This is brilliant. Republican Message Guru Frank Luntz recently sent out a memo to Republicans giving them his assessment of how they should best combat Financial Reform legislation that is being pushed by the Obama administration along with numerous Democrats.
Here’s the FAIL: On page 14 of the memo he shows an example picture of a happy couple in front of their new small business with a giant “GRAND OPENING” sign over the storefront. According to Politico, he has this to say:
“The most popular images of small business owners both projected optimism with signs saying ‘grand opening’ or ‘open.'”
Who’s in the picture? Solid Democrat Mark Schauer (D-MI07) and his wife.
Awesome.
That’s right — in his directive to Republicans telling them they should put a personal face on small businesses and specifically feature “grand opening” photos, he used a picture of my very own member of Congress, Mark Schauer. To make matters worse he stole the picture from Schauer’s campaign website (note the “© 2007 Mark Schauer. All Rights Reserved” at the bottom of the page.)
Funny thing is, Congressman Mark Schauer is in strong support of the financial reforms that the Obama administration is pushing.
Here’s the most-perfect comment from Doug Thornell, aide to DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen regarding the matter:
“Luntz is as careless with his clip art as he is with his twisted use of language. Note to the word maestro, Rep. Schauer is a small business owner who voted for Wall Street reform because the policies Luntz and his party championed drove this economy into a ditch.”
Priceless.
The fun never stops.
[Hat tip Michigan Liberal.]
I’m just sayin’…
UPDATE: If you do a Google image search of the phrase “small business grand opening” (w/o the quotes), there’s a picture of Christine Schauer’s grand opening on Page #1. If you then add “My Style” (w/quotes) to the search (based on the name of her store which you can see in the first photo), viola! The picture Luntz used is the second image.
UPDATE 2: Here’s a screenshot of the page where Luntz uses the photo from Rep. Schauer’s campaign website:
