R i g h t a r d i a: Mario Piperni: Republican spin on Occupy Wall Street

Friday, December 2, 2011

Mario Piperni: Republican spin on Occupy Wall Street

GOP spinmeister Frank Luntz

Frank Luntz, a biased Republican pollster, told a meeting of Republican Governors how deeply concerned he was about the impact Occupy Wall Street is having on political discourse and American’s view of capitalism.

Imagine having people realize that capitalists don’t always have their best interests at heart. That would do serious damage to that ‘job creators’ image conservatives have so carefully crafted over the last while.

Luntz outlined his strategy on how conservatives should deal with the movement. Chris Moody has the full list.

Don’t say ‘capitalism.’: “I’m trying to get that word removed and we’re replacing it with either ‘economic freedom’ or ‘free market,’ ” Luntz said. “The public . . . still prefers capitalism to socialism, but they think capitalism is immoral. And if we’re seen as defenders of quote, Wall Street, end quote, we’ve got a problem.”
Don’t say ‘tax the rich’: “If you talk about raising taxes on the rich,” the public responds favorably, Luntz cautioned. But ”if you talk about government taking the money from hardworking Americans, the public says no. Taxing, the public will say yes.”
Don’t say ‘middle class’: “They cannot win if the fight is on hardworking taxpayers. We can say we defend the ‘middle class’ and the public will say, I’m not sure about that. But defending ‘hardworking taxpayers’ and Republicans have the advantage.”
Don’t say ‘entrepreneur’: “Use the phrases “small business owners” and “job creators” instead of “entrepreneurs” and “innovators.”
Blame Washington for everything: Tell them, “You shouldn’t be occupying Wall Street, you should be occupying Washington. You should occupy the White House because it’s the policies over the past few years that have created this problem.”