HOT ! MSNBC hoodwinked by Repub pollster Frank Luntz !

http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/08/blumenthal-m-08-13.html

<snip>
Still another consultant who has been instrumental in setting the recall in motion -- and profiting from it -- is the Washington-based Luntz, a former pollster for Enron and Newt Gingrich. His services were retained by Issa's Rescue California to develop an anti-Davis strategy based on focus-group research conducted in Orange and Sacramento counties. His memo, provided in July by U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to the San Francisco Chronicle, outlined 17 ways to "kill Davis softly." "It is important to trash the governor," Luntz wrote, but he added, "Issues are less important than attributes and character traits in your recall effort." Luntz pointed out that the majority of Californians "are unfamiliar with the recall process -- and this uncertainty means voters can be easily swayed in either direction."

Luntz's tactics were on bold display during Schwarzenegger's boisterous Tonight Show appearance. The actor used the spot to announce his surprise candidacy while launching a withering attack on Davis and the Sacramento establishment before a national audience. Carefully avoiding mentioning the budget or any policy, Schwarzenegger boomed the Luntz-tested line, "Do your job for the people and do it well, otherwise you are 'Hasta la vista, baby!'"

....much, much more...
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Why did Arnold change consultants???
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On Aug. 13, Schwarzenegger shuffled his team, demoting Gorton and adding another consultant embroiled in the Quackenbush scandal, Martin Wilson, who accepted $375,000 from the former insurance commissioner. Gorton's role as Schwarzenegger's chief strategist has been assumed by Bob White, Gov. Wilson's former chief of staff. The move highlights Schwarzegger's close ties to Wilson, who is persona non grata among Latino voters for his support of the anti-immigrant initiative Prop. 187 in 1994.

After The Tonight Show, Gorton told a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle that he was unaware of Schwarzenegger's intentions prior to the program. Besides his impending demotion, there are other signs that Gorton may have been telling the truth. Russo recounts a series of private meetings, while Schwarzenegger was in Mexico City promoting Terminator 3, between Gorton and former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, who lost to Simon in the 2002 Republican gubernatorial primary. As Russo explained to me, Gorton was planning to jump ship and join Riordan's campaign if Schwarzenegger did not declare, moving from one self-funding client to the next.

But Schwarzenegger's announcement came as the greatest shock to Issa, who had already spent some of his car-alarm fortune to warm up a gubernatorial campaign. He had taken out radio ads, printed up posters and hired a new team of consultants, including Ken Khachigian, a veteran speechwriter who served on President Richard Nixon's 1972 campaign "attack group," and Larry McCarthy, the media producer of the infamous Willie Horton ad that helped elect George Bush Senior in 1988. However, with the Republican Party suddenly lined up behind Schwarzenegger, Issa's ambition was crushed. He found himself at a press conference, the victim of a vast Republican conspiracy, and he cried.
.....more...

Read the entire article-- it paints a good picture of just how the Repub Party works...

I hope it blows up in the Republcans faces. Conservatives are destroying this country.

If the people in California were aware of this, they would run every Repub in California out of their state !

They commit criminal farces on this nation daily.

MSNBC better start telling people up front about Lutz's connectons and motivations instead of promoting him as an "honest pollster".

There are certain standards in journalism and they are violating even the most basic!

:mad: :grr: :grr: :grr:

He seems to enjoy the "expertise" of Luntz more than anyone else?

got a link direct to tweety?

hardball@msnbc.com

n/t

to Chris Matthews. I sent the link and said that I could not believe he would have this character on his show if he knew his involvement in the CA recall..

at least they got two e-mails.

I tried to appear to be "reasonable" and calm about it although it took remarkable self-control.

Tweety knows exactly who LUNTZ is, and his constant presenting LUNTZ as "a pollster" without further qualifying it as "partisan Repuke operative" goes waaaaaaay back, at least to Campaign 2000.

Wish we could mount an offensive FORCING the media to identify everybody on the air, like Bill SCHNEIDER as AEI Fellow, Tony SNOWjob as having been the one who referred Linda TRIPP to Lucianne, Dick MORRIS as Roy COHN's cousin, ad infin.

As for e-mails, I will join you in sending, but I have a plastic storeage bin-full of e-mails sent to the media whores, dating back to the FAKE impeachment, throughout Campaign 2000, and petering out recently------------notice any difference in the media whores?

Not being discouraging here, just toughening with a splash of cold water. We NEED to be tough.

You would assume that legitimate journalist would expose those among them who do not hold to the professions standards, but they don't.

btw: didn't know about Tony Snow...thanks

Who is Roy Kohn?

was the attorney for Joseph McCARTHY during the witchhunt years of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee hearings. A rabid wingnut, even MORE than Tricky Dick who was in his earliest phase of the same scoundrelism. COHN was vicious about badgering, getting names of "Commie Reds", etc. He was also, I believe, anti-Gay, and guess what, he was Gay and died many years later of AIDS. There's a great movie bio of COHN with that great but politically erratic actor, James WOODS. COHN was of the ESTRADA (Shrub's nominee for judge) school of sexual identity, ESTRADA who supposedly picked up a same-sexer, did the things in the hotel room, then jumped out of the bed after it was over and yelled, "YOU'RE GAY!!!!!!" To which his partner replied, "So are you." And ESTRADA said, "No, I'm NOT!"

I had never heard that.

That is why it is important to let them know they are being watched.

...to point out that articles by "The Observer" were written by Molotov and came down directly from Stalin.

Sure MSRNC is going to ID Luntz for what he is.

Sure they will.

he was introduced as "independentpollsterFrankLuntz"...much like "formerdemocraticadvisorPatCadell"....and over time he has been outed and was then "formerrepublicanpollster"...and now he's just "republicanpollster".. It's message creep.. Bit by bit, it morphs into the reality, but you don't notice it because it keepos shifting..

All he had to do was open his mouth the FIRST time, and I had him pegged.. He giggled with glee every time someone said something bad about Gore.. All that was missing when he spoke about Gore...was the creepy spooky music...

Bush...goooooood......Gore....baaaaaad..

Luntz makes my skin crawl everytime I see him.

a polster who draws up campaign strategy, more thugs and Repug operatives in the background and frontground and they steal another election....

This is how they make and break people in politics these days and yet CNN, MSNBC and Networks say nothing about how this was planned and staged. And Lunz says in the article: "people of California don't know their own laws so it was easy to manufacture the recall" (loose quote from article) That was an admission that they think people are stupid, don't know laws and they will take advantage of this any way they can. The first success on a major scale was Florida in Selection 2000.......now they are on a "roll" and they won't stop with California.

Anyone who thinks that Cynthia McKinney and Max Cleland lost because the "voters of Georgia" didn't like them is smoking something really strong.......

These are the people who will smear whatever Democratic Candidate they see as a threat. They have the Media on their side to keep their lies from being exposed and they make or break whomever they want.

When will this be exposed?

As the wife in "Reflections in a Golden Eye" by Carson McCULLERS said as she surveyed her fellow patients in the mental hospital.

These real ones, are the usual Repuke dregs, greedy pricks.

Really, beyond this current CA plan, I'm paranoically suspecting that it's bigger than that: It's the cornerstone for Shrub's stealing CA in '04.

Shrub's 2000 thing was set-up before: First get in in TX, Get Jeb Crow Shrub in FL, get a Repuke as LT Gov in TX for when Shrub leaves.

These greedy pricks in CA know that whatever they can plunder in CA will expotentially mushroom if they can keep Shrub in place. Please tell me I'm wrong.

I can't say that you're wrong.

Everytime I think I'm just paranoid, I remember Freud's quote: "Even Paranoids have enemies."

Someone has to expose these criminals.

He is not getting covered for obvious reasons, but he seems to be the only one who will speak to these issues. There must be a way we can get him and Carter on this issue. This goes to the very basis of democracy.