McJoan
made note yesterday of the
AP's 'framed' reportage on the Dems' annual vigil for a raise in the minimum wage. AP's David Espo started with, "The Republican-controlled Senate smothered a proposed
election-year increase in the minimum wage Wednesday"... (emphasis mine).
This morning in the Chicago Tribune, the front page carried a prompt for an interior story on how Sen. McCain labeled the Dems' Iraq pull-out ideas "election-year politics" (Tribune's words).
Do we see a trend? More below...
With the Democrats beginning to make noise about their plans and positive agenda for a better America the GOP is shifting from ignoring their plans (ie, "The left doesn't have any ideas") to ridiculing their plans and watering them down as merely election year posturing.
This frame implies that the left is at best simply pandering and at worst that the Dems are insincere in their ideas.
Of course, the GOP's rhetorical gymnastics here gets back to the Karl Rove/Frank Luntz political tactic of 'damned if you do, damned if you don't.'
How do we counteract this?
We, the grassroots, must talk up the Dem proposals around the water cooler and in the coffee line...
Write op-eds and letters to the editor...
Post comments on media blogs (check your local papers, tv, and radio for blogs), local interest blogs, and political blogs of every stripe (even the cons' blogs)...
And of course call in to radio and tv (here's Brian Flemming's notes on how to win on the cons' talking head shows)...
Talk it up. The left has always looked out for the average American. Whether hard-working folks stuck on a depreciating minimum wage or brave soldiers intrepidly doing their duty, liberals have been the ones who gave a sh!t about them rather than leaving them to toil to no avail.
Call the conservatives out. This isn't simply election year politics -- this is every year politics that the left never abandoned but which Democrats cannot accomplish without clear majorities in Congress.
Simply put, if Americans want a better America -- a New Direction -- this year more than ever they need to vote Democratic.