Cleveland
Pollster Frank Luntz wove through the crowds on Euclid Ave Monday evening sporting “the ten-dollar American flag shirt from Walmart,” the delegate uniform per Roger Stone. He wore his matching stars-and-stripes sneaks Tuesday morning to the Hilton, to deliver breakfasting Ohio delegates a steady stream of polling data and jokes: “By the way, does John Kerry remind you of the tree that threw apples at Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz?”
Turns out you can distill the preferences of any voter from his answers to two questions: the greatest problem facing the nation and the issue that most impacts your life. Luntz illustrated by asking both in an unscripted exchange with a waiter. “This guy!” Luntz dug in. The waiter answered national security, healthcare and jobs. “That’s how you talk to him,” he told the audience once he’d released the waiter, “But you have to start by asking him questions.”
Members of the press don’t get to eat at these events, I learned. It’s part of the Ohio delegation’s scheduled entertainment to starve media in a roped-off corral, but I looked pitiful enough that another waiter, Andre, brought me a slice of quiche and fruit cup. I wonder: Is Andre an “issues voter”? What does “the American Dream” mean to him—another Luntz question—hard work, home ownership, freedom, or Donald Trump?
Luntz, a veteran of Republican campaigns, was Trump-resistant at one time, but he goes where the wind blows. This cycle, it’s been blowing away from honest “decent human beings,” among whom Luntz counts the Ohio congressman Bill Johnson who followed him on stage. “I appreciate you for your principles,” Luntz said, “I appreciate you for your leadership. But I truly appreciate you most for your character.”
And a few voters do still want substantive candidates. Screening a focus group of independent voters here in Cleveland, Luntz found they know why not to vote for Clinton or Trump. But they still want to know what these two clowns are really about—in other words, why vote at all? Good question, Cleveland. A concerned delegate asked whether it’s possible to package Trump for these commonsensical voters in the homestretch. Answer: wait till Thursday’s speech—”I’m hoping he will speak of his vision, because he is the epitome of the American dream.”
Perhaps Trump’s captain-of-industry caricature has finally maxed out the reigning monomyth. Sorry, Horatio Alger, Jimmy Gatz and Jay Gatsby. And so long to the spirit of Columbia bearing her bittersweet promise. Here at Trump Fest, she’s looking more like a cheap hooker.
