Pollster Frank Luntz, a frequent guest on Fox News, is now working for disgraced former Illinois congressman Aaron Shock.
FEC filings show that Shock paid Luntz’s firm Luntz Global Partners $10,000 in the month of February for “communications consulting” work. Luntz previously worked for Schock in 2013. Luntz did not say what he is doing specifically for Shock.
Shock resigned from his congressional seat in disgrace last year after it was revealed that he charged about 170,000 miles on his car to his campaign — and to federal taxpayers. Shock’s father said that “Two years from now he will be successful if he’s not in jail.”
Luntz came under fire during the Republican presidential primary after a series of Breitbart News reports detailing his financial relationship with failed candidate Marco Rubio. A major Florida newspaper confirmed that Luntz got paid to help shape Rubio’s political career.
The Tampa Bay Times reported in a feature on Rubio’s political rise:
He is best known for a book called 100 Innovative Ideas for Florida’s Future, filled with proposals from upgrades to state building codes to an increase in education tax credits for companies. The concepts were drawn from lawmakers and people across the state who attended “idea raisers.” The book was dreamed up by Richard Corcoran, a Rubio staffer who will become speaker next year, but Rubio was the face of the project and reaped the attention. The book is copyrighted in his name.
Rubio traveled the state to promote the book, making contacts he would rely on later for his Senate race. He got messaging and polling help from Frank Luntz, now a well-known Fox News figure. Newt Gingrich hailed Rubio as a visionary. Bush wrote a glowing foreword.
Allies and enemies saw the book as expensive self-promotion, draining party resources and staff time. Luntz alone was paid more than $340,000.
The scandal raised serious questions about Luntz’s impartiality in conducting his Fox News post-debate focus groups, especially in light of a ridiculously pro-Rubio focus group that he conducted right before the Iowa caucus. National Journal picked up the story in a feature entitled “Luntz Plays Favorites With Marco Rubio.”
Luntz admitted to his conflict of interest with Rubio in an interview in which he also dished out profane insults to this reporter.
At a Fox News debate in Detroit, Luntz spotted this reporter near the stairwell of the press room and became visibly flustered, angrily muttering about “Trump” and instructing his journalist friends to walk with him, away from my earshot.
When Luntz spoke at the University of Pennsylvania in 2013, a student leaked video to Mother Jones of Luntz trashing Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin to defend Rubio on amnesty. Furious at the student for leaking the video, Luntz vowed to never again speak at the school. Luntz, a University of Pennsylvania alum, also discontinued a scholarship at the school in his father’s name.
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