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I generally think Chris Bowers' analyses are spot-on accurate, but there have been a couple of things lately I need to quibble with. One is his dismissal of the possibility of Scott Kleeb winning in Nebraska. I disagree with that strongly, and will do a post as to why sometime very soon. The other is his post on Obama's first general election ad, which is the topic of this piece.
I will start by admitting that I might well have been confused by some of his fundamental points, but rather than just ask him privately about what he meant, I thought it would be worthwhile to go ahead and have an open debate here on OpenLeft. So Chris, if I'm misinterpreting your arguments, feel free to push back at me.
What I found troubling was that many of the phrases Chris referenced as conservative frames were in my view very appealing phrases that have been hijacked by conservatives. Here are the phrases Chris listed as "conservative frame" phrases:
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• Strong values
• Values straight from the Kansas heartland
• Self-reliance
• Working hard without making excuses
• Moving people from welfare to work
• Cut taxes for working families
Chris uses all these examples of conservative frames, and then in his follow-up paragraph also complains about "lots of emphasis on values and country." He argues that with this mix of conservative and progressive frames, that the ad is "too muddled" to be effective.
Alright, so maybe it's because I'm from the heartland, but I am very mystified and, yes, troubled by this argument. Like some of Chris' commenters, I don't get how many of these phrases are seen as conservative frames. I've had strong values my entire life, as has Chris and most other progressive people I know. I believe in being as self-reliant as I can be, and I don't see how being in favor of that goes against helping your neighbors or community spirit that progressives have always supported. And I don't know why "values straight from the Kansas heartland" is a conservative frame. Is it just because Kansas is currently a conservative state? Having heartland values is meant to symbolize solidity, familiarity, and stability, not ideology, in this context, and I didn't get how that is conservative framing.
On the other phrases Chris cites, his case is stronger but I still don't buy it. For one thing, I think his selectiveness about highlighting certain words without giving them their context doesn't make sense. I don't think there is anything unprogressive about moving people from welfare to work, because the poor people that I have worked with as a community and labor organizer wanted desperately to get off of welfare and into a job. I know that there are those that disagree with this, but I see nothing wrong with advocating cutting taxes for the poor and working-class families, who pay an absurdly higher percentage of their income in taxes than wealthier folks. Working hard without making excuses is Obama's version of Clinton's great 1992 working class appeal to "folks who work hard and play by the rules," and that's not a conservative frame, just a political appeal to working class voters who are getting screwed economically but are still proud of what they do.
Are these really conservative frames, or just language about Obama's life and values that reflect the more conservative swing voters he's playing this ad for in these swing states with huge numbers of blue-collar voters? To me, it's the latter. I think a conservative frame is one that accepts conservative language on issues: calling the estate tax the death tax, calling anti-choice ideologies pro-life, promising to give much-needed tax relief. Like most politicians, like even most progressive activists, Obama from time to time does drift into the powerful conservative framing that's been so dominant in our culture, but I don' think he's done that in this ad. He's presenting himself as a solid, steady guy who knows the language and values of Middle America, and since that's mostly who he is speaking to in this ad, I think that's a good thing.
I think this is an important debate to be having, because I fear that progressives too often steer away from language appealing to working-class swing voters just because they associate that language with conservatives. Just because right-wingers use words and phrases like faith, family, values, hard work, self-reliance, country and patriotism doesn't mean we shouldn't be proudly using them as well. That's not using their framing; it's using words that rightly belong more to us than to them.
One reason I feel so strongly about this is that the message research that Drew Westen and I have been working on is pretty clear: you can win people over when you are talking about controversial progressive issues, even when talking to relatively moderate to conservative voters, if you make them comfortable with the language you use, if you make it clear that you share their values and aren't talking down to them. That doesn't mean speaking in conservative frames, but it does mean using the kind of values-oriented language Obama uses in this ad. And, yes, you do also have to convince them that you aren't the effete, elite stereotype of a liberal they are used to seeing portrayed in Republican ads and on Fox News.
This conversation all goes back to the issues discussed in my post about white working-class voters. We have to get some of them to build a long-term progressive majority, or to win this Presidential election. And we can win them. But we have to speak their language. |
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