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Not To Burst The Bubble….
Apropos Marc’s post on Frank Luntz’s call for Dems to “play nice”, it’s probably worth noting Steve Benen’s riposte.
Bottom line: It’s Frank Luntz. Democrats will (quite justifiably) trust the sincerity of his “advice” approximately as far as they can throw him.
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16 Responses to “Not To Burst The Bubble….”
Quoting Luntz:
It’s hard for me to decide which is more breathtaking–the irony, or the total, complete, utter lack of irony.
By the way, I don’t believe the Democrats are twisting the knife at all.
Please, please don’t let this notion–the Democrats are just twisting the knife–become entrenched! The Republicans have to share the process to some extent. That’s all. The Republicans are not victims.
I have no idea who this guy is, but he sure talks like he’s in the minority party…
Honestly I wouldn’t mind if the Dems twisted the knife a bit, if just to give the current crop of republicans a taste of why it isn’t a good idea.
“Bottom line: It’s Frank Luntz.”
And that means he’s well known for making a living by serving the interests of republicans. He simply can’t afford to annoy his customers by giving honest advice to Democrats. Plain and simple.
I note that Luntz did not call out Rove for his antics, if he wants to play nice he should try making an effort on his side first and then he might get a response.
Bloody convinient timing he has, doesn’t he? It’s like punching a weak guy out and when he comes back full of muscles from the gym saying “violence solves nothing, let’s be friends!”. Mind you, I believe that civility is important, and especially that more time should be spent on policy and less on politics, but I’m amazed this guy can say what he does with a straight face.
On the other hand, maybe Luntz sincerely believes that the difference in the political climate and the difference in the way the Dems came to power dictates that they really shouldn’t play hardball partisan politics if they want to remain in power. Objectively this makes sense (if you can put aside who is saying it) because the GOP was elected by courting the extremists in their base, while the Dems came into power by courting the middle and crossover voters who are fed up with the partisanship.
And as a partisan Republican, Luntz may be offering this advice because he knows very well that it is more likely to instigate the Dems to do the opposite and thus hurt their own chances for remaining the majority party. The image of that old cartoon comes to mind, with the wolf shedding one costume after another, alternating between sheep and wolf so that you can’t figure out who’s side he’s really on…
Basically if the Dems take his advice, it helps the GOP because it allows more compromise. If they don’t take his advice, they may be writing themselves back into the minority in ’08.
Though Mr. Lutz would probably agree with your divisive and partisin comment all you need do is read your local paper to see that it’s the Republicans, not the Democrats, that should be worried about ’08.
Your concerns would be more believable if directed at your own party and those there that you would like elected to represent you.
Spending time and effort in faux concern about the Democrats chances in ’08 seems disingenuous.
Steve K,
Fine by me, but I’m just calling the situation as I see it. There’s certainly no doubt that the GOP needs serious internal reassessments if it is to rise from the ashes, but there’s also a good bit of historical evidence that the Democrats are quite good at shooting themselves in the foot. We’ll see in ’08 though, which side overcomes these challenges with greater success.
Is Luntz giving this same advice to Republicans? If so, will they take it?
I imagine that answer will become clear soon enough.
Luntz, by the way, has a history. What I take away from this is his argument that Democrats are somehow “twisting the knife” because the Republicans are now required to share the political process with them. He’s just pushing the same old anti-Democratic Party propaganda.
Don’t buy it!!
The Wikipedia entry on Luntz is HERE.
Its true that Luntz should be giving the same advice to the GOP. If Bush got rid of Rove it would go a long way in signifying that they were ready to play nice. In reality, they are probably planning to use him to orchestrate their quest to regain the majority in ’08, proving that they still think electoral success will be gained by playing to the conservative base of the GOP. If that goal were to be accomplished, I’m betting that the GOP would treat the Dems as they did before last November, as irrelevant and inconvenient to their party’s agenda.
I’m slowly starting to learn the names of the teeming hordes of pundits. After some looking into it I have determined Frank Luntz is a hypocritical piece of scum.
“I’m slowly starting to learn the names of the teeming hordes of pundits.”
That’s a good idea. When the campaign 2008 becomes hot, Luntz name will come up regularly and each time you’ll know what to do with his crap: Ignore it.
I’d like to suggest that Luntz is up to something more clever: under the guise of giving sensible moderate advice to Democrats, he’s reinforcing the stereotypes that Republicans have of Democrats.
And he’s sliding it through–Democrats are “twisting the knife”–without much dissent. Even though all that’s really happening is that Republicans must now share the mechanism of governance with Democrats. That’s a reflection of the will of the voters, by the way.
Luntz is talking to the base.
And remember, if you complain about his standing to give moderate advice, you’re just being mean–you’re just further reinforcing his message to the base.
Or maybe somebody can tell me what knife Nancy Pelosi is twisting?
But CS, we all know that you see the world through elephant colored glasses.
Jim,
You might note that what I was doing in my post was pointing out the trap that Luntz might be setting up. He puts this advice out there which if examined objectively, is probably correct: the people who want the Democrats to focus on sticking it to the GOP are probably not the majority that elected them, and if they focus on this instead of taking the high road to reform and better governance, their majority status probably will be short lived.
Obviously if the Dems were to take this advice, the GOP minority in Congress will benefit because they won’t be shut out from the legislative process.
More than likely, Luntz knows that by offering his ‘advice’, he’s actually going to create a backlash whereby the Dems do the opposite and crank up the heated rhetoric, which ultimately will backfire for them in ’08.
So he’s playing a game that’s a no-win for the Dems, and you guys are falling right in the trap.
Personally I think that the Democratic Congressional leaders can take an approach that gives appropriate criticism and correction of the flaws of the recent GOP leaders without demonizing the party as a whole, and without making it impossible for the more moderate members of the GOP to work in a bipartisan way. I happen to think this is what is best for our country, even though it’s my belief that if the Dems do this, they’ll gain traction and possibly remain in control of at least one branch of govt (and possibly gain the White House as well).
As a Republican, I won’t be happy with that result but as an American, I still think that the opposite course (whereby the uberpartisanship prevails, and voters remain polarized) would be more damaging to our future. If you doubt my sincerity about that, Jim, well, so be it.