Rebuilding America

Do you know what the most important lesson is to learn from Sarah Palin's entrance on the national political stage? It is this:

Writing about Obama's experience strengthens the image that he's an insider.

That's right, Democrats are being provoked to talk about Obama's experience to unknowingly spread the image that he's a Washington insider. It's a trick and the bait is already being swallowed by Democrats and mainstream media.

In this essay you'll learn to recognize political actions for what they are, get some tools to respond from your blog and if you're really smart you'll use this knowledge to understand why Obama and Bush succeed and John Kerry loses.

Framing 101

Joe Trippi wrote this a couple of days ago:

"The McCain campaign plans on making an assault on Barack Obama’s strength as a change agent. And challenge, what the McCain campaign will describe as, Obama’s weak or non-existent attacks on corruption within the Democratic Party and other institutions throughout his career.

Like the Swift boat attacks of 2004 on Senator John Kerry, a decorated Viet Nam Veteran -- this assault will be on what is now a strength of Barack Obama's -- his focus on changing a broken system in Washington.

To make this assault, McCain picked in Palin someone who has taken on the corruption in the GOP in Alaska, turned against her own party’s establishment, and fought for reform.

The McCain/Palin duo will challenge Barack Obama’s claim of “a new kind of politics” and chastise Obama and Democratic vice presidential Nominee, Joe Biden, for their “silence” in taking on corruption in their own party in Illinois, Delaware and Washington, DC.

The McCain campaign intends to claim that “more of the same” in Washington means Barack Obama and Joe Biden and will make the argument that if you want to “shake things up” then McCain and his reform minded running mate from Alaska will get the job done. "

That makes sense, especially after reading George Lakoff's take on Palin:

"Palin is the mom in the strict father family, upholding conservative values. Palin is tough: she shoots, skins, and eats caribou. She is disciplined: raising five kids with a major career. She lives her values: she has a Downs-syndrome baby that she refused to abort. She has the image of the ideal conservative mom: pretty, perky, feminine, Bible-toting, and fitting into the ideal conservative family. And she fits the stereotype of America as small-town America. It is Reagan's morning-in-America image. Where Obama thought of capturing the West, she is running for Sweetheart of the West."

This is the frame that the Republicans are trying to establish. Framing is about what she symbolizes, not the exact words that come out of her mouth or what policies she's for. It's about the impression people get from watching her on tv and hearing people comment on her. That impression is important because it is what people use to decide whom to vote for.

Back to Joe's thoughts on what the Republicans are trying to do

undermine people's impression that Obama/Biden = Change
strenghten people's impression that McCain/Palin = Change

Reading Andrew Sullivan's reaction to lies about Obama's record clarified things a bit more. They're provoking Obama to get him touting his experience, to get democrats defending Obama's political record and present him as a real politician. When Obama says he's got experience it strenghtens the image that he's a Washington insider.

There it is.

The Insider frame

- you don't have any experience

- yes I do

- so you're a Washington insider

- no I'm not, I'm an agent of change

- right so you don't have the experience to be commander in chief

- no no I've got lots of experience making laws that forbid lobbyist money in Congress blah blah

- that's right, because you're a Washington insider

- no I want to change America

- yes but you're not strong enough...

Da capo al fine.

Obama hasn't taken the bait, yet. But what should Obama do? What can we do?

The Popular Movement frame

The Obama campaign is about the People. I call it the Popular Movement frame. It evokes images of regular people cooperating, building stuff together, gathering to organize and discuss, helping other people in different ways.

Popular movements often deal with taking power from the powerful giving it to the people, about making democracy work of, by and for the people.

Obama should continue to emphasize empathy and caring for each other. He should highlight ways that the people can change America.

He should avoid taking the republican bait to get him talking about his experience. If he swallows the bait it will be like Nixon saying "I'm not a crook", it just reinforces the impression that he is a crook, or in Obama's case that he is a Washington Insider.

Instead he could follow my previous advice (heh) and present the active sides of his life. That would lessen people's worries about his experience without evoking the Insider frame.

Lives his values

The good thing is that Obama is already doing what he should. Instead of repeating the republican attacks, defending himself and thereby evoking the Insider frame he emphasizes that he's working for the people and they're not, evoking the popular movement frame - his frame.

In this segment he really nails it, defending community organizing simultaneously highlighting his strengths and their weaknesses. In this segment people talk about caring for each other and how community is what makes us strong. The video doesn't even show Obama, it's all about the People.

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Update January 8, 2009: Look at the campaign photos published in december, it's a movement so it doesn't end at election night, it keeps going. Ordinary people cooperating and working together.

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That's perfect. And with giveaways like Palin criticizing community organizing Obama will have lots to counter with. If he keeps doing that he'll win.

What can we do?

We can do two important things.

Evoke the Popular Movement frame.
Explain the Insider frame and the Popular Movement frame to as many people as possible.

Get people thinking about caring for each other, about helping people who need help and about empowering each other to create a better future for ourselves and the people around us.

Talk and write about organizing ourselves

to help old people vote
to help people register to vote
to send food, clothes and blankets to people in need (like after Katrina)
to write a plan for fixing and painting the local library
to rebuild America for ourselves and our children

The Popular Movement frame is symbolic of values like community, cooperation, empathy, strength and responsibility. Actions related to Popular Movements can evoke those values in people and strengthen the conviction that caring for each other is the way to rebuild America.

Avoid the Republican bait

We should avoid taking the republican bait to get us talking about Obama's experience.

Blogging about Obama's experience strengthens the image that he's an Insider.
Blogging about Palin's inexperience strengthens the image that she'll change Washington.

It also strengthens the image that the Presidency is about one person (the Decider) taking care of everything (symbolically).

Since progressives believe that the Presidency is about more than that, more like a collection of systems, programs, organizations and people working together to run government and create a better society, we don't want to evoke the conservative frame.

Instead relate whatever you're writing about to the Popular Movement, to getting people engaged in building a better society every day, not just on election day.

Let's look at an example. McCain evokes the Insider frame by saying this:

"In Illinois the democrat party has spent fifteen million dollars on undisclosed issues. The party officials are under investigation. Obama hasn't done anything to deal with this, the corruption in his own party. How can we expect an insider like him to change all of Washington?"

I know it's tempting to attack an accusation like this directly but that evokes and reinforces the Insider frame which hurts Obama. Instead counter it by reframing the issue to get people looking at it from our perspective, from within the Popular Movement frame.

How to reframe

First let's take a look at what we're dealing with.

It's an attack on Obama as a person, as a commander in chief. Apparently he doesn't have what it takes.

That's from the conservative perspective, the conservative worldview. What's the issue from the perspective of the Popular Movement frame, from the perspective of The People? (If you need input on stuff like this go to the Rockridge Institute).

We can start to analyze the issue by replacing "Obama" with "the People" in the McCain message.

"In Illinois the democrat party has spent fifteen million dollars on undisclosed issues. The party officials are under investigation. The People hasn't done anything to deal with this, the corruption in his own party. How can we expect an insider like him to change all of Washington?"

It looks like we, the people, have some political corruption to deal with.

The issue is: How should the people deal with political corruption and what kind of leadership does it take to help the people do that?
The answer is: We deal with corruption by increasing government transparency and by holding the political leaders accountable for what happens in their administration, through independent investigations.

Now it's time to bring up what Obama is suggesting in these areas. Obama's policies will

create a centralized Internet database of lobbying reports, ethics records, and campaign finance filings in a searchable, sortable and downloadable format
make White House communications public
require independent monitoring of lobbying laws and ethics rules

Finally we check McCain's record on political corruption. Oh my, John McCain was one of the Keating Five! How unfortunate.

We now have everything we need to write a blog post and help Obama get elected.

"In his speech today John McCain attacked Obama by bringing up an ongoing investigation in the Illinois state senate. Hmm, an unfinished investigation, probably means he's guilty, right John? And talking of political corruption I'm surprised to hear someone with your record, being part of the Keating Five, bring this up. I get the feeling you're continuing the practice of saying and doing anything that serves your self-interest, just like your predecessor.

Obama's policies increase government transparency by making White House communications public and "hold political leaders accountable by requiring independent monitoring of lobbying laws and ethics rules". That's a system that lets the people keep track of all government activity, including what the president is up to. What are you up to John?"

Ok, I'm sure my writing is a bit corny for your blog but you get the point, reframe the issue so it looks from the perspective of the people and the Popular Movement because that's where Obama is strong and McCain is weak and that's the frame the Obama campaign is set on using.

His chances of winning increase with every blogger that learns to frame ideas from progressive values, avoid the opponents frames and reframe lies and false arguments. It's a skill that will be even more useful in the future.

What we really need though is a grassroots API.

Obama Grassroots API

Software developers use programs called APIs so they won't have to do everything on their own. You could say they write programs standing on the shoulders of giant systems.

We can do something like that to create, frame and spread political ideas. A community effort:-)

When McCain attacks Obama we can document the attack, clarify the purpose of the attack and create a way to counter. Once we have published a phrase or document of how to frame the attack, we tag it with a Creative Commons license, and then bloggers can remix, build on and promote it. Eventually we'll have a database full of recipes for dealing with all kinds of situations and ideas (to use in future elections).

I'm convinced this will be an important part of political campaigning although it might take some time before campaigns catch on and start using it deliberately.

Actually, republicans already have a resource like that. Everyone uses their frames, from tax relief to cut-and-run, the surge and the war on terror. They also have Fox News and other conservative media. But centralized republican media won't stand a chance against fifty thousand bloggers who use the same frame based on progressive values, not a chance.

Building blocks for Rebuilding America

In this election we've witnessed the incredible amount of money Obama collects from his donors. What if one percent of the donors has a blog and the Obama campaign has a way to spread the Popular Movement frame to them. And I'm not talking about embedded video and quotes. Bloggers would use Obama messages and frames to tell their own stories and relate his frames to their world. Rebuilding the country, one frame at a time.

by Rikard Linde on Thursday, September 4th, 2008

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