George Lakoff: The Palin Choice and the Reality of the Political Mind

This election matters because of realities -- the realities of global warming, the economy, the Middle East, nuclear proliferation, civil liberties, species extinction, poverty here and around the world, and on and on. Such realities are what make this election so very crucial, and how to deal with them is the substance of the Democratic platform (PDF).

Election campaigns matter because who gets elected can change reality. But election campaigns are primarily about the realities of voters' minds, which depend on how the candidates and the external realities are cognitively framed. They can be framed honestly or deceptively, effectively or clumsily. And they are always framed from the perspective of a worldview.

The Obama campaign has learned this. The Republicans have long known it, and the choice of Sarah Palin as their vice presidential candidate reflects their expert understanding of the political mind and political marketing. Democrats who simply belittle the Palin choice are courting disaster. It must be taken with the utmost seriousness.

The Democratic responses so far reflect external realities: she is inexperienced, knowing little or nothing about foreign policy or national issues; she is really an anti-feminist, wanting the government to enter women's lives to block abortion, but not wanting the government to guarantee equal pay for equal work, or provide adequate child health coverage, or child care, or early childhood education; she shills for the oil and gas industry on drilling; she denies the scientific truths of global warming and evolution; she misuses her political authority; she opposes sex education and her daughter is pregnant; and, rather than being a maverick, she is on the whole a radical right-wing ideologue.

All true, so far as we can tell.

But such truths may nonetheless be largely irrelevant to this campaign. That is the lesson Democrats must learn. They must learn the reality of the political mind.
Continue reading @ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/the-palin-choice-and-the_b_123012.html

They've been served up a golden opportunity....

of Understanding.

I'm hoping he is wrong, but his premise unsettled me, because his reasoning makes sense, and fits with a country that allows 20 years of disasterous rule, by disingenuous Goebbels clones.

I know Lakoff is right, but in the last 8 years we have seen such utter corruption by that "guy you'd like to have a beer with" that I think people are a little more savvy now than Lakoff gives them credit for being. There is always the 30 percent who are hopeless. But I think the GOP has over played it's emotional cards. People are hungry for substance.

a sort of cynicism and sense of irony towards all things political. Dave Letterman, Daily Show, Colbert, youtube, etc. etc. are a manifestation and a cause of this sense that we know better than to take the propaganda seriously.

you just don't get the rethug psyche and power

those creationists are phone banking as i type

mobilizing all their churchie pals

palin has galvanized their emotions all the more

the fact dems didn't win in a landslide in 2004 shows the magnitude of the current challenge

this is the electorate we're dealing with, this is the ruthless cleverness of rove, et al.

Lakoff's point, which few Liberals and DU'ers get, is that the Left has to learn how to effectively manipulate people THEMSELVES.

And sometimes a disastrous Veep choice is a disastrous Veep choice.

Alaskan Independence Party.

That's a game changer that George did not take into account in his piece. He was spot on for the most part, but that single reality alters the game as never before.

Start connecting the dots to drive home the message that the CONservative view is wrong for America and Americans.

because otherwise we help people forget what the Dems are offering that the GOP cannot possibly.

On the other hand, this jump off for the risk taking strategy has begun with a trump card already burning. I am sure Rove etc. has considered these risks as inevitably, sooner or later backfiring. The whole idea has been to control the spin so that even getting caught out and blowing it can be turned to GOP profit, first by having no real consequences until the story dies down, second, in wasting all the Dems time and attention to put forward their message. The Dems have long proven inept at even being cautious about getting into this absurd perception game of entitled media and pure power. The GOP walks around with their zipper down. If the Dems mention it they are blamed. If someone else mentions it it distracts from the trillions in GOP debt. It did not work in 2006, yet some of the kingpins of GOP meltdown "miraculously" survived the election(Reynolds, NY). Why? Cheating of course, but the GOP also began wearing the scandal down and falling nakedly back on their loyalists and advantages.

So the Dems must be disciplined, not silent, on message but not blind, participate in spin battles but not spun. The GOP is a cornered beast and the Dems are still in the position of trying to be perceived as diligent public servants and sincere on issues. To the point of distraction.

Compared to almost any Veep choice, including Quayle, Agnew and reagan's Veep choice in trying shake loose Gerald Ford's support, this is a total disaster. Facial language tells everything. McCain is under the double burden of knowing he honestly will lose the election and the utter disaster of this choice.

He doesn't need a Convention, he needs a vacation. I for one would be gracious and tell him to take a long month break. It couldn't be worse.

The political reality this year is that yes, there is a mushy middle and stout GOP base as always, but the sweeping undercurrent nationwide is for decent change. The GOP levees are groaning under that slow inexorable pressure. That has not changed. Fantasies and fraud are melting down before it, but not with the instant gratification or sudden conversion of soul that impatient people here, good informed people
here, wait for in vain. It can only happen by a long, torturous, hard work crushing of Regime falsity over the next two months. Looking back only then will we see for sure where it began and how certain the process was.

you underestimate the rethugs and their rovian tactics

you underestimate racism in the US

and you underestimate the power of emotion to galvanize voters

they want their guns

they want to overturn roe/wade

they deny global warming

they hate evolution

ETC.......

it's entirely possible rove pushed palin also thinking any attempt to criticize her lack of experience can be turned and used on Obama

of course WE all know there is ZERO analogy

but the electorate falls for those tactics

... so the words that come out of them are framed properly, the Rethugs keep stealing elections. What academic mental masturbation he spews.

I am only thankful that McLame may have (for the first time in a long time) put country first by nominating this unknown wackness from Wasilla, knowing that this would insure the collapse of his thoroughly syphilitic party.

Sometimes you do have to destroy a political party to save it. If anyone knows that, we should.

That was also when Air America started. THe Dems were realizing a new political reality was dawning and they were plodding and slow. By 2006 it was obvious they had learned the lessons. They were "on message". They were framing arguments with words that sounded better to the typical voter's ear.

Of course, they were helped by Iraq war going bad...really bad. THey were helped by GOP corruption and by Katrina. BUt all that would have been forgotten if they hadn't also been helped by Lakoff.

Our modern remote conrol cable news 300 channels, millions of blogs, internet as constant companion life means the message must be piercingly obvious and framed in a way to your advantage.

Lakoff was right. The Dems can continue to learn the lesson and reap the spoils in NOvember. Perception is reality often times.

... it is hard to argue that few politicians win if they cannot effectively present their own positions (and attack the positions of their opponents), it is not a sufficient strategy. Politics (and life) is not about talking the talk -- it is about walking the walk. In the end, it's not about what we say -- it's about what we do.

After 2004, there was much hand-wringing about whether the Kerry campaign had "framed" our campaign messages properly -- and much pressure to change our core messages (and even positions) to "appeal" to evangelicals and other bottom-feeders. Fortunately, while some in our midst were playing these academic, naval-gazing parlor games, others were investigating the mountains of evidence for a stolen election and mobilizing (primarily at the state level) to make our elections more secure. In that process here in Tennessee, it was certainly important to "frame" our concerns about the sanctity and security of the election process in ways that appealed to the broadest number of our legislators. However, it was much more important (and ultimately much more persuasive) to present the mountains of evidence that documented how insecure (and fundamentally flawed) the decision to out-source our elections to private companies and to use unverifiable voting equipment was. (BTW, we were successful in our efforts to pass the TN Voter Confidence Act, getting a 32-0 final vote in our Senate and a 92-3 final vote in our House.)

Politicians (and political parties) should say what they mean and mean what they say. We should not surrender OUR core values to over-paid Madison Avenue hucksters and academics whose theories are fundamentally untestable and often a distraction from what we should really be doing. More importantly, our politicians should walk the talk. And while there is nothing wrong with effective presentation of one's own ideas and aggressive dismantling of the arguments of our opponents, it (again) is not sufficient.

This whole area of endeavor reminds me of a party game played on me when I was a (very drunk) sophomore in college. A dorm-mate talked me into playing a simple game to guess in which hand he was holding a coin. I took the bait, and was amazed at how my inability to guess the correct hand time after time defied all probability -- regardless of which hand I picked, my dorm-mate would open the other hand to show me the coin there. I agonized about what was wrong with my selection strategy (similar to folks agonizing about the framing of our political messages) instead of calling my dorm-mate for cheating -- for having a coin in both hands. (Again, I was very drunk.)

The fact is that Democrats have won the past two Presidential elections -- there was nothing wrong with our messages for the majority of American voters. There is something very wrong with a politicized Supreme Court and an out-sourced, insecure and tampered-with election process. Our problem was not (and is not) about how we presented our positions to the American people -- it was (and is) about how the votes were counted (or not counted).

At best, Lakoff's theories are useful in preparing our messages to be heard as effectively and persuasively as possible. At worst, his theories cause us to focus on the packaging and not the package -- and help lead us toward abandoning our own core values to become the same slippery, slimy, shifty politicians that we are supposed to be fighting.

Which political strategy is, in the end, more effective -- to name a program the "Healthy Forests Initiative" or to present evidence that this lofty program title was a smoke-screen for logging our national forests and wilderness areas? To declare "Mission Accomplished" or to remind voters that (five years later), we are still mired down in a protracted (and unwinnable) war? To label a political party as supporting "family values" or to point out how many of that party's members are focused on everything but their (and our) families with their policies and personal behavior?

For me, it's a simple question. And the answer will determine whether we ever win another Presidential election -- not whether we hold our mouths just right.

You think it is just mouthing stuff, it goes much deeper. Read this sentence by Lakoff:

"What Democrats have shied away from is a frontal attack on radical conservatism itself as an un-American and harmful ideology."

It needs to permeate all the thinking and doing.

The Republicans have swindled the working poor and the middle class to vote against their best interests just because they dream of joining the upper class that McMansions epitomizes. To vote for corporate welfare just in case they get struck by a fairy godmother and become a CEO.

Tap into the populism and work the idea that is penetrating their consciousnesses more and more: The Republicans have sold you down the river to declining real wages and greater class disparity.

Sell the Kennedy idea that a rising tide lifts all boats. Sell the idea that the only way to get a rising tide like that is if you help all Americans, not just the top 5%.

Great civilizations like the US could be are not judged by whether the elite have gold-plated Senatorial health care, but how high the floor is. The sky is the limit, but America is strong and powerful enough to provide a decent base level for everyone. Yes, times are hard right now, and Obama has a much better handle on the economy than McCain. But Obama also has a much better idea of what Americans need for a stronger, more dynamic country in the long run.

Remember, push this: Republican policies and McCain-style elitism have failed you and your dreams. Real change will help the largest number of people.

and dems need to go on the attack

when will they?

stop being reactive, get proactive

... with the "framing" of our messages -- the majority of American voters supported them. What was wrong was a politicized Supreme Court and a corrupt FL Secretary of State (in 2000) and widespread (and now well-documented) election fraud in Ohio, New Mexico, Nevada, Iowa and dozens of other states.

Let me ask another question. Which is more important -- how we frame our messages or who owns (and controls) the corporate media through which those messages would flow (if they were allowed to)? Is our problem today (in the public discourse of our politics) how we frame our messages or how hard it is for American voters to hear those messages on our (formerly) public airwaves? Again, it's an easy question for me to answer. How about you?

i don't think 2004 was stolen big time

and given the horrific bush actions for the previous 4 yrs, kerry should have been able to win in a landslide

but, no, because we're dealing with a deluded electorate

and Lakoff is correct: dems better learn better framing or we'll keep losing

I would suggest DU's Election Reform forum as an excellent place to begin that education.

As a lifelong Democrat (and democrat), I give the American voters much more credit than you do. Insufficient framing had nothing to do with our losses in 2000 and 2004 -- election theft did.

i've been posting and reading here for years

i've thoroughly researched the 2004 election fraud literature

including the johns hopkins and mit investigations, how about you?

I don't know the electorate -- what hubris (or is it spelled chutzpah).

You've been around here a bit more than a year (I've been here a little under four years), and I have never once seen you post in the ER forum (or really anywhere that has been memorable, for that matter.) If you did spend time on this issue here on DU, you'd have a clue who I am and what I happen to know about this issue (In fact, you'd have a clue, period.) Rather than boring myself and others justifying myself to you, feel free to Google "National Election Reform Conference" or "TN Voter Confidence Act" or "Gathering To Save Our Democracy". (I play or have played a not-insignificant role in all of those endeavors.) Or search the DU archives for those terms or my handle, starting around November, 2004. Then get back to me about what you know and what I might know about the issue.

If you've read and understood any Johns Hopkins study I'm aware of, we wouldn't be having this conversation. The Cal Tech/MIT early study I presume you're referring to has been debunked so many times by now, it's no longer even part of the dialogue.

As for "knowing" the electorate, I personally registered 909 people in 2004 (and hope to do ten times that many this year). How about you?

How do we apply it to the specific task of framing the message about Palin? Her anti-environmental record might be the touchstone for introducing the theme Lakoff mentions about the government's role in protecting and empowering everyone. "Lakoff wants to let Big Oil ruin our environment." Is that a good one? I'm probably biased because I'm a Sierra Club activist.

I admit that Lakoff nailed me when he talked about Dems focusing on issues. I read the hymns to Palin's executive experience, and I think, "Troopergate shows that she's an incompetent executive." My takeaway is that we need to get out the facts about Troopergate. Then the undecideds will see through this blather about "executive experience". My guess is that Lakoff would dismiss that approach as being far too intellectual and issue-oriented -- and he may well be right. But what's the alternative? What do we say?

The effective thing that occurs to me would be to prey on the stereotype that a young, attractive woman must be an airhead. (The parallel for men is that a big strong man must be a dumb oaf.) I see some of this in occasional DU references to Palin as "Gidget". That might be effective, at least with some voters, but it would be unfair and wrong. Don't we have something else? Can't we beat the Republicans without cynically descending to their level?

We've been assimilating specifics about Palin over the long weekend. We need to be synthesizing the facts into effective themes.

Keep talking about the economy, the Iraq war, the environment, climate change, the need for affordable health care. Don't get distracted.

Keep pointing out that it is Republican neoconservative policies implemented by Bush/Cheney that brought us to this sorry state of affairs. Keep the grass roots motivated and getting out the vote. We will win this with large numbers of people voting for Obama/Biden to provide a better than 10 percent margin so that the Republicans can't steal the election in 2008.

The Republicans could still pull a switch at the last minute with either or both candidates. We have to label any Republican candidate as being a continuation of Bush failed policies, Not just McCain.

McCain/Palin will be marketed like toothpaste. We should not take defeating them for granted. The average American is very susceptible to marketing campaigns.

We have to keep the Obama/Biden supporters energized (without exhausting them), and ready to go out and vote our ticket. It is a fine line we walk. We can do it.

Is that if we don't go after Palin, no one will and she'll not be defined as anything but what McCain WANTS HER TO BE DEFINED AS. This is the problem, we need to set the tone and then hammer home the issues, but if you just ignore Palin, they can create the perception she is capable, she is moderate and she is the right choice. If that happens, this election because far harder to win.

However, if Palin is defined as being risky, incompetent, corrupt, radical and just down right crazy, we win no matter what.

No matter what, though, if we force McCain to drop Palin, it's over for him. As it's been stated over and over again, the vice presidential choice is the first real test of how a president will lead. McCain has FAILED that test and needs to be held accountable for it.

rethugs are so good at turning the arguments around and using them to attack

don't turn Palin into a martyr

It's about planting the seeds of doubt here. If we basically say Palin is off limits, McCain gets it his way and he'll be able to define her the way he sees fit. That helps his campaign because it shores up every weakness there is. However, the biggest weakness McCain has is judgment and his choice of Palin falls right into this.

Palin will only be a martyr to the far-right in this country. To the rest of the nation, she's too inexperienced and a bit out there. That's all that matters, because it's those people who will count...not the fundies who'll back Palin no matter what.

bashing palin serves no purpose

of course she's a disaster

but that's NOT how the rethugs see her

that's not what THEY'RE focusing on

she inspires all kinds of fervent emotions in them: love for their guns, endorsement of their denial of global warming, etc.......

it's not time for dem glee

dems need to mobilize, and not be complacent

just like a good 1/3 of the Republican party. Someone who would force women and our daughters to carry disabled or deformed fetus' to term- even if they were raped or victims of incest.

Like other Republicans of her ilk, she'd work tirelessly to deny women access to birth control and make sure abstinance only education was in every school- so all your kids could end up pregnant just like hers.

You think people really want that?

Yeah, she'll rally the base, but the base won't win the Republicans the election if she turns off every other voter. That's why the Democrats need to keep hammering her. Hammer her to the point where every moderate and Democratic-leaning American says, "WTF".

That's how you win elections. You paint the opponent as an extremist and the voters won't support them. So let the fundies rally around her...if it turns off the other 90% of this country, Obama wins this election in an epic landslide.

There is a reason McGovern got his balls ripped off by Nixon in 1972 and it isn't just because he dropped Eagleton. It was because Nixon painted him as an extremist whackjob and it scared the fucking daylights out of the American people.

It's about the rest of the country.

My God, I can't believe people really don't get this. If Democrats do not define Palin, the Republicans will define her and make her less crazy. We keep our mouths shut on this and Palin will come across as the exact type of VP candidate McCain wants and that is something Democrats can't afford.

Yes Palin will rally the base of the Republican Party, but that will happen regardless of whether the Democrats hit her hard. However, the Republicans can't win this election on base alone. The Republican base maybe makes up 10% -- if that -- of the American electorate and that won't be enough to swing the election their way if moderate and weak Democratic voters are scared of McCain-Palin.

But if we allow all this crap on Palin to go unnoticed, McCain wins because he gets to shape her. Remember, no one knows who Palin is and every ounce of news about her since she was named will shape the perception of who she is. So far, the imagine being shaped is not pretty and it will hurt McCain. But if we had let them do it themselves, ignoring the fundamental flaws there, the perception benefits them and not us. Then the Democrats are stuck with a mobilized Republican base and the possibility of moderate and some Democratic voters leaving for McCain-Palin because we allowed them to create the perception she was an able candidate.

If this truly is an election about Family Values, character, strict authoritarian doctrines, then look at the Obamas. Look at the Bidens. They have done EVERYTHING right, according to the Family Values narrative. Obama didn't leave his first wife, cheating on her with a beer heiress. Biden exemplified strength during the toughest time in his life, didn't remarry until 5 years after his first wife died.

I trust our nominee and his running mate. They are the very embodiment of Family Values. They live their lives as a testament to true American values. They've done everything right! Why is it, then, so difficult for average Americans to see this?

Why is it so easy to forgive Republicans for their moral failings but hold everyone else (read: liberals and Democrats and the rest of us) to higher moral standards?

As always, Lakoff has it right. And so does Drew Westen. And so does Thomas Frank! Democrats need to take ownership of the Family Values narrative and redefine it in our terms. Despite all the corruption within the Republican party, this country may indeed return them to the White House. The thought is terrifying to me!

They attack them: "So and so is a radical with the 'most liberal' rating in congress".

Palin really is an extremist and she has to be called out on that. She doesn't strike me as a serious pick and that speaks to McCain's judgment. And that's where Obama has to take it and as he said in the convention, likely will. Judgment and temperament - two issues he said he welcomed a debate on. The republicans will look like fools on it. Their policies speak to that. And McCain's first test as a potential president does as well. He failed it. Supposedly he wanted Tom Ridge or Lieberman but was basically overruled by the fundy nutcases. So he can't even lead the factions in his party, how will he lead an entire nation of competing ideologies, different races, ethnicities, religions, and thoughts? He's ultimately a political coward, willing to sell out anyone and everyone to further his blind ambition.

He's as close to "getting to the heart" of the matter as anyone.

The average voter is NOT rational, he/she cares more about symbolic imagery then facts. This is why framing the issues is so important