Luntz was on one of the Fox programs last night. He showed the clip showing Sarah Palin talking about that cartoon ridiculing Down syndrome people (there was a character with Down syndrome who said “my mother is governor of Alaska”)—her remarks were solely about how hurtful that kind of stuff is to “special needs” children, not about herself, but even so not more than 50% of the Democrats watching the clip felt any sympathy. Liberals pride themselves on being more compassionate, but they hate Sarah so much they hate her little kid too.
My belief is that the machine Luntz uses is set at 50% and moving it l or r or up or down moves the %. (If someone has an official description of the method, please post.) If I am correct, then a better interpretation is that on average for Democrats there was no net reaction to either the FG segment or to Palin’s response - it stayed moreorless at 50%. On the other hand for Republicans there was a clear negative reaction to the FG segment and a clear positive reaction to Palin. The point here is that if a significant proportion of the audience have a strong negative reaction to Palin, it is actually possible that the majority of Democrats could be mildly sympathetic and the needle would stay at 50%. In short, the Luntz method should be interpreted with caution.