Pollster Frank Luntz had his laptop open and was taking notes when President Obama singled him out at the House Republicans retreat, saying that the focus groups Luntz is known for are all about finding ways to box in the opposition and make the other side look bad. "It's all tactics. It's not solving problems," Obama said as Luntz sat silently, a smile plastered on his face. It intimidated him, being called out by the president, but in the receiving line afterward, Obama told him not to worry about it, that it would be good for business. "You'll sell some books," Obama said.
House Republicans who once shunned Luntz patted him on the back, telling him "way to go." He's their guide back to power, telling them it's 1994 all over again, that control of the House is within reach and that the "easy" working majority Obama enjoyed for his first two years will be gone in both the House and Senate. Republicans booted him in 2005 for predicting they would lose their majority, but he was right, and those early warnings gained him entry to Democratic circles. In 2008, Obama was among those calling him for insights on how to communicate with the America that lies beyond the boundaries of the political and intellectual elites.
Luntz credits Fox News and Roger Ailes for his renewed prominence, and he's sitting pretty these days, building a new home in the fancy Brentwood section of L.A. and servicing so many corporate clients that he clocked 255,000 miles on airplanes last year. He likens this election year to a car crash that Democrats cannot prevent. His contribution to the health-care debate is the phrase, "government takeover," a gem he mined from a focus group in St. Louis, when a middle-aged mom complaining about health insurers exclaimed, "Now you want a government takeover as well!"
Luntz says nervous House Democrats are bringing him into their confidence, and in a variation of "we report, you decide," he suggests they "think and feel and decide whether they have the courage to stand up to Nancy Pelosi." The House Speaker, he says, is even more of a target than Newt Gingrich was in his heyday.
Luntz's poll-tested language lands like an IED in the public discourse, exploding any possibility of civil debate. His memo on how to defeat financial regulatory reform, surely a favorite among his corporate clients, takes an obscure House amendment out of context to characterize the emerging legislation as another bank bailout. His line about anything that's 2,000 pages long can't be good is a crowd pleaser for health-care-reform opponents. "Don't be mad at me," he protests as he realizes I'm not applauding his greatest hits. "Be mad at them," says Luntz, referring to the White House and its congressional allies who could not effectively sell their policies.
It is infuriating that the White House managed to lose the message war on its two signature efforts: the recovery bill (a.k.a. the stimulus) and health-care reform. That ground is lost, and Obama can't get it back. But after an extended period of fumbling and beginning with that Republican retreat where he nicked Luntz, the president has found a voice. Those who know Obama best say that the loss of the supermajority has thrust him back into a more familiar role: the community organizer speaking truth to power. He seems to be having a good time calling out Republicans at the same time he's reaching out more visibly to win their support on aspects of legislation they should favor, like tax credits and nuclear power. For much of his first year, he acted as though he had joined the government instead of leading it. Now he's toughening his stance toward Congress, daring Republicans to continue the obstructionist strategy for which they've reaped reward for the last year, while persuading Democrats that the worst option for them in terms of reelection is to walk away from health care.
The preferred model for Democrats these days is 1982, when unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent as voters went to the polls that November. Yet President Reagan, with his unswerving confidence that he had put the right policies in place, managed to hold Republican losses to the mid-20s in the House and retain their same majority in the Senate. Reagan's rallying cry was "Stay the Course," as he campaigned through 14 states that fall, sheltering nervous Republicans from the charge that his policies were causing the recession.
If Democrats stick together and stay tough, passing a jobs bill and salvaging health-care reform, they can keep their losses to a minimum, says Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a veteran of the Clinton White House, which did not fare well in its first midterm election, losing both houses of Congress. "Obama can say we're heading in the right direction, we've stopped the bleeding, it's not morning in America yet [Reagan's signature slogan], but we can see some light on the horizon." With 10 percent unemployment projected through the year, Luntz's seductive words and phrases offer a safe harbor for vulnerable Democrats, and a harbinger of the future that Obama best heed.
Eleanor Clift is also the author of Two Weeks of Life: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Politics and Founding Sisters and the Nineteenth Amendment.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
