December Remember: PAOs & Doggone Luntz

The day’s keynote guest speaker did something awful.

It happened at the May 2010 Navy Public Affairs Symposium in Baltimore, Md. The speaker was GOP pollster Frank Luntz. He bounced around the room in red-white-and-blue sneakers, arms waving, voice rising, making incendiary insinuations and politically incorrect remarks as he showed PowerPoint slides.

Attendees at the May 2010 Baltimore PAO Symposium hear a panel discussion. (SN Marty Carey)

Of course, his prickly comments and attempts at jokes were his First Amendment right ––– and typical Luntz schtick.

But then he went too far. On the screen he showed a picture of the first woman speaker of the house, Representative Nancy Pelosi. It was a photo –– he said –– of Pelosi "after plastic surgery" to her face. Then he showed a “before” photo. It was a picture of a dog.

A nervous murmur rippled through the crowd of military and civilian public affairs officers and mass communication specialists.

We were in Baltimore. Nancy Pelosi’s hometown, where her father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., had served as mayor after serving in Congress for five terms. Speaker of the House Pelosi was in her fourth year in her leadership role, second in line to Commander in Chief Barack Obama after Vice President Joe Biden.

Just a few years earlier, Pelosi had spent the early part of her time as Speaker in direct opposition to President George H. W. Bush and his war in Iraq, which she contended began on a lie about weapons of mass destruction. She said Bush’s war killed thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis and negatively impacted the necessary war in Afghanistan and the hunt for Osama bin Laden. She had also vociferously opposed Bush’s move to privatize social security, and she fought for expanded affordable health care. Republican politicians and advisors unleashed their vitriol on her and, forgive the bad pun, really “dogged her out.”

Luntz

In making the jab ridiculing Pelosi’s appearance, Luntz, who has worked on behalf of Newt Gingrich, Pat Buchanon, Ross Perot, Ted Cruz, and other Right Wing politicians, as well as the former Washington Redskins, must have thought he’d receive a friendly reception in a conservative-leaning military audience. Personally, I thought he just embarrassed himself.

And –– his low-blow joke made him sound like a hypocrite.

After all, in his entertaining book “What Americans Really Want … Really: The Truth About Our Hopes, Dreams, and Fears” (Hyperion, 2009), published the year before the symposium, Luntz wrote, “‘Do Unto Others as You Would Have Them Do Unto You’ applies to communication, not just behavior.” Luntz says it’s important to come across as patient, understanding, and humble, not just in the words we use but in the words others hear us say.”

In recent years Luntz has publicly criticized the lack of “decorum” in politics and sore-loser campaigning by ex-President Trump and his ultra-MAGA supporters. Yet, on Nov. 7, 2022, he predicted Republicans would gain control of the Senate and win 233 to 240 House seats; instead, they lost a seat in the Senate and only won only ten seats in the House for a total of 222 (including Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and newcomer fabulist George Santos).

Luntz mis-read his flawed polls, and it wasn’t the first time. He also mis-read the room that day in Baltimore.

Part of his schtick includes polling his audience and asking provocative questions, which he did to the PAOs and MCs. He told us to indicate whether we believed the Constitution was more of an authority for the United States than the Bible. He expressed surprise when many of us chose the Constitution. It seemed to me, then and now, that Luntz was giving a veiled nod to Christian Nationalism.

In “What Americans Really Want…” Luntz praises former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s commitment to her public expressions of devotion to her Christian identity:

“Sarah Palin is the perfect case study for those seeking to uncover the secret to religious messaging and communication. She clearly recognized the connection between religious values and small-town values –– and sought to make that connection the centerpiece of her campaign message. It was a genuine appeal from a devout Christian … Throughout the campaign, it was impossible to tell where her political beliefs ended and her religious beliefs began –– they were so intertwined.”

He notes how Palin said in an interview with James Dobson that she had sought God’s “intercession” in the election: “I can feel the power of prayer, and that strength that is provided through our prayer warriors across this nation,” Palin said, continuing, “…it’s our reminder to do the same, to put this in God’s hands, to seek his perfect will for this nation, and to of course seek his wisdom and guidance in putting this nation back on the right track.” Luntz admits, her words, “while balm to the religious community were like fingernails on the chalkboard to everyone else.”

In that chapter, “God Help Us,” Luntz offers his “rules for religious discussion” with an attempt to find common ground through listening instead of lecturing. He says we need to, for now, acknowledge a separation of state and church –– as “an accepted doctrine among all but the most devout in America, even as we disagree about its application.” To his credit, he says we wouldn’t want laws based on Sharia law or Supreme Court citations of Deuteronomy rather than the Constitution. Yet he concludes, “But just because we don’t want our government to establish a religion doesn’t mean we should pretend religion doesn’t influence our government at all. The fact is, we pick our politicians after we pick our God. Just don’t say it this way.”

Trump supporters, some holding Bibles and nationalist flags and symbols breach security at the Capitol, January 6, 2022, attacking police. (Luke Mogelson)

Luntz’s focus on seeming to be genuine, in "coming across" a certain way, and in disguising true beliefs in superficial and misleading phrases is antithetical to Navy core values of honor, courage, and commitment, where integrity is based on a deeper ethos. Politicians may take the oath to uphold the Constitution on a family bible or koran (or other book representing a person’s beliefs), but it’s the Constitution that matters.

The pinnacle of misplaced faith and beliefs came when Trump supporters, white supremacists, and Christian nationalists marched through the halls of the Capitol last year shouting “Hang Mike Pence,” “Nancy, where are you Nancy?” and, ironically, “Treason, treason, treason.” The insurrectionists defiled the People’s House and Pelosi’s office. They gathered for prayer in the U.S. Senate Chamber, captured on video by New Yorker reporter Luke Mogelson: “Jesus Christ, we invoke your name, amen … Thank you heavenly father for gracing us with this opportunity … Thank you divine, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent creator God for filling this chamber with your white light and love, with your white light of harmony. Thank you for filling this chamber with patriots … We love you and we thank you, in Christ's holy name we pray.”

(Mogelson, New Yorker)

It’s been said that not every Republican or so-called ultra-MAGA Trumpist is a white supremacist or Christian nationalist, but every such extremist tends to be a Trump supporter.

Even Luntz says many conservatives are turning away from Trump and his martyrdom ideology.

Despite Luntz’s attempts at sincerity and concern for others, looking back, I wonder how much of a role Luntz played in fertilizing extremism, exploiting division, and empowering the insurrection he seems to earnestly condemn. The day after January 6, Luntz on CNBC called the attack on the Capitol “horrible,” but he did not distance himself from the Big Lie that the election was stolen. Instead, he said we need to understand the anger and pain of of the Trump supporters: “They do believe that there’s voter fraud,” he said. “I think the business community is expecting Washington to get its act together. It’s expecting Republicans and Democrats to figure out what went wrong in their various states and address it so we never have an election process like we had.”

Dr. Frank Luntz is a complicated individual. His books, including “Words that Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear” (Hyperion Books, 2007), are filled with truly good advice on how to communicate. Which must be why he was invited to speak the PAO symposium in Baltimore in 2010 (unexpectedly dropping a figurative dog turd in the punch bowl). Questions remain about Luntz and his self-described “wisdom” as a pollster and strategist. Does he really believe he is an impartial broker of opinions when Republican backers fund his focus groups? Does he really want to bring both sides together? Does he think ends justify the means if wrongdoing is done in service to a higher power?

Luntz had the right to say what he wanted about Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi back then in Baltimore, but we have the right to turn away from his veiled hate, fears, and contempt.