George Lakoff is someone who I think has much to contribute to the political strategy arena. He is going to be far more effective than Karl Rove in the long term. His blog on The Huffington Post: The Mind and the Obama Magic is very helpful as we see Obama become an increasingly controversial candidate here in our own ranks as well as elsewhere. In my own work, I rely heavily on Lakoff's ideas so I would like to discuss this piece in some detail below the break
Lakoff's contributions to practical political strategy are being felt more and more as this campaign progresses. Earlier we spoke about Obama's success from Lakoff's perspective..The secret behind Obama's success?.In this article he addresses the idea that Obama may be moving to the "right" for lack of a better way of putting it.
Barack Obama should not move, or even appear to be moving, toward right-wing views on issues -- even with nuanced escape clauses. Arianna Huffington, Paul Krugman, and the NY Times Editorial Page all agree, for various reasons. I agree as well, for many of the same reasons, as well as important reasons that go beyond even excellent political commentary. My reasons have to do with results in the cognitive and brain sciences, as discussed in my recent book, The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st Century Politics with an 18th Century Brain.
Lakoff say that there are three basic interpretations of the moves Obama has made recently:
There are at least three possibilities. The first is for political expediency. The second is to reassure voters that he is a responsible leader, not a crazy radical. The third is that he thinks that nuanced positions don't have the effect of the moving to the right.
As always Lakoff focuses on these three possibilities from the point of view of their probable effect on the minds of voters. This builds on the themes developed in his many books and articles, the most central one being the role of "framing" in political discourse. To Lakoff cognative Linguistics is the key tool to building a winning political strategy. This idea has a number of aspects to it.
First and foremost is the idea that the mind is "embodied" and that we construct our world view using meatphors that necessarily reflect the fact that our minds are not separate from our bodies and they are therefore going to work accordingly. Framing then is the idea that once we construct a world view new ideas are interpreted from that perspective. In politics, the successful framing of issues all but guarantees that the proper presentation of an idea will get the desired response in a listener. Also, ignorance of the framing of issues will almost certainly lead to trouble. So that is the basis for Lakoff's analysis of what these three possibilities entail.
The Political Expediency Argument
The usual political wisdom is (1) voters vote on the basis of positions on issues, (2) there is a left-to-right spectrum of voters defined by positions on issues, (3) most voters are in the "center." Polls are constructed to appear consistent with this tri-partite hypothesis. The Dick Morris strategy, based on this hypothesis, says: if a Democrat moves the Right, he will get more votes because he will "take away" the other side's issues
I think I have read enough diaries here to know that this idea has been debunked. But often the rationale for the correct debunking misses the point of why this is a bad strategy.
If Obama adopts, or appears to adopt, right-wing positions, he may still win, since McCain is such a weak candidate. But it will hurt Democrats running for office all up and down the ticket, since it will strengthen general conservative positions on all issues and hence work in the favor of conservative candidates.
As has often been said, if you are a conservative, why vote for the progressive spouting conservative views when you can vote for a real conservative?
In short, if Obama adopts, or appears to adopt, rightwing views, he will not only hurt himself, but also hurt other Democrats.
In other words if you buy into their frame you strengthen it and you enable them to use your mistake over and over again. This is a self reinforcing process and it has been clearly shown to be disasterous beyond any one instance. How about the second rationale?
The Responsibility Position
Suppose that Obama's motivation is not political expediency, but rather an attempt to counter both rightwing and centrist stereotypes of progressives as being irresponsible.
Adopting, or appearing to adopt, rightwing positions is not going to work, and will only hurt, for reasons given above. What is the alternative?
In The Audacity of Hope, Obama portrays what I would call progressive ideals as simply American ideals, and he continued that account throughout the primary campaign. I think it is a correct account. And I think it is the key to uniting the country without adopting rightwing views. From this perspective, responsibility and the strength and judgment to act responsibly works with empathy (caring about other people) to define the basic American ideals: freedom, fairness, equality, opportunity, and so on. One can speak from this perspective of "full responsibility" both social and individual as central to the American vision, and they say what it means to be both responsible and committed to American ideals in each issue area. Moving to rightwing views, and abandoning American ideals, is never necessary to win.
In other words, if you really believe your values are shared by the American people stick to them. Do the hard work of reframing issues when necessary, but do it in your value system not some version of theirs. If the values truly coincide then take the time and trouble to show why their abuse of them has create a frame that needs to be discarded and supply the correct frame. Then reenforce it over and over again. As for the third reason:
The Nuanced Policy Position
It is possible to add nuance to a policy to make it look like you are moving to the right without actually doing so in policy terms. This can seem to do double duty, avoiding criticisms without making really substantive changes. It is an illusion.
The bottom line is that if it walks like a duck... In other words it is the old Murphy's Law adage that one should never argue with a fool for people may fail to be able to tell the difference. So where does this leave us?
The best way to be expedient is to be authentic, stick to your core values, show and discuss responsibility, and thus garner trust. That is how to lead our nation, and to do so responsibly and toward fulfillment of its ideals.
This is so sound and so obvious as to almost seem trite. It is not. Clearly politicians fall into this trap over and over again. They become afraid when they see people responding to the framing that has been done so carefully by the right wing. They are tempted to believe that they can use those ready made frames. All they end up doing is spending a lot of time handing voters over to their opponent and making the opponent's job that much easier for them. I hope Senator Obama is as smart as I think he is. Meanwhile he leaves me waiting with anticipation to see what his strategy is as he appears to so many to be falling into one or more of these traps. It should be interesting. I'd feel better if there was not so much at stake.