One of the GOP party bigwigs--big-time PR focus-group consultant type--is shocked that the party base is angry at the establishment.
He's shocked to his core at learning this.
I'm not surprised. The GOP has certainly been governing as if it had absolutely no clue whatsoever that its base was becoming increasingly angry at their outright collusion with Democrats.
Mr. Luntz, no doubt, is surprised because he doesn't know anyone who's angry at the GOP leadership (much the same way what's-her-face was surprised that Nixon won when no one she knew had voted for him). But lots of life-long Republicans (self included) are livid at the way the GOP leadership has sold us out and betrayed us time and again. There's a reason that we often talk about "failure theater". Like the huge budget debate that resulted in exactly $80 billion in cuts from a four trillion dollar budget and the GOP first celebrating their victory as if it meant anything, and then later helplessly claiming that was the best they could do. The endless posturing over repealing ObamaCare that never seems to go anywhere when the GOP has control of the House of Representatives and could de-fund it any time they wanted to if they actually wanted to...but they don't. Voting for the deal with Iran that gives them carte blanche to build nuclear weapons and somehow claiming they can't possibly stop it. Voting for ObamAmnesty when it runs counter to just about every conservative principle there is. And on, and on.
We're not idiots.
The notion that Trump's success in the polls is surprising and shocking to the GOP is also not at all startling to me. The GOP has abandoned the field, preferring instead to be Democrat Lite; no one is saying the things Trump is saying and Trump's statements resonate with the GOP base like nothing the GOP says. Because--unlike the GOP--Trump is campaigning on actually doing something to fix the problems facing our country.
Borepatch theorizes that Trump was originally just doing it for publicity, but is now reconsidering making a real run at the job.
Could he do worse than Obama? Somehow I doubt it.