Did you see Bill Maher's discussion with Republican pollster Frank Luntz on this week's edition of Real Time? If you didn't and you wanna, here it is…
Usually on the Internet, when you see a headline that says "X Destroys Y" or "X Owns Y," it means X made one decent point against Y. But this discussion went so badly for Luntz that when he came back on for Maher's Overtime segment later, he said, "No more. You killed me already!"
Personally, I thought Maher let Luntz get off easy. When Maher did his usual riff about how American voters are stupid, Luntz started to defend them and Maher didn't say something like…
That's disingenuous, Frank. Your entire business is built on the assumption that American voters are so stupid and shallow that you can do focus groups with the dumber ones, then politicians pay you big bucks to suggest words and phrasing that change voters' perception of things. You can suggest referring to the Inheritance Tax as a "Death Tax" and a lot of these low-information voters will turn against it or even think it's an entirely different thing. Your livelihood comes from inventing cute little phrases that distract people who either aren't paying close attention or who can be distracted by bright, shiny things. If voters were smarter and looked deeper, you'd have no career.
I sense Maher operates on the principle that you can say anything to a guest as long as it wouldn't make them refuse to ever come on the show again, so maybe he thought that would have crossed the line. Maybe not though. Guys like Luntz build their businesses on their fame and figure that what matters is not what people think of them but that people do think of them. That Trump guy is of much the same mind, figuring he's winning on at least some level any time people are talking about him, good or bad. He probably thinks that even if he loses the election, he will make a profit in terms of fame, which in his case has usually meant fortune.
What really set Maher off against Luntz was when Luntz tried to spin what the FBI director said about Hillary C. as "nearly criminal activity." Guys like Luntz are all about spin. No matter what your opponent says or does, you look at it and think, "Hmmm…how can I rephrase that to make it look bad or worse for them?" That's what Luntz gets paid to do and it only works with voters who aren't too well-informed or who have an existing hate of a candidate or party and welcome anything, true or not, that validates their views.
As we approach November, more and more of this election will not be about convincing voters that one candidate is better than another but in stoking the hate/fear some already have of that candidate to make sure their haters get to the polls. Dr. Luntz has a lucrative few months ahead of him.