Rush: Frank Luntz Blames Us!

[mystery-ak]

Frank Luntz Blames Us!

Nov 4, 2020



RUSH: Do you remember Frank Luntz? Frank Luntz is a famous pollster and focus group researcher, and he’s hired by countless numbers of American corporations to do market research.

So he’s essentially a pollster, and Frank Luntz has been all over television the past few weeks suggesting that if the pollsters get it wrong again, that that ought to be the end of the line for them. It ought to be the end of their business, will be the end of their reputation. He was so certain the polls were right, they’re not gonna get it wrong again, he said.

“The polls are not wrong. Trump is gonna lose in a landslide! It’s gonna be a blue wave,” Frank Luntz said. Charlie Cook, ditto. Charlie Cook — the dean, the guru of this stuff inside the Beltway — assuring everybody, “The polls are dead-on. Trump is toast. Trump is history. He’s going to be swept out of town in a blue wave. It’s Biden plus eight! It’s Biden plus 10!”

Then we have our famous narratives that have been making excuses ever since last night — actually, the day before yesterday. Well, Luntz was wrong. The pollsters were wrong. So, Frank, I guess you’re gonna be telling these pollsters to close up shop because they’ve lost all credibility.

Actually, I have thoughts on this as the program unfolds. But that’s not what Frank Luntz is gonna do. You know how I’ve reminded you over the course of many, many years that the news business is the one business in America with the customer’s always wrong?

If you read the New York Times or watch CNN or whatever, CBS, ABC, NB, and you don’t like what you see, and you’re a customer, you’re a consumer. And you watch ’em, you read them, they have advertising. You are a customer when you are patronizing mainstream news. So you call ’em and say, “You guys are so biased. You’re so unfair,” what do they tell you?

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” they say. “You’re not smart enough to follow what we do. You’re nowhere near sophisticated enough to understand our business; so screw you.” And they laugh at you and they make fun of you, and then they deny that they’re liberal, and they deny that they’re biased. They blame you.

So I want you to listen to this. This is Frank Luntz not long ago on the Fox News Channel. He is being interviewed by Bret Baier. “After the last round in 2016, we heard that there were adjustments being made, that the pollsters had a better sense of the Trump voter, and that the mistakes of 2016 wouldn’t be made again. You guys were gonna get it right and that you had it right and that Trump was toast. But, Frank, it’s actually worse this year than it was in 2016. Pollsters got it wrong worse in 2020 than they did in 2016. How do you explain it?”

LUNTZ: Because it is impossible to poll them. The fact is a lot of Trump people want to send a message to Washington, to the swamp. They want to send a message that they’re not going to be treated and ignored and forgotten and lied to. And so they simply don’t cooperate with pollsters.

RUSH: So it’s your fault. Did you hear that? It’s your fault that the professional pollsters can’t do their jobs. Mr. Snerdley, did you hear that? It’s your fault. You Trump voters specifically, it’s your fault. You can’t be trusted. You can’t be polled. You’re smarter than the pollsters, and you lie to them. They can’t do their jobs because of you.

My goodness, folks. Holy smithereens. Now they’re blaming the customer again. They’re blaming you because they can’t find a way to get you to tell them the truth. And they don’t think that there’s any responsibility on their part for this current state of affairs. Why? Frank, why are people not honest with pollsters?

Could 2016 have anything to do with it? Could the daily Drive-By Media presentation have anything to do with it? Could the fact that Trump voters think that pollsters and the media are trying to destroy Donald Trump, could it have anything to do with it? This is not happening in a vacuum. There are reasons people do things. There are reasons people behave as they do.

“Because it’s impossible to poll them. The fact is a lot of Trump people want to send a message to Washington, to the swamp. They want to send a message, they’re not gonna be treated and ignored and forgotten and lied to. And so they simply don’t cooperate with the pollsters.”

It means they’re outsmarting the pollsters. It means these idiot Trump voters are finding a way to ruin the pollsters’ reputations, right, Frank? Man, oh, man, I never thought I’d see the day. These Trump voters, they must be pretty crafty. They must be pretty sneaky. They must be pretty sharp, if they’ve found a way to humiliate and embarrass these massively popular, profoundly expertise polling units. These hayseed hicks. These people that live out there in flyover country have found a way to outsmart the smartest of the smart inside the Washington Beltway, the pollsters. I find it fascinating.

Anyway, folks, bottom line, your fault. Your fault they’re screwing up. Your fault Nate Silver can’t get it right. Your fault Charlie Cook wrong again. Your fault. ABC, CBS, NBC, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, take your pick of all these combo polling units, it’s your fault because you have found a way to undermine their business. If I were you, I’d be feeling pretty hot about now, you know, pretty good.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: There is a story at TheHill.com today. “Frank Luntz: Polling Profession ‘Done’ After Election Misses: ‘Devastating to My Industry.'” So he’s being consistent. He did say weeks ago that if they got it wrong in 2020, that it would be “devastating to my industry,” quote, unquote.

Story today. “Frank Luntz declared that ‘the polling profession is done’ after this year’s presidential election, in which a number of polls appeared to show a much brighter picture in various states for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.” They did get it wrong.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I have a different take on the pollsters. A lot of people say, “Oh, man, they got it wrong again, Rush. Look at that!” No, they didn’t, folks. They did their jobs. The pollsters had a mission, and it was accomplished. Frank Luntz is just running cover for ’em. Conventional wisdom is the pollsters screwed up. Conventional wisdom is that the pollsters got it wrong again.

If the polls were not intentionally wrong, the Democrat National Committee would be screaming their heads off. But they’re not. The Democrat National Committee is not mad at these poll results, are they? You haven’t heard anybody express anger, except maybe Luntz. Because I’m telling you the polls did exactly what the Democrat National Committee wanted ’em to do.

The polls went out… They don’t reflect public opinion, they shape it, and they went out and they tried to suppress the vote. They didn’t succeed because the Trump vote was overwhelmingly large. But they still did their jobs. The Democrat National Committee is not mad at ’em. The New York Times is not mad at its polling unit. The Wall Street Journal is not mad at its.