As The Teeter Totters

As The Teeter Totters.... These Are The Days of Our Lives
The uninteresting thing about Soap Operas is that if you are over 12 years old (age or IQ), you can watch them without the sound and still follow the storyline because the scripts are so predictable. You can flip the channels and find a different one with a different name and different characters, but the storyline is the same. And such it is with the American Soap Opera of Politics. Recently, the Republican Governor's Association held a pep rally to commiserate and layout their strategies for the next four years. One of the sessions was the post mortems on the 2008 election cycle including a presentation by Frank Luntz giving his analysis and recommendations. At the moment he takes the podium, you can turn off the sound and just watch because we already know the script. But I do recommend that you watch it anyway because never has the facilitation on the agenda been more obvious.
You have to be brute for punishment to watch it. The best description I can give is that it is a surreal experience without the mushrooms - truly out of body, "Are they for real? Are they are on a different planet - or am I?" To be fair, Luntz did start out by telling the Governor's that "It's the Internet Stupid!" not original - but truthful. The Republicans "don't get the Internet". They lost the youth vote. They lost the Independent vote. The Republican political center collapsed. The rest of his presentation - if the Governor's believed what he said, will cause the Republicans to spend the next four years looking ridiculous as they continue to implement the agenda that hasn't changed regardless of the election outcome. I'm not going to go through the whole program - it's too painful. But I can't pass up commenting on Frank Luntz' poll results on the top four priorities of Americans - "what do you want more of that you don't have enough of". He allegedly did a poll to find out their priorities and then another poll to find out which were most important.
Results: Men want more money Women want more time		According to Luntz, the priorities are: Fewer Hassles More Choices More Money More Time Luntz then went through his standard demonstration... with the question above. Ok.. everybody stand up, now who thinks... A.. sit down; who thinks B... sit down, etc. At the end there was only one Governor standing who Luntz said, "understands the American people". The results he gave, you can see on the left. Then he went into a segment on "visuals that work". He had one visual for the American Dream - and another visual for travel and tourism. "Coincidently, the travel and tourism visual corresponds to Luntz' poll results of "what Americans want more of".
His visuals for "what Americans want" was a woman in a hammock on Bora Bora (been there) and an image of what appeared to be the fountains of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. I think it was at that point that I had the out of body. If the Republican Governor's set out on the next four years with the delusion above, the Republican party is finished... and from where I sit, that wouldn't be a bad thing. 21 Words for the 21st Century One other not so obvious manipulations of Frank Luntz was when he listed his "21 Words for the 21st Century". This segment begins at 16:53 into the program. Pay very close attention to his words and his rhetoric. "Certified" - "We want that independence" Americans want the independence of "certification"? Think of the contradiction of that. You're a certified driver. How independent does that make you feel? If you go for a job and they demand a "certification", how does that make you free? Read this website to see what they have in mind for "certification" because it sure as hell is not about used cars. http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/ I never realized the level of manipulation of our elected officials by people like Frank Luntz. I only hope that they realize it and wish that they would kick people like him to the curb. In fact, everybody who was a "thought leader" at that conference needs to be kicked to the curb because they don't get it. What the Governor's need to realize is that it is - "The Internet, Stupid!" And what that means is that the Information Revolution has put the world of information at the fingertips of everybody at a keyboard with a connection. It means that the politicians are living a fishbowl and their carefully crafted messages of BS won't work anymore. It means that if they want the Republican party to make a comeback, they are going to have to stop brain sharing with the *** in the Washington DC cesspool. It means that they are going to have to get real honest and they are going to have to grow a spine. And if they are smart, they will sever the cord with the agenda coming from Washington DC even though it means passing up that federal money because that federal agenda is taking our country down. And that's a fact and everybody on the Internet knows it and that's what elected officials need to learn - from the Internet. ******* Link to the Republican Governor's Association Conference. This conference is posted in a very non-descript way so you have to read the titles. Title: Republican Governors Panel on 2008 election. The date is Wednesday; in Miami Florida This link might get the program for you: http://www.c-span.org/search.aspx?For=Republican+daterange%3a2008-11-10..2008-11-17&By=Date
Vicky Davis November 17, 2008