All politics is personal

Thanks to yesthattom for leading me to crystallize my thoughts on this subject.

George Lakoff (of Don't Think of an Elephant) posted a discussion about framing discussions about Immigration Policy from the Progressive end of the political spectrum. It's good, but it lacks punch, and his core frame (Nurturing Parent) makes my teeth itch. Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist, has also been doing work (obviously from the other side of the aisle) on Immigration Policy framing, and a memo for candidates was recently leaked, and has been getting a lot of play in the blogosphere.
They're both very interesting, but I think that in general the Luntz effort is orders of magnitude better. Luntz basically tells the candidate 'here are the terms to use that will appeal to what the public already believes they know about the issue.' Lakoff talks about 'here is how to talk about the issue in a way that is much more comprehensive.' Unfortunately, not only is the Lakoff framing reliably more complex, it also has much less punch, because it asks the voter to step outside their own frame, while the Luntz spin basically reaffirms what the voter believes they already know. Even in the case where the Republican candidate is speaking to a Hispanic audience, who he expects will have personal connections to illegal immigrants, he still poses his frame in a way that affirms the self-perception of the listener. The Lakoff framing is mostly about other people, the Luntz framing is about the voter the candidate is speaking to.

And that really sums up what I think is wrong with Progressive communication in general today: Their communication appears to be about other people, even when it isn't. And Conservative communication is all about the person listening to the message, even when it isn't. This means that the Progressive communications are failing on two counts: first, talking to prospective voters about other people's interests is a much less effective way to win votes than talking to prospective voters about them, and secondly because talking to someone about other people in the context of the listener is a much more respectful and engaging way to communicate. Talking to people about other people in the context of the other people is pretty much only going to engage people who have an academic interest in the other people in question, or who are simply academically interested in the world. Trying to win elections by having academic conversations about people other than the prospective voter is a sucky way to try to win elections.

yesthattom's original post, and my comment to it, are here.

EDIT: People have been linking to this, I've unlocked the post.