Lakoff on "Framing" Elections and the CA Recall

Apologies if this is a repost. I looked around and didn't see it.

If you haven't read Lakoff's book "Moral Politics" do yourself a favor. I think he does a good job here of explaining how the recall election synchs with his theories and what the implications are for the future of progressive politics.



http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16947



"In addition, Davis made the bad mistake of accepting the DLC's metaphor of campaigning as marketing. In the DLC model, you look for a list of particular issues that a majority of people, including those on left, support. In the last congressional election it was prescription drugs, social security, and a woman's right to choose. If necessary, you "move to the right" – adopt some right-wing values in hope of getting "centrist" voters. Davis, for example, favored the death penalty, tough sentencing, and supported the prison guards' union. It's a self-defeating strategy. Conservatives have been winning elections without moving to the left.


By presenting a laundry list of issues, Davis and other democrats fail to present a moral vision – a coherent identity with a powerful cultural stereotype – that defines the very identity of the voters they are trying to reach. A list of issues is not a moral vision. Indeed, many Democrats were livid that Arnold did not run on the issues. He didn't need to. His very being activated the strict father model – the heart of the moral vision of conservative Republicans and the most common response to fear and uncertainty.


In short, Arnold's victory is right in line with other conservative Republican victories. Davis' defeat is right in line with other Democratic defeats. Unless the Democrats realize this, they will not learn the lesson of this election."

electorate which unfortunately seems to be the majority at this point in time.

n/t

:kick:

This one appeared in the American Prospect at the beginning of September. It does not specifically address the California recall, but talks at length about how the right-wing has been more successful than the left at framing political discussion in recent years. It's one of the best articles I've read in a long time. Lakoff has a lot on the ball.

http://www.prospect.org/print/V14/8/lakoff-g.html

this complicated and sometimes confusing world. We organize our knowledge -- the "facts" -- within those frames. We create many of our "frames" ourselves; others are provided by parents, teachers, and -- yes -- politicians.

If you've ever been on a debate team, if you've ever learned how to teach, if you've ever been a salesman, you know that you have to give your audience or class or customer both the FACTS and the FRAMES -- the "what it all means" -- that organizes those facts into a coherent whole.

And any teacher who recites laundry lists of facts without the "what it all means" is boring and ineffective. Ask any student. As boring and ineffective as the DLC Democrats who think it's enough to just recite laundry lists of issues. Ask any voter.

Giving the voters a "moral vision" or an "ideal" is no more than good teaching, good salesmanship, and good politics. Rethugs know this -- and like the good little con-men they are, they use their ersatz vision and crackpot ideals to sell their shoddy political goods,their Enron-type economic theories, and their political equivalent of underwater real estate.

FDR, Adlai Stevenson, JFK -- to name but a few -- were masters of presenting a moral vision, an ideal of a decent, just, humane America. As did Wellstone. It's about time the mainstream Democratic establishment re-learnt how to do this.

Vitruvius

P.S: How a Democrat -- or any liberal -- can lose a contest on morality, vision, or idealism to a Rethugnican is beyond me.

We all know why we're Democrats; we all have the moral vision & ideals inside. So SHARE them!

Thanks for posting it.

I think you should post this topic again in GD so it gets as much attention as possible. I've seen some of the issues touched on before at DU, but they're so well articulated in this article.

- stil

:kick:

...that it doesn't realize these very basic facts about how people vote? Can they really not know this??? That you have to get the emotions right first and then set your issues within that context, not the other way around??? I mean, wishful thinking is fine--we could all wish that it wasn't this way. But it is, and even us armchair strategists at DU know it. Some of us, anyway. I'm far from being the only one around here who has repeatedly pointed out that people won't vote for a weenie irrespective of whether they agree with the whole ream of white-paper position statements stuffed into his briefcase.

I mean, this can't really be news to the "pros" can it? CAN it??? Please tell me there are some insiders, SOME pros and political advisers on our side who actually know something about communication. PLEASE!!!