Success Quote by Frank Luntz

Luntz is doing what he’s always done: weaponizing plain talk to expose how much “communication” in modern capitalism is performance, not competence. The line lands because it’s built like a shrug and a jab at the same time. “I don’t understand why” isn’t confusion; it’s a rhetorical trap. He frames the situation as so obviously irrational that the only explanation is a quieter indictment: boards, investors, and corporate cultures don’t actually reward clarity, they reward power, inertia, and the illusion of leadership.

The “paper bag” image is deliberate populism. It’s comic, a little contemptuous, and instantly legible: the CEO as someone who can’t manage the easiest human task, basic persuasion. That matters coming from Luntz, a political messaging strategist famous for treating language as an instrument panel. He’s not lamenting eloquence for its own sake; he’s pointing out a systems failure. If a company’s “entire life” depends on communication (branding, investor relations, crisis response, internal morale), then choosing a leader who can’t communicate is not an accident. It’s a tell.

The sharper subtext is in “and don’t care to.” Incompetence can be trained; indifference is culture. Luntz implies a caste dynamic where certain CEOs are insulated from consequences, protected by status or numbers on a spreadsheet, while everyone else is required to be legible, responsive, and perpetually “on message.” The quote reads like a frustration with hypocrisy, but also an admission: communication is power, and too many people at the top can afford not to use it well.