Frank Luntz Tells Newt What Americans Really Want

Newt Gingrich, old and happy with his long-life pills, sat on a bench in Farragut Park an hour or so after night fell. He faced K Street, smiling gently at the professionals finished working stints of long hours, the men with their well-cut suits slightly frumpled and women in pencil skirts still looking fresh, all wandering out of buildings whose windows were increasingly blackening, all of these folks with the stunned faces of people who have been staring at computer screens and living under florescent lights for the last ten plus hours. Newt's eyes followed the lobbyists and lawyers as they walked to taxis and towncars and down to the Metro station. And then it happened--the Newt thing, the idea birthed; something popped into his head, and he felt for the inside of his suitjacket, reaching for his smartphone, clicking here and dragging there and, bloop, he started typing:

AMERICAN SPACE CAB OPPORTUNITY ACT OF 2087: Tax credits to white shoe law firms to send lawyers doing long-term work to space. The creative vanguard of this country goes to work and leaves work in darkness anyway, so working in space won't be that different. And the same people should have more experience with that greatest of horizons, the thing that shakes its fist, that beckons! at defeatist American impulses--SPACE. Specifics: Tax credit of $

"Newt."

Newt stopped typing and looked around himself, hurriedly, upset, almost offended. The figure was in front of Newt--it was Frank Luntz.

"You just...you just stopped it," Newt said, as Frank sat down on the bench. "You stopped the flow."

"My sincerest apologies, Newt," Frank said, sounding insincere. "I got the polling data you wanted, though."

Newt's eyes rolled back in his head as he tried dearly to recall what Frank was referring to. "I don't...I'm sorry, Frank. It takes awhile to sort through all this life sometimes," Newt said sadly.

"I know, old friend," Frank said, patting Newt's hand, which was lying flat on the gulf between the two old men on the bench. "But it's okay. I just--it turns out the numbers you wanted. They're there. America's ready for it."

Newt blinked a lot, and then with a tear, looked into Frank's eyes.

"You mean..." Newt began, a trace of his Southern drawl adding some wizened optimism to his voice.

"Yeah, old buddy," Frank said, opening up a manila folder on his lap. "America wants to send Newt Gingrich to the moon."