>Does this Luntz fellow usually carry anyone in particular's water, or is he
>just bad at what he does?
He's pretty right-wing. But he also seems to tell people what they want to hear. He skewed his polling on the Contract With America so it made the thing look more popular than it turned out to be, and he did the Social Security/UFO poll to lubricate the privatizers' agenda. You could say he's good at what he does - but what he does is more about marketing than research.
Here's something I posted long ago. The Salon piece has all the details.
Doug
----
>Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 15:23:12 -0400
>To: lbo-talk <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
>Subject: Fwd: LUNTZ
>
>[from the American Association for Public Opinion Research list]
>
>AAPORITES,
>
>The current issue of Salon, an online magazine, is entitled:
>Why should we trust this man?
>Frank Luntz is king of the pollster pundits, but don't ask him where his
>numbers come from.
>
>Here is the address:
>http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/05/26/luntz/index.html
>
>
>I was on our council when the standards case was brought against Frank
>Luntz. It took a great deal of our time, and much much more from our
>president. Diane Colasanto did a great job getting this one through.
>
> It is rewarding to see a journalist keep this alive.
>
>Happy long weekend,
>
>Murray
>
>
>A couple of the highligts to spark your interest:
>...What's more, it's what allows Luntz to do this without citing a single
>polling result, a single number, and yet still be taken quite seriously as a
>pollster.
>...Of course it's hard to know how seriously to take Luntz. His "polling"
>and "analysis" always seems half-serious and half performance art. Whatever
>he really means, however, the media generally seems to take him at his word.
>Much of the polling industry, however, has been more circumspect.
>In 1997, Luntz was formally reprimanded by the American Association for
>Public Opinion Research <http://www.aapor.org/main.html> for his work
>polling on the GOP's 1994 "Contract with America" campaign document.