Pollster Feud: McInturff On Luntz, "A Moron"

Bill McInturff, John McCain's lead pollster, this morning defended his candidate's loss in the 2008 election as primarily a result of the nation's fiscal crisis. He also slammed Republican colleague Frank Luntz, whom he called a "moron," for his treatment of the GOP nominee.

Speaking at a panel discussion sponsored by National Journal and Powell Tate in Washington, McInturff said the McCain campaign view is that an unpopular war and a devastatingly unpopular Republican president set the stage for a tough election for any GOP candidate. But McInturff asserted that McCain was ahead of Barack Obama before the financial markets collapsed this fall and that McCain would have had a shot at victory had the nation's right track/wrong track numbers not made a dramatic shift.

"My point is if you get to 91 percent wrong track, lots of things crack," McInturff said.

The economy, he added, alienated many white college educated men who might have backed McCain. He said he knows the day the GOP team lost it's double-digit advantage with the demographic -- when the House failed to pass a bailout plan.

McInturff conceded the age issue was a challenge for McCain, saying it was "very hard" to run against a "different generation candidate." And he noted that the nation is becoming a "black and brown country" and that the Republican Party has let Latinos, in particular, shift loyalties to the Democrats.

McInturff was particularly charged when discussing Luntz's surveying of McCain's admission that he doesn't use a blackberry. Saying Luntz is "a moron," McInturff added about McCain: "I want to make sure this is clearly on the record ... The man can't use a blackberry for the same reason he can't tie his shoes -- because he can't use his fingers and hands."

He called Luntz's treatment of McCain on this point "terribly unfair."

McInturff also defended the selection of Sarah Palin as the GOP's vice presidential nominee, saying that she prompted an extraordinary burst in fundraising, performed "incredibly well on the road," and strengthened intensity measures -- or more simply put, she stoked enthusiasm for the ticket.

"All of these things are reasons to suggest she'll have a future in the Republican Party," he said.

McInturff was joined on the panel by New York Times columnist Bill Kristol, Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg and Ruy Teixeira, co-author of The Emerging Democratic Majority. Atlantic Media Director Ron Brownstein moderated the discussion. All guests agreed, it's worth noting, that Palin is a serious candidate for the GOP nomination in 2012.

More broadly, Teixeira said that the Democrats expanded their domination this cycle in growth centers in contested states. He noted the Philadelphia suburbs, Las Vegas, Northern Virginia and Florida's I-4 corridor were some examples. Obama, he said, also built an expanded coalition of single women, working women, millenials, non Christians, Latinos and professionals.

"It paints a fairly bleak picture for the Republican Party," he said.

All seemed to agree that the magnitude of Obama's win has given him, as Kristol said, "a huge latitude to govern as he thinks is best."

But Kristol charged that another Democrat -- Hillary Clinton or Dick Gephardt were his examples -- would have won by a larger margin by reaching deeper into the white middle class.

"I think weirdly another Democrat would have won by more," he said. "The honest analytical truth ... it would’ve been a 10 point race or even bigger conceivably."

(JENNIFER SKALKA)