The Agony of Frank Luntz

Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press

By Molly Ball, The Atlantic

Frank Luntz does not want the buffet. We are on the top floor of the Capitol Hill Club, the members-only Republican hangout a block from the Capitol, where a meaty smell is emanating from steam trays. Today's main course is ham, and Luntz shakes his head.

There's also fish, the host offers—mahi mahi. No. "I'm 0 for 2," Luntz says mournfully.

"Roast chicken," the host says, but it's too late; he's lost him. "Boring," Luntz says, as we head for the elevator to the full-service dining room in the basement.

America's best-known public-opinion guru hasn't suddenly gone vegan. Luntz—the tubby, rumpled guy who runs the focus groups on Fox News after presidential debates, the political consultant and TV fixture whose word has been law in Republican circles since he helped write the 1994 Contract With America—has always been a hard man to please. But something is different now, he tells me. Something is wrong. Something in his psyche has broken, and he does not know if he can recover.

(More here.)