Let Them Eat Words
Linguistic lessons from Republican master strategist Frank Luntz
by DEBORAH
TANNEN
The American
Prospect, September 1, 2003
I'm one of many
Democrats who watch in frustration (mixed with a touch of awe) as Republicans win with
words, even as the labels they devise for their policies distort or belie the facts. Take
the repeal of the estate tax. An "estate" sounds like a large amount of money.
Indeed, before President Bush persuaded Congress to legislate a phase out of the estate
tax, only the largest 2 percent of estates were subject to this tax. But change the name
to "death tax" and many more Americans become sympathetic to repeal. After all,
everyone dies. Death is bad enough without being taxed.
How many would
get all worked up about an exceedingly rare abortion procedure (that the Alan Guttmacher
Institute estimated represents less than one-fifth of 1 percent of all abortions performed
in the United States in 2000)? But attach the name "partial-birth abortion" and
a second-trimester fetus becomes a half-born baby. Legislation to outlaw the vaguely
described medical procedure then becomes another success in chipping away at
constitutionally protected abortion rights -- as well as a wedge issue to defeat
Democratic candidates. According to an insider in Al Gore's 2000
Who among us
wants to call ourselves anti-life? Win the name game and you're more than halfway toward
winning the battle. Win enough naming battles and you're on your way to winning the war.
During the 2000
campaign, I was a guest on a radio talk show discussing Republicans' and Democrats'
appeals to women voters. A woman called in to say, "I'm for education and I'm for the
environment. Bush is for education and Gore is for the environment, so I don't know who to
vote for." Beyond the breathtaking oversimplification (reducing a complex set of
positions and policies to being "for"), I marveled at the caller's conviction
that because George W. Bush had declared himself for education -- who on earth is against
it? -- his policies were necessarily more likely than Al Gore's to improve education for
all American children.
Recent news
reports are filled with stories of a mounting crisis in public education: teachers fired,
new hires frozen, class sizes burgeoning, Head Start threatened, even schools closing
because the administration's gigantic tax cuts have caused enormous deficits at the state
as well as the federal level -- all in the shadow of the shamelessly named No Child Left
Behind Act, which mandates testing and changes the formula for federal aid but provides no
new funding to improve the quality of schools or of teaching.
Exploiting the
power of language to persuade, despite the absence of policies to back up the words, is
the openly stated goal of Republican strategy as articulated by Frank Luntz, the
Republican pollster and tactician who was one of the primary drafters of the GOP's
"Contract with
The cynicism in
Luntz's advice is astonishingly explicit. On the subject of the gender gap, for example,
he informed Republican members of Congress that they could woo women with words (no need
for troublesome deeds). While acknowledging that women (like the caller to the radio talk
show) care about education, he cautions against trying to back up promises with actual
programs:
I begin with the premise that we must do
no harm. That is, we should not undermine our growing strength among working-class white
men (1994 set a modern-day record) in our efforts to reach out and communicate to women. I
refuse to advocate an educational strategy that leads to a net loss of votes just to win
over a few women and silence a few media critics. It would be unwise and foolish. ...
I do not
subscribe to the notion that we must change our substance or create a separate women's
agenda. Listening to women and adapting a new language and a more friendly style will
itself be rewarded if executed effectively and with discipline.
These excerpts come from a document that
Luntz circulated to Republican members of Congress in 1997 titled "The Language of
the 21st Century." The section that came to my attention was "Addressing the
Gender Gap," but it provides a blueprint reflected in Republicans' rhetoric in other
areas as well. Luntz's advice boils down to this: Forget action. Improve your image by
revising the way you talk. Let them eat words.
Luntz's Words in Bush's Mouth
Prominent among
the words Luntz advises Republicans to use in their speeches is children:
Women consistently respond to the phrase
'for the children' regardless of the context. From balancing the budget to welfare reform,
'for the children' scores highest of all arguments offered. Therefore, rather than
creating a 'Compassion Agenda,' Republicans need to create a communication framework that
involves children....
During Bush's
presidential campaign, children darted in and out and played around in speech after
speech. For example, toward the end of a campaign speech to the New Hampshire Chamber of
Commerce, Bush proclaimed, "In all the confusion and controversy of our time, there
is still one answer for our children." In a speech he delivered in
Stun Them With
Fear, Lure Them With Hope
The welter of
words that stir emotions -- and in particular the word hope repeated as an
incantation -- can also be heard as echoes of Luntz's advice. "Politics remains an emotional
arena," he writes, "and television has made fear a very salable commodity. But
fear alone is not enough. The commodity Americans most desire -- and the one in
shortest supply -- is hope."
First, however,
the fear. For example, in his
Then, following
Luntz's advice that the GOP must "restore the American dream of hope," Bush
claimed that the problem with education is not a matter of education per se -- surely not
a matter of how much funding is made available to schools -- but of "the diminished
hopes of our current system." He went on: "Safety and discipline are essential.
But when we dream for our children," -- there's that phrase "for the
children" -- "we dream with higher goals. We want them to love learning. And we
want them to be rich in character and blessed in ideals."
Bush further
declared, "Everyone must have a first-rate education," not because of the value
of education itself or because it provides opportunities for upward mobility and escape
from poverty but "because there are no second-rate children, no second-rate
dreams."
True to Luntz,
these emotionally evocative words were backed up by no concrete proposals to make schools
better, just the cost-free promise that charities and faith-based organizations would be
invited to establish after-school activities on school grounds, and that students who
attend dangerous schools "will be given a transfer to ... a safe school." (The
practical implications of this proposal are mind-boggling: Would the schools in poor
neighborhoods stand empty as their students are bused en masse to wealthier counties?)
Bush did propose additional funding -- not to hire more teachers or improve schools but
for "prosecutors and the [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives]"
to prosecute and convict children who bring guns to school.
"It's
government's role to create an environment where everyone can dream and flourish," to
"help people ... build and dream." The purpose of prosperity is to "make
the American dream touch every willing heart. ... Because changing hearts will change our
entire society. The greatness of
If you think
these exhortations sound like an inspirational sermon, or a seminar led by a New Age guru,
you're right. They do sound like that. But in fact they were part of a plea for campaign
contributions on the Web site georgewbush.com. Indeed, just about all of Bush's campaign
speeches were studded with hearts. When speaking in
Taking a Tip
From
At several
points, Luntz's "The Language of the 21st Century" pays homage to the
public-speaking skills of the Republican Party's nemesis, President Clinton. "When
Bill Clinton trumpeted his 'bridge to the future' theme at the Democratic
convention," Luntz writes, "it really was over for Bob Dole." Luntz applies
this lesson to women voters in particular. "Women want their elected officials to
plan for the future, not just live for today," he writes. But again, this doesn't
mean that Republicans, when elected, need to actually plan for the future; it's just a
prescription for rhetoric. "Every speech must end with your vision of the
future," Luntz advises. "Every speech should conclude with the message of
'limitless dreams, unending possibilities and the promise of a better future for ourselves
and our children'." And there it is: Bush's
By adopting
emotional language without changing policies, Luntz tells them, Republicans can have it
all: Like Pavlov's dogs, voters will come running if you ring the right verbal bells. When
applied to women voters, this advice makes me cringe with particular unease because it's
reminiscent of my book You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. In
it, I explained that many women are frustrated when they tell a husband or boyfriend about
a problem and he tells them how to fix it; more often than not, what she's looking for is
the reassurance that he's willing to listen and that he understands how she feels. This
sounds frighteningly (to me) like what Luntz has to say on the gender gap. He writes:
"From getting the kids out of bed, fed and off to school to the demands of work
outside the home, women are working longer and harder than ever, and they want to know
that their elected representatives understand this. Tell them. Empathize. Take the
time to let them know you truly understand what they are going through."
But wait.
Understanding may be all that a woman is looking for when telling her husband or boyfriend
about something that frustrated her that day. But when they go to the polls to elect a
leader, women as well as men are selecting not a soul mate but a public official whose job
is to solve at least some of the country's problems -- or at least to address them
honestly.
I see another
parallel, too, between lessons women have learned when their styles contrast with men's
and lessons Democrats can learn when their styles contrast with Republicans'. By
harnessing the power of language in the absence of action, Republicans have managed to
have their cake and eat it, too: On the one hand, they pursue policies that benefit the
few; on the other, they garner votes from the many. Perhaps it is the very fact that
Democrats have the policies and the record to justify their appeal to the many that they
haven't thought as much as Republicans have about what words will galvanize voters. It's a
bit like women who believed that if they did a good job it would be recognized -- only to
see their male colleagues getting the credit, and the promotions.
Triumph Through
Repetition
Recall the
excerpts I quoted at the start. Luntz promised that changing words, not works, would be
successful "if executed effectively and with discipline." This caveat was not
casually tossed out. He cautioned Republicans that "good communication is more than
just words, phrases and messages." I'll pause here for a moment to give you a chance
to predict how you expect Luntz's next sentence to read. OK, here it is: "As a party
and as a movement, we will fail if we continue to go it alone or change messages daily. We
can only succeed when we work together and talk together and stick together as a team.
Only through a movement-wide effort and constant repetition can our voices unite in
perfect harmony."
Devising labels
and phrases that win over audiences, regardless of the facts, is only a beginning. The big
trick is getting the labels to stick. And that's where unity and repetition come in.
Democrats have long envied the Republicans their party discipline. Now they can add
discipline in agreeing on the words and phrases to use when describing the policies that
Democrats oppose or support.
Frank Luntz
wrote "The Language of the 21st Century" in 1997, before President Clinton
succeeded in balancing the budget and President Bush succeeded in creating the largest
budget deficit in American history. Now that the tables have turned, Democrats could take
Luntz's advice. "We need simply to state: 'We must not mortgage our children's future
to pay for the mistakes of today.' We need simply to ask: 'What does this do to the
children?'"