Democratic strategists have an “irrational emotional commitment to rationality.” 15
Voters are not calculating machines who add up the utility of your positions on “the issues”. 15
American politics is not a “marketplace of ideas” but a “marketplace of emotions” 36
Policies affect voters through the emotions they engender…and is one of the main reasons values tend to even self-interest. 121
“I’ll fight for the “working people” is an appeal to people’s material interests…but it has a weak emotional appeal…what is important is to appeal to the values (fairness) behind the tired phrase. 121
Frames, like a picture frame or camera frame determine what people view or notice, and determine what is excluded from notice or view. 164
Liberals need a master narrative that is also a master counternarrative—one that “rebrands” the conservative with inconvenient truths about the conservative tradition. E.G., So you want to be a conservative? Let me tell you something about your conservative heritage:
When conservatives had a choice between tax cuts for the upper 1 percent of Americans and the middle class, they chose the supper rich.
When conservatives had a choice between tax cuts for the super rich and the National Institutes of Health, which supports the develop of cures for cancer, heart disease, and other serious illness, they have cut funding for the National Institutes of Health…
When….choice body armor for troops dying in Iraq, they chose tax cuts for the rich.
Minimum wage…they chose tax cuts for the rich and huge bonuses for their CEO’s.
Social security, Medicare, Medicaid
When half the people who were going bankrupt every year were doing so because a catastrophic illness had wiped out their savings, conservatives changed the bankruptcy laws to make it impossible to file bankruptcy, so that credit card companies could expand their profits.
So you want to be a conservative…that’s your heritage.
What is surprising about this list, is not what’s on it, but the fact that most Americans don’t know it, and the fact that conservatives have been on the wrong side of virtually every effort to expand freedom in the last century. 169
Liberals are bad at “branding”; conservatives are great at it: “tax and spend” , “big government,” “weak on defense,” “soft on crime”, “family values”, activist judges, special rights,
The Left has no brand, no counter brand, no master narrative, no counternarrative.
“If this is how Coke marketed itself, we would all be drinking Pepsi.” 169
“From the perspective of the passionate mind, candidates shouldn’t be running on issues…Candidates should be running on principles, bolstered by a compelling personality, a compelling life story, a shared sense of values with their constituents, the emotional intelligence to identify and communicate these shared values, and some good ideas about how to actualize them.” 174-5
What matters most is master narrative, second, personality and character of the candidate, and leadership qualities. 175
Clair McCaskill: emotionally intelligent, 177 Why don’t liberals and democrats have a consistent narrative on abortion?
A woman’s right to choose: Shibboleth: a : a word or saying used by adherents of a party, sect, or belief and usually regarded by others as empty of real meaning
The republican story about abortion is a Manichean one, a tale of good and evil, in which the good guys stand for life and the bad guys prefer death. 182
The republican narrative is inconsistent (government intrusion in one’s personal life is Ok, but not government intrusion to keep businesses from polluting ground water, air, etc.).; but so is the democratic position that is gray and apparently unprincipled. Democrates have to take a principled stand based on a master narrative. Democrats need a compelling moral vision that they can contrast with the right. 183
According to a conservative position, every rapist would have the right to choose the mother of his child: what the republican right is proposing is a “rapist bill of rights”. 188
Perhaps the most fundamental right of a women is to choose who’s children she shall bear. 188 According to the republican morality tale, if a women is raped she must have her rapists baby. 188
Same with incest: if a sixteen year old girl is molested by her father, she should be forced by the government to have his child, and is she doesn’t want to, she should be forced by the government to go to the man who raped her and ask for his consent. 188
Democrats must be willing got “connect the dots” [reveal the internal logic] in such a way that produces gut level moral disgust.
As Bill Clinton campaigned on, the tax code should be en extension of the moral code, the rich should pay their “fair share”.
Emotional constituents: Union members and non-union members respond to different stimulus because union members have been exposed to experiences and rhetoric that foster their solidarity. 194
Gun Conroll:
If someone in NY city is packing a gun, he probably isn’t hunting quail. 203
Conservatives need to link traditionally conservative networks –hinting and fishing—to a network generally thought of as “liberal”—environmental protection. Where are you going to hunt and fish if you let industry foul and destroy the environment? 206
…and bring out the logic (counter narrative) of the NRA…that every murderer and rapist has the right to own a gun?
“Environmenalism” is a tired slogan: what liberals need to be talking about is protecting the land of our forefathers, the air that we breath, the water that we drink, the streams we fish, the game we hunt, the trails we walk with our children, the majesty of our land and the “God’s earth” 206
Evocative images with distinct emotional constituencies.
Democrats have a profound misunderstanding of the emotional landscape of America. 208
Does a terrorist have the right to own a gun? 211-212
NRA narrative: we have guns to protect us from police, and US military …”The Founding Fathers trusted an armed citizenry as the best safeguard against the possibility of a tyrannical government…” Most americans would find this paranoid, and repugnant, worldview that lead to the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995. “Listen to what they are saying: They want to carry guns so they can shoot at police, American soldiers, and National Guardsmen…’if all else fails’” 212-213.
“You only have to worry about slippery slopes if you aren’t standing on the high ground. And the way you get to the high ground is a coherent [emotionally powerful] narrative.” 213
The narrative must appeal to a broad range of emotional constituencies and American values.
"Words can take us to the doorstep of change, but it is often images that carry us of the threshold."
Images of Selma, Alabama catalyzed support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965; images from the An Inconvenient Truth galvanized many states to enact inititives to regulate carbon dioxide.274
"That Americans pay too little attention to competence in electoral decisions is beyond doubt. They put an exterminator (Tom Delay) in charge of Congress and a man who spent the better part of his life with his liquor cabinet better stocked than his bookshelf in charge of the world." 285
"Words can take us to the doorstep of change, but it is often images that carry us of the threshold."
Images of Selma, Alabama catalyzed support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965; images from the An Inconvenient Truth galvanized many states to enact inititives to regulate carbon dioxide.274
"That Americans pay too little attention to competence in electoral decisions is beyond doubt. They put an exterminator (Tom Delay) in charge of Congress and a man who spent the better part of his life with his liquor cabinet better stocked than his bookshelf in charge of the world." 285
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