(2005-07-20) Bai Democrat Framing

Matt Bai on the Democratic Party's love for George Lakoff's Framing. He wonders whether "party discipline" (staying On Message, and not offering counter-proposals) has been a bigger factor in recent "successes". ''The minute we introduce a plan, we have to solve the problem'' is how one senior Democratic aide explained it to me. ''We are the minority party. It's not our job to fix things.'' Yeesh a race to the bottom.... What Lakoff didn't realize, Frank Luntz said, was that poll-tested phrases like ''tax relief'' were successful only because they reflected the values of voters to begin with; no one could sell ideas like higher taxes and more government to the American voter, no matter how they were framed... The reality seemed to be that Lakoff was enjoying his sudden fame and popularity too much to bother his followers with troubling details - like, say, the notion that their problem might be bigger than mere words or that it might take decades to establish new political frames.

His conclusion is harsh... The larger question - too large, perhaps, for most Democrats to want to consider at the moment - is whether they can do more with language and narrative than simply snipe at Bush's latest initiative or sink his nominees. Here, the Republican example may be instructive. In 1994, Republican lawmakers, having heeded Bill Kristol's advice and refused to engage in the health-care debate, found themselves in a position similar to where Democrats are now; they had weakened the president and spiked his trademark proposal, and they knew from Luntz's polling that the public harbored serious reservations about the Democratic majority in Congress. What they did next changed the course of American politics. Rather than continue merely to deflect Clinton's agenda, Republicans came up with their own, the Contract With America, which promised 10 major legislative acts that were, at the time, quite provocative. They included reforming welfare, slashing budget deficits, imposing harsher criminal penalties and cutting taxes on small businesses. Those 10 items, taken as a whole, encapsulated a rigid conservative philosophy that had been taking shape for 30 years - and that would define politics at the end of the 20th century.

By contrast, consider the declaration that House Democrats produced after their session with John Cullinane, the branding expert, last fall. The pamphlet is titled "The House Democrats' New Partnership for America's Future: Six Core Value-s for a Strong and Secure Middle Class." Under each of the six values - ''prosperity, national security, fairness, opportunity, community and accountability'' - is a wish list of vague notions and familiar policy ideas. (''Make health care affordable for every American,'' ''Invest in a fully funded education system that gives every child the skills to succeed'' and so on.) Nancy Pelosi is proud of the document, which - to be fair - she notes is just a first step toward repackaging the party's agenda. But if you had to pick an unconscious metaphor to attach to it, it would probably be a cotton ball. http://democraticleader.house.gov/press/releases.cfm?pressReleaseID=699 |link Consider, too, George Lakoff's own answer to the Republican Party mantra. He sums up the Republican message as ''strong defense, free markets, lower taxes, smaller government and family values,'' and in ''Don't Think of an Elephant!'' he proposes some Democratic alternatives: ''Stronger America, broad prosperity, better future, effective government and mutual responsibility.'' Look at the differences between the two. The Republican version is an argument, a series of philosophical assertions that require voters to make concrete choices about the direction of the country. Should we spend more or less on the military? Should government regulate industry or leave it unfettered? Lakoff's formulation, on the other hand, amounts to a vague collection of the least objectionable ideas in American life. Who out there wants to make the case against prosperity and a better future? Who doesn't want an effective government?

What all these middling generalities suggest, perhaps, is that Democrats are still unwilling to put their more concrete convictions about the country into words, either because they don't know what those convictions are or because they lack confidence in the notion that voters can be persuaded to embrace them. Either way, this is where the power of language meets its outer limit. The right words can frame an argument, but they will never stand in its place.

Chris Nolan comments .