[media-credit name=’YANA PASKOVA/Herald Photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]Focusing on the 2004 presidential election, a nationally recognized pollster urged politicians to be "straight" with the American people during a Monday lecture.

Frank Luntz, who has been honored by numerous national publications for his research on public opinion, amiably addressed University of Wisconsin students, faculty and community members as part of the Distinguished Lecture Series.

Luntz specifically addressed how he believes the Democrats lost the 2004 elections, which he said was due to their inability to properly communicate with voters.

"It's not what you say that matters. It's what people hear," Luntz said, refusing to speak from the Union Theater stage during the lecture. "You can't blame Republicans if y'all don't communicate effectively."

A self-proclaimed Republican, Luntz engaged with the audience, often poking fun at people in the crowd. When he asked the group their political persuasion, he jokingly asked some Republican members of the audience if they "had a death wish" for admitting their political persuasion.

As he walked among the crowd, Luntz continually fielded questions, and the predominantly Democratic audience took him up on his offer.

"I enjoyed the fact that a wide range of issues were covered and that a Republican speaker was able to relate to a Democratic audience," UW junior Matt Christensen said of Luntz's speech.

Overall, Luntz emphasized the necessity of effective communication between politicians and their voters. He used Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry and his running mate, John Edwards, as examples of this need.

"Sometimes a short, brief, to-the-point answer is better," Luntz said, adding that this was one of the reasons Kerry eventually lost the election.

"Kerry was on both sides of the issues," Luntz said. "The No. 1 value in a politician is someone that says what they mean and means what they say."

Luntz said that while Kerry was "incredible in the primaries," Edwards would have been a better candidate because he could work a room and connect with people in the audience better than Kerry — and even President Bush.

Keeping in tow with his more light-hearted lecture, Luntz used a series of slide-show pictures to poke fun at politicians. Some of the slides pictured Bush, Kerry and Dick Cheney, but were voiced over with lines from popular movies and TV shows such as "The Simpsons" and "Dumb and Dumber."

He further complemented this with slides of statistics showing how disconnected the American public is from the government.

"We are a pop-culture-oriented people," Luntz said after he showed a slide that reported 75 percent of people polled knew Bart Simpson was from Springfield but only 9 percent knew Abraham Lincoln was also from Springfield.

"It doesn't say much about American society and education," Luntz said.

In order to change this communication problem, he said sometimes only a word or phrase will elicit a different reaction. Luntz challenged everyone present to get people informed.

"Principle matters more than language, but bad language will undercut good principle," Luntz said.