Big Fat Warning: This article is a combination of my personal observations, notes, and opinion. If you were there, and saw it differently, I'm not surprised. Please post a comment containing your perspective, or even write your own diary on it.
Democratizing the message is a common desire among progressives. Today we showed how it can be done by turning a roomful of progressive activists into a framing think tank based on Lakoff's theories and techniques.
Sunday afternoon, a crowd of progressives got together in a Berkeley meeting hall for a little framing boot camp. This was a follow-up to the successful "Democracy Rising" meeting last year.
Actually, it's more accurate to call "Democracy Rising II" an exercise. In the athletic sense of the word. We struggled, we strained, we stretched, and in the end, we developed new capabilites and walked out of there stronger.
Hey GOP -- I got yer think tank right here!
Attendence was robust. My informal count was somewhere in the 180-220 range. Apparently, this was about double the actual RSVPs.
Anyone who thinks 2004 did anything but light a rocket under our collective asses is not paying attention.
After the opening, agenda, announcements and the usual fanfare, we got underway with the presentation of an interesting message-crafting model learned at Camp Wellstone, a progressive training program in grassroots politics.
This messaging model was called "the message box." It is a tool for thinking about how to present your message, taking into account the context and battlefield realities that message will be presented in.
Draw a box. Then divide that box into four quarters. In each of the four corners, you will jot down the following information:
What we will say about our position | What they will say about our position |
What we will say about their position | What they will say about their position |
So, in preparing a message about opposition to attacking Iraq, we might have written the following:
We must finish the work in Afghanistan. Our troops are needed both there and at home. | Leaving Iraq alone is dangerous, as they will become a deadly threat shortly. Showing disunity in time of war will encourage our enemies. |
Bin Laden is not in Iraq. Iraq has done nothing to Americans who aren't in Iraq. The Bush family wants to invade Iraq. | Saddam is evil. WMDs are there. Iraq supports terrorists. |
(The actual speaker used an entirely different issue in her example, but my notes were extraordinarily crappy during this part so I'm winging it a little here.)
Placing our message components into this "message box" helps us see, prior to the public debate over the proposed message, how it matches up against the opposition both on offense and defense.
With this model in mind, we next watched George Lakoff's DVD lecture on framing. As always, there was something new in there for every viewer.
After the DVD was complete, we broke up into "issue groups" to work out messsages and actions we could take that would evoke progressive frames (such as protection, freedom, prosperity, fairness, trust, responsibility, community, opportunity, cooperation, and fulfillment) in support of our issue positions.
This is the heart of what George Lakoff is getting at: find the core values that underlie your position on an issue, then talk about the issue in terms of that value. If responsibility is the reason you support Social Security, then talk about it in terms of being responsible, of doing your duty, of not abandoning others, and so forth.
Here are the issues we tackled today in our issue groups:
- 2006 Elections/Local & Statewide
- Economic Democracy: Social Security, Labor, Tax, and Trade
- Issues Environmental Issues
- Health care
- Human Rights/Civil Rights & Tort Reform
- Media/Message
- Voting Rights/Election Reform
- Education
I was in the 2006 Elections group. I volunteered to take notes and to speak for the group during the reporting session to follow the workshop period.
This, as you might expect, turned out to be a very broad topic. We decided to quickly brainstorm a list of issues that we thought would materially impact the 2006 races, then select 2 or 3 from that list to work on today.
2006: Issues
- Redistricting
- The truth about Schwarzenegger and his policies
- Abolishing CalPERS in favor of a defined-contribution system
- Replacing Feinstein
- Health care for all Californians
- Budget process reform
- Damage to social services disguised as tax cuts
- Education
- State Democratic Party awareness of, and responsiveness to, these issues (and others from the grassroots)
- Corporate campaign finance reform
- "Special interests," as used by the Governor
- Coordination of the diverse interest groups that share common progressive cause
- Corporate corruption and tax breaks
Whew. Quite a load there. We selected, by a show of hands, the top five issues from this list and set to work.
Issue 1: Health Care in California
The first issue we tackled, as it resonated with the largest number of us in the group, was health care in California. We were in agreement that we wanted to establish state-wide health care coverage for all Californians.
We started out with a "values inventory," listing the progressive values this touches.
Health Care: Values
- Prosperity
- Cooperation
- Community
- Strength
- Fairness (and equal rights)
- Protection
- Responsibility
- Fulfillment
We then set about proposing frames, facts or phrases that evoke those values when discussing the issue of California state health care coverage for all.
One note that we hit early on here: we did not like the negative baggage that "universal health care" has acquired. While we wanted to use the phrase for accuracy reasons, we acknowledged that it carried with it some negative leftovers from the health care battles of the 1990s. We chose instead to use "health care for all."
Health Care: Frames, facts and phrases
VALUE | FRAME, FACT OR PHRASE |
Prosperity | Health care for all is cost-effective. Medicare has lower overhead costs than any private health insurer. |
Responsibility | California is handling health care coverage for state employees quite effectively. There is every reason to extend such a system to all Californians. |
Prosperity | We will realize significant savings over the current costs of private insurers by covering all patients through a California state system. |
Fairness | A state-wide health coverage system will level the playing field among employers. |
Freedom | Our health care choices will not be limited by the capricious decisions of private insurers. |
Prosperity | Expensive emergency room visits will be cut sharply through access to regular and preventive care for all. |
Fulfillment | Health care for all children gives all children a better chance at reaching their potential. |
Responsibility | Health care for all is good family values. |
Protection | State-wide health care prevents the spread of diseases of poverty, protecting us all from tuberculosis and worse. |
Fairness | CEOs of private insurers are as overpaid as other CEOs. They earn far more than they deserve. A California state health care plan would have a fairer pay structure. |
Fairness | We all deserve health care. |
Strength | The state's economy and society will be stronger with "full strength" health care. |
Strength | A healthy community is a strong community. Let's strengthen California by strengthening Californians. |
Responsibility | Health care for our kids is an investment in our future. |
Using the "message box" model we learned earlier in the event, we took some time to consider what the opponents might say in the coming battle. We ran out of time to come up with good answers to these, as we had another topic to tackle yet, so after the meeting was over I took some time to come up with responses based on our earlier work.
Health Care: What they will say, and how we will answer
THEY SAY | WE SAY |
It's expensive. | It's cheaper than private insurers, which is all we have now. |
It's low-quality -- the government can't do anything right. | Funny, they seem to be doing just fine taking care of the health of our governor, legislators, and other state employees. |
It's impractical. | HMOs are impractical. Heck, we all know they don't work. Know what does work? The current California state health care system for state employees. |
With only a few minutes left in our session, we rushed headlong into the topic of redistricting. We quickly found that we did not have consensus in the group on whether to oppose redistricting or not.
Issue 2: Redistricting
Some felt that any redistricting plan proposed by a Republican governor could not possibly benefit us, no matter how it was presented.
Others felt that redistricting might be beneficial, since the current system protected right-leaning incumbents, preventing progressive challengers from getting into office.
The current form that redistricting is taking, a panel of retired judges, was not clearly favorable to one side or the other. Some thought Schwarzenegger would be appointing them, which would certainly taint things; others were doubtful of the exact selection process.
We made the executive decision to move on to the next biggest topic: replacing Feinstein with someone more progressive.
Issue 3: Replacing Feinstein
Diane Feinstein was roundly criticized by everyone in the group. The charges against her were legion. The need to replace her with someone more progressive is founded on many progressive values.
Replacing Feinstein: Values
- Responsiblity
- Community
- Service
- Protection
- Trust
- Strength
In many cases, a value was revealed by Feinstein's failure to deliver on that value. "Violating trust," "Not responsive to community," "Lack of strength," and "Poor service" were all mentioned during the values inventory.
Replacing Feinstein: Frames, facts and phrases
VALUE | FRAME, FACT OR PHRASE |
Strength | She's too weak to stand up to the Republicans and their lies. She's like Charlie Brown -- the Republicans keep yanking the football away, and when she's flat on her back, they promise not to do it next time. And she believes them. |
Service, Trust | We elected her to cover our ass, not kiss the GOP's. |
Service | She's self-serving. She's voted based on electoral calculations instead of representing our views. |
Trust | We need a leader we can trust. |
Protection, Strength | We need a Senator who is strong enough to care; someone strong enough to build and defend our social infrastructure. |
Many | We need two Barbara Boxers. |
Responsibility, Service | A Senator should be responsible for her votes and responsive to her consituents. |
It's important to note here that little or none of the above framing work could be turned against Feinstein in the general election. This is important when considering how best to unseat an incumbent in the primary; if the incumbent survives the primary fight, we need to make sure that nothing we have done gives the GOP any ammunition going into in the general election. It is unlikely, for example, that a GOP challenger to Feinstein would say, "pick me over her because her own party members said she couldn't stand up to the GOP."
Once again using the "message box" model, we considered what the Feinstein campaign might say in the coming battle. As before, we ran out of time to come up with good answers to these, so after the meeting was over I worked up some responses based on our values inventory and phrasing brainstorm.
Replacing Feinstein: What they will say, and how we will answer
THEY SAY | WE SAY |
Feinstein's a realist. She's a pragmatist. | We need idealists in the Senate to combat the GOP's idealists. |
The Senate is a place of deal-making. She can make deals to get things done that would die otherwise. | The GOP has not come through on any deals with Democrats on any substantive issue. We make progress by fighting for what's right, not compromising with what's wrong. |
Feinstein's a centrist. | The "center" is too far to the right. Let's move the average to the left. We're California, one of the most progressive states in the nation. Our Senators should reflect that. |
Wrapup
Each group took a few minutes to share the messaging we had developed. Unfortunately, I was so enthralled by the process and the people talking that I failed to take notes during the final reporting. (If you were there, and have notes from your group, I'd love to see them in a comment here. Otherwise I'll just go nosing around all the Yahoo! groups later this week and see what you've posted.)
None of the groups had managed to produce action plans for delivering the messages they had developed, but we did all at least "get" the connection between values and message, which is critical.
We did all create a number of promising messages, and we will continue to work on them in our online conversations in our Yahoo! groups. Some groups even arranged to meet again separately and work more on their issues.
It was very much a roomful of rookies, with the same inexperience, the same eagerness to learn, the same energy, and the same crackle of potential. I'm very much looking forward the next Democracy Rising!
I've never seen grassroots people form an ad hoc think tank like this. I think we can improve and repeat this model as a means of generating, focusing, and percolating messages up from the grassroots to candidates, officials, and their campaigns.
As I noted above, democratizing the message is a common desire among progressives. Today we showed how it can be done.