Donald Trump as president should seek the “dramatic change” he promised as a candidate, pollster Frank Luntz advised, while seeking to engage in less “bomb throwing.”
“While many Americans are surprised by the [election], the people who populate the punditry class are truly shocked by it,” Luntz wrote in a Friday column for Time. “I’m one of them. Many of us relied on a set of polls that were structurally off by two or three points in favor of Clinton, and exit polls that were simply wrong.
“Trump voters weren’t lying to the pollsters or afraid to be counted. On Election Day and before, they simply refused to be polled. They refused to participate in a political exercise they saw as rigged against them,” he added.
“My recommendation to him, and to all elected officials, is to remain true to an agenda of dramatic change (which wide majorities of voters want), but to adopt a tone that is welcoming rather than incendiary,” Luntz wrote. “Whoever came up with Trump’s ‘contract with the American voter’ certainly deserves a place in his Cabinet.”
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Luntz said Trump should focus on what he described as the “inefficiency, ineffectiveness and unaccountability of the federal government.”
“If Donald Trump is serious about draining the swamp, he’ll start with a forensic audit of the federal budget, going line by line, program by program through the thousands of pages until he has enough programs to cut to bring our books to balance,” Luntz contended.
“The bottom line: Voters have made it clear that they want a shake-up, and they want progress, not just bomb throwing,” Luntz argued. “What remains to be seen is whether Trump can be as effective a president as he was a candidate.
“As for everyone else, and that includes Congress, be kind to each other,” Luntz said. “Don’t spike the football or take the ball and go home. Don’t silo yourselves in anger. America has a future. It will only be a bright one if we work together to get there.”
