(ePluribusMedia OhioNews Bureau)
The GOP polling strategist who says it’s not what people say that’s important but what they hear, hopes GOP presidential hopefuls hear his latest message about how they can reverse their political fortunes in 2008.
In spite of the increasing uphill battle GOP candidates face in distancing themselves from eight years of a bloated, incompetent Bush White House that wants endless war no matter what the cost in lives or treasure for Americans or anyone else and that acts like it’s the only branch of government that matters, Frank Luntz, author of the book "Words That Work: It’s not What You Say, It’s What People Hear," offers a "comeback strategy" to Republicans in an op-ed story in the Los Angeles Times that offers a sliver of hope to the all-male, all-white revue.
THE GAUNTLET TO VICTORY IN OHIO
Regardless of how bleak the path forward looks for them now, Luntz says beating the likes of Clinton, Obama or Edwards can only be achieved if the GOP standard bearer executes on the following trifecta of campaign components, otherwise he may end up driving a stake through his own heart at the same time he nails the coffin lid shut on the GOP.
In order, Luntz lays out the gauntlet to victory: the campaign must execute on agenda and message, have an innovative candidate who focuses on independent voters and – it must win Ohio.
Republicans have never won the presidency without winning Ohio and in the last 102 years. Ohio has voted for the winner in 24 of 26 elections.
Luck, said Luntz, must also be present in great abundance, but barring Devine intervention between now and Election Day, the polling pundit said the situation Republicans find themselves in today is worse than last fall, when they lost big, at the state and national levels, in the 2006 midterm elections.
One Ohio blogger translated Luntz's langugage into Ohioese.
(Luntz) The success of the Republican Party since 1980 was to eschew definition or brand. Whatever hopes, dreams and aspirations people saw in themselves were seen in the Republican Party. That's all gone now. The Democrats didn't win in 2006. The GOP lost. And for the party to keep the White House in 2008, it will require a Herculean effort."
(WMD’s) Allow me to translate for Luntz: the Big Tent Theory is done. It is time to find a new strategy. It is time to stand for things that we believe in; not try to be all things for all people. Republicans need to inspire people by what they believe in as a positive future for Ohio and the nation. Authenticity will trump a "platform" of ambiguous platitudes.
HEARING IS SEEING
In a nutshell, Luntz lays the landscape for Republicans here:
• The electorate is the most pessimistic in a generation. Just 19% of Americans believe that the country is headed in the right direction, while 75% believe that things are "off on the wrong track," according to a "CBS News" national survey conducted last month. Most of the country is in a nasty, irritable mood, and incumbent parties are historically tossed out of power when expectations turn so ugly.
• The president's approval ratings are barely hovering in the upper 20s, an all-time low, having plummeted since his reelection less than three years ago. In the last 50 years, only Richard Nixon had a lower approval score. And not since Harry Truman in 1948 has a political party maintained the White House with an incumbent so personally unpopular.
• When asked what party they will vote for in the 2008 presidential election — a "generic ballot" question that does not include any candidate names — voters choose the Democrats by a sizable 18 percentage points, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey. We haven't seen such a one-party advantage since the Watergate era.
BUSH SO BAD REPUBLICANS NEED "MEN IN BLACK" MEMORY ZAPPER
Luntz says his focus groups keeping tell him, "Don't tell us what George W. Bush did wrong. Tell us what you will do right. Don't talk about the past. Tell us about the future."
What a dilemma were in, when learning about history has become history in this nation. Bush is so bad, Republicans would like the memory-zapping gizmo in the movie "Men in Black" to be a real thing they can buy at Best Buy so they can erase eight years of abject nuttery by Bush and Company.
Not wanting to know what went wrong so the same mistakes are not bad again, is like taking your car in to a mechanic and asking that it be fixed without first finding out what's wrong with it.
Remember the warnings of George Orwell in 1984: "He who controls the present controls the past, and he who controls the past controls the future." Orwell was prescient then, because we're blinded to the reality of where we've been now.
THE FINAL STRAW MAY BE A BUCKEYE INSTEAD
"To be perfectly blunt," Luntz said, "no Republican can win the White House without winning Ohio."
A successful Republican candidate in Ohio will have learned how to articulate a culturally conservative message fused with government accountability and economic opportunity specifically tailored to voters in the industrial heartland. Without the support of the anxious working class, Ohio will also turn deep blue. And so will the United States.