is the way the debate was framed, calling them villains and putting it on their doorstep, the problem … Don’t the parties look to pollsters for help on the issue?”
Luntz is the president of The Word Doctors communications consulting firm. He’s an expert at figuring out key words and phrases that will resonate with the American public. And Luntz insists he does it for both parties, “It is funny. I have presented to democrats on several occasions, the very people making criticisms who have listened to my work in the past. My work is nonpartisan and nonpolitical. It talks about what American people think and feel and what we all know.”
So what is it that he says all Americans think and feel? Luntz says it’s simple, “Number one: America hates these buyouts. Number two: they don’t believe a bigger Washington puts Wall Street under control. And number three, they don’t want legislation, healthcare legislation and financial services legislation.”
Luntz doesn’t want credit for the bank bailout language, but he does want some credit for past successes. “I am behind the phrase ‘death tax’ when talking about the Estate Tax. And when talking about health care, I was the one who called it the ‘Washington takeover’ of health care. So I write a memo two months ago using language that was already out there, and because of my reputation I verified that language. “
Luntz regularly appears on the Fox News Channel. Time magazine recently named Luntz one of the 50 most promising leaders aged 40 and under in America.
You can check out Luntz’ Talking Points Memo