Pollster Frank Luntz says he sold the majority stake in his polling business partly because he's fed up with politicians who don't tell people what they really mean.
"I did this because you can't keep telling the people something is great when it isn't. You can't keep promising them a handout when you have no money left," Luntz said Thursday on
Fox News Channel's "Hannity."
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Host Sean Hannity played a clip of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, speaking from the House floor on Wednesday, suggesting the government stop using the term "welfare" and switch to "transitional living fund."
Luntz didn't like that suggestion.
"For generations that have been on welfare it is a government check," Luntz said, adding that about 80 percent of Americans would agree, "A government check is a government check" no matter what it is named.
Luntz said he sold the majority of his business to MDC Partners and will be working more in the corporate sphere. A
press release from MDC Partners on Wednesday said Luntz and his team will remain to help Luntz Global continue to grow.
"I've been incredibly fortunate to take the skills I honed in the tough world of politics to help some of the great leaders in business, finance and sports find the right words to give them the winning edge," Luntz was quoted in the press release.
But he took a much darker tone in an interview with
The Atlantic, saying he became depressed after President Barack Obama won re-election in 2012, and felt he had done all he could to try to press the cause of conservatism.
"I'm not good enough," Luntz told The Atlantic. "And I hate that. I have come to the extent of my capabilities. And this is not false modesty. I think I’m pretty good. But not good enough."
"It's alarming to see just how people have tuned off to politics, how resentful they are to a government where we cherish democracy and we cherish freedom," he told Hannity.
People feel Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals have failed them, he said, referring to a Gallup Poll showing people identifying as independent is now at 42 percent, with only 25 percent saying they are Republicans and 31 percent saying they are Democrats.
"It is not that they embrace independents; it's that the reject Republicans and Democrats, and that's an overall trend to reject all of politics as we know it," Luntz said.
"They look at this, and they say, 'Do these people hear me? Are they listening?'" Luntz said. "And their answer is no."
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