Democrats have no unified vision/frame to express their economic platform that can compete with "Trickle-down Economics" on the right. We need one.
Anyone who has studied Adam Smith has heard the phrase "a rising tide lifts all boats" to describe how a stronger economy automatically helps everyone. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) had a great quote recently, during the debate on a minimum wage increase, that can be paraphrased as a need to make sure the rising tide lifts ALL boats, not just the yachts. I believe Smith's phrase is also associated with JFK.
So why can't the Democratic equivalent of "Trickle-down Economics" be "Rising Tide Economics"?
First some thoughts about the beauty of "Trickle-down". 1) It is concise: you only need three words. 2) It perfectly describes the mechanism of action that the system proposes: from those three simple words you can tell right away that this system will involve putting things in from the top and having them go through several layers before inevitably reaching the bottom. Now, this is partly because the right-wing noise machine has worked since the earliest days of Reagan to establish this frame, but none the less it is an effective one.
Next, some thoughts on the beauty of the frame of "Rising Tide". The beauty is, essentially, the grass-roots optimism of it. Anything that rises is optimistic, by simple virtue of our built-in cognitive structure. But the tide metaphor is what really gives it the punch. A rising tide is something that comes from the bottom up, and, as long as you're not tied to a concrete block, it lifts you up. It is an uncontrollable force of nature that lifts up everything in its realm, equitably acting on all things.
Using that frame as a basis, the Democratic policies should fall fairly easily into line. Minimum wage increases are the most obvious way to bring up the entire bottom at once, but progressive income taxes, the Byron Dorgan offshoring of jobs agenda (http://www.amazon.com/...), the Apollo Alliance jobs via energy independence agenda (http://www.apolloalliance.org/), pre-school and education programs, and making college more accessible to more people are all things that can fit into the frame nicely.
We as Democrats are at a disadvantage for having no MSM echo chamber to compete with Republicans, but fortunately we have this great activist net roots echo chamber. If we can get Rising Tide Economics big enough in here, soon the Washington Post will have to mention it in the media commentary columns and all the politicians who come to conventions like YearlyKos to pander to bloggers as an interest group will have to pretend to be interested. Let's do it!