Trudy Lieberman — The Frank Luntz script for Congressional Republicans

“Bad language is costly,” Luntz wrote. Whatever the GOP’s message has been, said Luntz, it must change. He talked about the Republican’s image problem, advising House and Senate Republicans to “stop bickering and start talking differently.” The party needs “a new language to communicate their ideas effectively,” he said. For starters, it must abandon “ugly phrases,” such as describing budget negotiations as “a hostage you might take a chance at shooting,” or using the non-urgent-sounding phrase, “kick the can down the road” or “committing fiscal child abuse” (per Luntz, “insulting”) when discussing fixing or not fixing the debt. Luntz recommended a “more powerful metaphor” like “piling debt on our children” or “mortgaging the American dream.”

Columbia Journalism Review
The Frank Luntz script for Congressional Republicans
Trudy Lieberman | Fellow at the Center for Advancing Health

(h/t Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism)