What is this?

Republican neo-conservatives have a highly sophisticated, coordinated and effective propaganda system. Their ability to stay on point and trick opponents into losing arguments is legendary. Their catchphrases and doublespeak are propaganda masterpieces. They represent the pinnacle of modern marketing science.

You may have wondered: "Who on earth writes this stuff?" Where do their talking points come from? Who taught them how to manipulate the public with such skill and precision?

It turns out his name is Frank Luntz. Since 1992 Luntz has been producing a secret playbook outlining the rhetorical strategy, updating it yearly, and disseminating to the top conservative commentators and politicians. To people such as Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Frist, and Sean Hannity this book is a gospel. Almost every verbal technique they use is outlined in this manual. It is responsible for every major neocon victory since the "Republican Revolution" of 1994.

This copy of the 2006 edition is the first ever leaked to the public. In it you can read the methods of linguistic realpolitik that conservative ideologues have faithfully put in play since its first publication.

The New American Lexicon

by Frank I. Luntz

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Tab 1: Introduction: Learning from 2004... Winning in 2006

Tab 2: Setting the Context and Tone

Tab 3: Growth, Prosperity & Restoring Economic Opportunity

Tab 4: International Trade: Promoting America’s Competitiveness

Tab 5: The Budget: Ending Wasteful Washington Spending

Tab 6: Tax Relief & Simplification

Tab 7: Social Security — Retirement Security

Tab 8: Lawsuit Abuse Reform: A Common Sense Approach

Tab 9: An Energy Policy for the 21 Century

Tab 10: Appendix: The 14 Phrases Never to Use

INTRODUCTION: LEARNING FROM 2004…WINNING IN 2006

So how does a President with a national job approval rating hovering at 50%, an economy that lost more than a million jobs over his four years in office, a war that has cost more than a thousand American lives and counting, $50 a barrel for oil, and a national mood that is downright sour still secure more than enough votes to win re-election? And what does it portend for the Republican Party in 2006?

The Republican answer? Credibility. George W. Bush had it. John Kerry did not.

This was not reality, but a propaganda victory. Bush was a spoiled, privileged, draft-dodging, scion with multiple business failures, and success due only to his family’s position and political power. Kerry was an actual war hero and political hero, attributes which were turned into a negative by lying propaganda.

The Truth

Wait for an expected attack from Osama Bin Laden and use that as a Causus Belli, a justification for an Oil War to take control and ownership of Iraqi oil.

The components of the Bush victory and Kerry defeat all boil down to a single candidate attribute that the President had in abundance but was AWOL from the Kerry campaign: “says what he means and means what he says.” In every state and national survey we conducted in 2004, no desired presidential attribute ever scored higher, and nowhere was Bush stronger and Kerry weaker. In every focus group I moderated, voters would plead for candidates who spoke from the heart and not from some speechwriter’s notes.

Propagandists from Lenin, to Goebbles, to Hitler agree that saying something simplistic, dumb and untrue, and repeating it over and over, will be more effective on the brute masses than a nuanced explanation or sophisticated analysis of facts.

And nowhere does the image of straight talk matter more than in areas of security: national security, economic security and personal security. John Kerry had bad two years to articulate a concise position on terrorism, the economy, and issues involving values. He couldn’t do it, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney did it every single day.

They lied about Iraq, they lied us into continual and unwindable wars, creating new enemies, destabiizling the middle east, north Africa and European in their quest for Iraqi oil.

Even during the three Presidential debates, the Massachusetts Senator gave answers that left uncommitted voters in my focus groups both confused and mystified. His critique of the current Administration’s failures clearly did political damage, but the electorate could not define exactly what he would do differently. What Kerry did not realize was that referencing “a plan” roughly two dozen times over 90-minutes is different than actually having one. In a post-9/l 1 world, voters simply could not elect a President whose position on the nation’s most salient issues were unknown, even to himself.

And yet they (kind of) elected Trump, a sociopath who repeats the same lies over and over, and has no plan for anything at all.

George W. Bush won because 9/11 had truly changed America and because he accurately reflected America’s resolve that the War on Terror has to be won. Not waged. Won. Voters concluded that while John Kerry could adequately manage a terrorist attack, it was President Bush who was more likely to prevent one.

PROPAGANDA - BUSH DID NOT PREVENT THE WORST ATTACK IN 70 YEARS. HE CAUSED IT.

Bush, Cheney and the NeoCons caused the attack. The first White House meeting of the first W. Bush Presidency was a meeting Cheney held with fellow oil company executives, including Tillerson. Bush was not invited. The minutes of that meeting and the list of participants have never been revealled.

In that meeting they determined that Iraq had the greatest reservoir of untapped oil and that, with a Sociopathic Tyrant in charge, it was there for the taking. And “Nation Building” would provide the propaganda cover for the gambit.

Bush the Elder, with his minister, Cheney, had instigated the first oil war, Desert Storm, in order to overthrow Saddam Hussein and install a puppet government that would cede oil rights to the US oil companies. To do this, they enabled the Kuwaitis to develop the technique of horizontal drilling. The Kuwaitis, with American help, drilled under the border with Iraq and into Iraqi oil fields, a technique and theft determined to cause a reaction from the former CIA asset, Saddam Hussein. Hussein reacted as expected. He queried April Gilspey, the American ambassador on America’s reaction if he were to take action to stop the theft. Gilspey responded that the US “would have no problem with that.”

When Hussein invaded Kuwait, American propaganda swung into action, with horror stories of slaughtered babies in their incubators. America was able to try out all its new war hardware in a Lightning War against Baghdad, but Bush and the NeoCons didn’t have the fortitude to take the casualties required to capture Baghdad and depose Hussein. They expected the Iraqi’s themselves to overthrow their Tyrant.

Hussein was too tough for them, wiping out the Swamp Arabs and others who threatened his tenure. An unexpected consequence was that in setting up an extensive air base in Saudi Arabia to support the war, America alerted a Saudi prince, Osama Bin Laden of it’s real intention, which was hegemony over the middle east and the capture, at a very good price, of the oil. The Saudi’s had long bought their internal stability by buying off fundamentalist muslims and supporting madrassas to spread terrorism against the west.

When Bush Junior was elected by the Supreme Court, the stage was set for another try at Iraq. They knew that Osama bin Laden “was determined to attack America” yet they did nothing but wait for a Causus Belli, a Cause for War. The deal was that the countries that joined us, the “Coalition of the Willing”, would get a piece of the action in oil rights. Administration incompetence caused hundred of billions of dollars to disappear. The war destabilized the Middle East, cost the American economy trillions of dollars, none of which was paid for by the oil companies, destabilized the middle East and north Africa caused a massive flow of refugees into Europe, among them many terrorists. The war goes on to this day, but Republicans take no responsibility for it. The oil companies still enjoy the flow of oil and the free support of the American military to protect and help deliver that oil to their US refineries.

PROPAGANDA LIES

Two key campaign events enhanced Bush’s role as America’s Defender and Kenny as weak and/or indecisive. The first was the Swift Boat ads. In my focus groups, Kerry’s convention performance was effective enough to change a few minds. But the blizzard of TV ads unleashed by the group of Vietnam vets blanketed the airwaves in swing states and undid whatever benefit the convention provided. True, the Swift Boat veterans never fully convinced voters that Kerry “betrayed” his country in wartime, but they did raise nagging and unresolved doubts about Kerry’ s character and judgment at the very moment that voters had begun to make up their minds.

The Swift Boaters we're a propaganda initiative funded by the Koch brothers and other Right Wing operatives through the Tea Party.

Another gambit was a clever disinformation campaign to sandbag a media critic, Dan Rather, Managing Director of CBS News, the network, and the media itself by proffering an account of Bush’s AWOL status and drug use during the Vietnam war. This had the added advantage of creating a doubt regarding Bush’s true perfidy.

The second key event was the Republican convention itself. Swing voters swung to Bush because of a powerfully delivered convention speech that was the right balance of domestic agenda and national security, and because he effectively communicated that he was truly a man on an unyielding mission. They heard a President who heard them, understood their concerns, addressed their fears,. and made them feel safer and more secure in their homes and in their country.

The President stormed out of New York with a double-digit lead that helped him survive the first debate and sustained him through Election Day, It also helped that he had the best communication team of this era in his corner.

PROPAGANDA - KOCH FUELED CONTROL AND INTIMIDATION OF MEDIA

Sure, the Democrats have clung to a desperate belief that Bush won because he waged a campaign of fear, The exact opposite was the case. Americans turned to him precisely because they saw him as the antidote to that fear.

PROPAGANDA CREATED CHARACTER FROM A TRUST FUND BABY

The results on Election Day illustrated an essential principle of electoral success: it is no longer enough to say no. Voters need someone who will say yes. John Kerry became a symbol for voters opposed to the President’s policies and procedures, but not much else. Conversely, George W. Bush became the vehicle for those who wanted an affirmative, proactive, preventative approach to homeland security. Americans will tell you that it was Bush, not Kerry, who offered the hope that personal security could be restored. And in this election, hope won.

When it came to the war on terror, Americans knew where their President stood and exactly what he believed. They simply did not share the same level of confidence in John Kerry. The events and aftermath of 911 may not have changed everything, but it certainly changed the outcome of the 2004 presidential race.

In the end, hope won.

Turning toward 2006, it has often been said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it That is excellent advice for the Republican Party, whose electoral position is eerily reminiscent of 1986 — when the GOP dropped seats in the House and lost control of the U.S. Senate in the sixth year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. The surprising electoral collapse crippled the Republican legislative agenda for nearly a decade — until the Contract with America reversed the Republicans’ misfortune in 1994.

You cannot permit history to repeat itself. By carefully examining what happened the last time the GOP had an incumbent President at the sixth year of his presidency, it will hopefully serve as the first step in preventing a similar catastrophe.

Here then are the seven reasons why the Republicans did so poorly and the Democrats did so well. In 2006, you will need to do things differently if you wish to deflect the infamous “sixth year itch.”

1) The 1980 election brought in weak Republican candidates that were finally swept out in 1986. The Republicans made sweeping House and Senate gains during the 1980 election due to the coattail effects of Ronald Reagan. The House lost 26 of the weaker seats in 1982 thanks to a poor economy, but it took until 1986 for the Senate to catch up. The reason: weak Republican Senate candidates who normally wouldn’t have won were elected and had six years before facing the voters again. In 1980, Bob Dole told reporters that ‘had we known we were going to win control of the Senate we would have run better candidates,’ Said Charlie Cook, “The crop of GOP candidates was the political equivalent of hothouse plants able to survive only under the most optimal conditions.”

Strategy: Acknowledge the complexity of your district and the challenges you face should the political climate turn sour. Too often Members in close elections acknowledge their electoral weakness after the election but don’t address it until it is too late. If you received less than 57% of the vote, your campaign should begin today: a 20-month effort that includes fundraising, voter contact, message development and grassroots operations. And all of it should be measured on a monthly basis.

2) Republicans stayed home. Both in 1982 and in 1986, Republicans did not turn out in usual off-year numbers. So not only were there no presidential coattails but the inverse was true. Democrats turned out in greater numbers, and they turned out Republican Members of Congress.

Strategy: Pick out issues that matter to the base and HOLD some of them until the second year of the Congress. This is very important. Republicans will want to go to THEIR people with THEIR legislation 30-days before Election Day when it is still fresh and newsworthy. Rather than rushing to pass all the good stuff in 2005, you need to keep at least one major item that can be voted on by Congress and signed by the President in the waning days of 2006.

3) There was a national theme. Local politics dominated the election. There was no umbrella effort to unite voters across the county to keep Republicans in office. It was assumed that Reagan himself would be the unifying force and “stay the course” would be the message. Instead, an incredible 30% of those who voted for Regan in 1984 actually voted for a Democrat Senate candidate in 1986 — and roughly 25% voted Democrat in House races.

Similarly, there was no presidential “bounce.” President Reagan campaigned hard to help keep Republican control of the U.S. Senate about as aggressively as George W. Bush did in 2002. However, by the sixth year of his term, Reagan was only able to achieve a 3-point bounce when he visited a state and it dissipated within a week.

Strategy: Do not depend on a nonpopular president to bring home the House and Senate. Republicans must establish. their own identity in advance. People have different reasons for casting votes in Congressional elections than in a presidential contest. “Getting things done for America” is exactly what they want from the next Congress and that’s why it should be at least a theme of your efforts.

4) Democrats fielded unusually strong candidates, Democrats afraid to run in 1984 lined up to take on Republicans in the off-year, and they had their best crop of candidates since 1974 (including Tom Daschle and Bob Graham). Democrat recruitment efforts started quite literally the day after Reagan’s landslide election, and by January 1, 1986, the seeds for a strong comeback had already been sewn. Moreover, the entire Democrat leadership was involved in the recruitment effort. Republicans took their strength for granted, and were surprised at the disaster that unfolded on Election Day.

Strategy: Assume that your opponent will be the toughest you’ll face in your political career — and start planning your response accordingy. Complacency is perhaps the biggest threat to an incumbent’s re-election hopes.

5) The gender gap was a chasm. Republicans won a barely tolerable 52% of the male vote and a disastrous 42% among women. In fact, it took eight years — 1994 — until the collapse among women was fully addressed, When asked why they abandoned the GOP, the Number One complaint was the tone: too harsh.

Strategy: Republicans need to cultivate the so-called security mom with a legislative and communication agenda targeted directly to them. Bush did better among women, particularly younger manied women, than any GOP candidate since 1988 because of security concerns. Security will keep these women voting Republican if they are addressed directly and personally. And since women value time over money, your strategy should include your successful efforts to promote legislation that in some way provides women more free time.

6) Republicans stayed in Washington while the Democrats beat them up at home. In the Georgia Senate race, incumbent Mack Mattingly had a 24-point lead with three weeks to go. In Alabama, Jeremiah Denton was up 15-points. Jim Broyhill was leading by 16- points. State after state, House and Senate Republicans had significant leads that evaporated because theft opponents were’ on the ground running hard while Republicans were inked in useless debate a thousand miles away. The Democrat strategy was to emphasize face-to-face contact and contrast that with the “out-of-touch Washington insiders.” Republicans, stuck in DC, were dependent on paid media to get theft message out — and it didn’t work.

Republicans Allied with crumb are afraid to return. Home and appear Before Town Halls. I cannot defend their positions on healthcare climate job creation taxes for the wealthy on the border wall on Nazi's or anything else. They are hiding out somewhere.

Conversely, Idaho Senator Steve Symms simply left DC and flew home — telling constituents that they were more important than whatever was being voted on in DC. He was one of the few GOP incumbents re-elected that year.

Strategy: Go home. Stay home. This is one of the most important lessons not just of 1986 but of the last ten years as well. The earlier and more often you get home to campaign, the better off you are. Every day you stay in DC after October 1st the more vulnerable you are.

7) The 1986 vote was a much older vote. Voters under 30 simply did not participate in 1986, while voters 55 and older came out in larger numbers. ‘rns older shift and concerns about what Republicans might do to Social Security and Medicare helped swing a number of close races to the Democrats.

Strategy: Republicans MUST do a better job communicating Social Security reform in 2005-06 than they did the prescription drug benefit in 2003-04. The fact is, seniors who understood the benefit came to appreciate it — and Republicans did better among the 60+ electorate than in any presidential contest since 1988 — but too many seniors were too ill informed, and that created too much unnecessary confusion. The communication training process for Social Security must be as formal, mandatory and comprehensive as the Medicare reform effort that took place back in 1995-96. Members must make the rounds of senior centers with formal presentations to address the scare tactics sure to be employed against them.

One final thought…

I was in high school, when Ronald Reagan was elected. Throughout his first term, he did a lot to change the course of America, yet I still remember thinking of all he could have done if he had a Republican House to match a Republican Senate. That was my dream, but I, like millions of Americans, knew that a House majority was impossible.

Today, as I complete this document, Republicans are more firmly in control than at any time in my lifetime, with a courageous President, a solid House and a new class of reformer Senators ready to make real fundamental change. And I am reminded of the political chant so commonly repeated in the 1960s...

If not us, who? If not now, when?

Now is the time. This is the place. You are the people. And these are the words.

SETTING THE CONTEXT AND TONE

OVERVIEW

Although Republicans and Democrats share most of the same hopes and fears, they frequently look at issues from completely different perspectives. So what do the vast majority ofAmericas really want?

TEN CONTEXTUAL KEYS

1) Symbols of America are as important as words. From the Statue of Liberty to the Lincoln Memorial to the American Bald Eagle, what you show can be as important as what you say. Use symbols to help convey your agenda more powerfully.

2) Talk about the principles of democracy and justice and explain how they fit into your policies. The public is ready for a philosophical discussion if you link philosophy to their day-to-day concerns.

3) It’s time for the GOP to tackle and own the principle of fairness. Define fairness as “equality of opportunity.

And yet so many Republicans are born to privilege and wealth… Fairness can only come about by a redistribution of that wealth.

4) When you speak of American ownership, be sure to frame it with the lens of opportunity. Ownership is limited, but THE OPPORTUNITY OF OWNERSHIP is limitless and the very definition of the American Dream.

It is the American myth. Ownership lies in the hands of 0.01%; the inheritors.

5) People want politicians who will humanize, personalize and individualize their policies, as well as politicians who talk about “the next generation.”

6) It is perfectly acceptable, if not imperative, that you address this values debate. And yes, it is FAMILY VALUES that Americans want and expect to see in you and in your policies.

7) Express the the day-to-day concerns of your constituents on a local/neighborhood level. No doubt you do, but you have to both show this and talk about it.

8) You need to be FOR something, rather than just AGAINST something.

9) Talk about “a more effective government” rather than no government, as well as a renewed focus on “goals and results, not partisanship or politics.”

10) Start and end with ACCOUNTABILITY. It matters most.

THE. TONE & CONTEXT

This is different from all the other chapters in this New American Lexicon because it is meant to be more contextual than linguistic. It is my belief that if you get the tone correct, the right words will surely follow.

1) The Power of Symbols. As you are well aware, communication does not exist solely in our words, either written or spoken. Americans draw upon a shared well of symbols, images that evoke concepts fundamental to our country. As our policies are produced with these concepts in mind — freedom, liberty, opportunity — there are timeless American images that match them. Communicating policies within these contexts and harnessing these symbols to match their principles is perhaps the most powerful form of communication there is.

When you speak of the 2005 legislative agenda, do not be afraid to wax poetic about this link between American icons of freedom and opportunity and the very legislation that you are discussing. It will not seem trite. It will not appear sordid. Indeed, will resonate with a power that cannot match that of your words and phrases. Language is your base. Symbols knock it out of the park.

That being said, not all symbols are created equally. Some pack more of a punch than others, and our research has shown us precisely those that work, and those that don’t.

First, you will never find any symbol as powerful as the American flag. The flag is in many ways an American Rorschach test — the inkblot upon which Americans project their ideals of America. It is both too easy and too vague at the same time.

Instead, you would do well to emphasize two other symbols of America that imply more specific ideals. The Statue of Liberty specifically symbolizes both freedom and opportunity — two inherent principles of the conservative party, while also appealing to our nation of immigrants. When asked, 64% of Americans chose the Statue of Liberty as one of the greatest symbol of America and American patriotism. That is why we chose Lady Liberty as the cover picture of this document.

Next in preference is the American Bald Eagle. It speaks to American independence, American exceptionalism and American power. It too implies conservative philosophies of strength and self-sufficiency.

The American people cannot always be expected to directly grasp the connection between your policies and your principles. Symbols bridge this gap, so use them, and use them liberally.

2) Get back to the fundamentals of America: DEMOCRACY and JUSTICE. As important as American symbols are the core fundamental American principles — those components pf the distinctively American creed we set forth in Philadelphia. They too must be harnessed for their own power. At the top of the list in the American mindset are Democracy (52%) and Justice (40%). These principles above all others should be essential components of the communications agenda. You must explain to voters precisely how your policies fit into American ideals of democracy and justice. Whether it is Social Security reform or outsourcing, tax simplification or energy, you must be prepared to incorporate them into these principles. If you can’t, you could lost the rhetorical fight before it has even begun.

Now I’m going to list some of the most fundamental principles of America. All of these are very important, but which is the SINGLE MOST important principle? (Combined First and Second Choices)

52% DEMOCRACY
40% JUSTICE
31% EQUALITY
29% OPPORTUNITY
22% SECURITY
21% FAIRNESS
4% DON’T KNOW/REFUSED

3) When you talk about FAIRNESS, talk about OPPORTUNITY. Quite honestly, we expected the principle of fairness to test better. It didn’t, but that doesn’t mean you can dismiss it. Just because it isn’t number one doesn’t mean that you can neglect it, The Democrats have their fair share of communicators who can rally Middle America by appeals to fairness. Remove that capability and you will have the majority for a generation.

In a recent poll for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, we gave Americans three definitions of fairness and asked them to choose the one they agreed with the most. The Number One answer:

“Fairness means that every American has the chance to succeed even if the ultimate outcome may vary.”

This underscores the common liberal/conservative debate over equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome. Americans believe in equal opportunity and reject programs that seek equal outcomes. The American people are, after all, realists at heart. So when you talk about fairness, talk about it in this context.

4) The POWER of OPPORTUNITY: “THE OPPORTUNITY OF OWNERSHIP". The Bush administration has wisely chosen to encapsulate their legislative agenda in a unifying theme of ownership. This is wise as it provides context and thematic undertones for theft policies. However, there is a way to add to its inherent appeal: add opportunity. The notion of opportunity tests better than ownership, and the two together test better than either individually.

5) “Compassionate Conservatism” still works. _And so does the appeal for limited government. But describe it, don’t say it. President Bush’s convention address marked the return of his primary campaign theme of 2000 — compassionate conservatism. But he added a twist.that you should definitely consider: a definition of the role of government as both positive and limited:

BUSH WORDS THAT WORK