Frank Luntz has anger issues

by Jay McDonough

Frank Luntz is a Republican pollster and consultant, author of
several books on communication strategies, and serves as a paid
contributor for Fox News.  Luntz claims his specialty is �testing
language and finding words that will help his clients sell their
product or turn public opinion on an issue or a candidate."

Mr. Luntz was one of the roundtable guests on ABC News "This Week" yesterday and had this exchange with host George Stephanopoulos:

STEPHANOPOULOS: And what we saw, also, on Tuesday night, Frank, is
really a primal scream, from the voters on the economy.  And
85, 90 percent of the voters worried about the economy. Almost half of
that, very worried.

FRANK LUNTZ,  Now, you
understand why there's so much anger; 72 percent of Americans define
them as, quote, "mad as hell". And not going to take it anymore. Every
age group, except for 18 to 29 year olds, ethnicity, it doesn't matter,
there's this level of frustration and anxiety. But I compare this not
to Reagan in '82, I compare this to 1994. And it was on this show -- I'm
sitting next to him -- when this whole thing happened. And I said, look
at the health care bill that we're frustrated with, look at all the
wasteful Washington spending and the crime bill, back at that time. The
right direction, wrong track, numbers were awful. The president had
lost significant support after being elected to unite the country. The
same numbers exist today that existed in 1994.

I want to comment on Luntz's reply but, first, a note about the question: Frankly, I'm kinda surprised that only
85-90% of the voters were worried about the economy.  But the question
has to do with the media narrative that last Tuesday's election results
were some huge backlash against Democratic Party control of the federal
government.  There were four major electoral contests
last week; two governor races and two special elections to fill House
seats.  Two Republicans won the governorships and two Democrats won the
House seats. If voters were engaged in some kind of "primal scream"
against Democratic rule, I wonder why two Democrats were elected to
fill the positions that have direct influence on the nations economy. 

Back to Luntz...

Let's
unpack Luntz's answer.  First, a palpable sense of anger is pretty
understandable.  The country is now completely split into the wealthy
and a disappearing middle class, perfectly demonstrated by a rebounded
Wall Street and the resumption of big bonuses for the financial sector
while unemployment, depending on the interpretation, is between 10 and
18%.  The fear of being out of work and, ultimately, out of health
insurance will likely lead to some serious anger.  Duh! 

But
that's not Luntz's point.  He wants us to believe this anger is
something new (definitely not a Reagan problem, but certainly a Clinton
and Obama problem) and a result of the Democratic Party majority
running the show in Washington.  Never mind that he used Peter Finch's immortal line
from a 35 year old movie to illustrate this "new" anger.  Look, there's
always been (and likely always will be) a sector of the public that's
pissed off about something. I don't recall Luntz talking last year
about public rage as the economy was tanking and as the most folks
became aware we'd all been duped into mismanaged wars in the Middle
East.  But a rage was definitely present and just as palpable as the
anger today.  It just doesn't fit Luntz's narrative to acknowledge
that.  Luntz would also have us ignore the times he's been censured and reprimanded by professional polling organizations for his use of bogus polling practices.

I did go looking for evidence that supported Luntz's contention that more people are angry today.  I couldn't find it.  Though I did find Gallup Poll data measuring the public's Healthways Well Being Index. 
Guess what?  It's been essentially flat since January 2008 at about 65%
(100% being idyllically, blissfully happy).  If anything, the Index has
improved slightly from Barack Obama's inauguration day.

So, I was
stumped.  Why in the world would Frank Luntz claim the public is
suddenly so pissed off at the federal government?  Lo and behold, I
found that Frank Luntz has a brand new book coming out about how pissed off Americans are at the new Democratic Party majority.

Then it all made sense.