The problem is the framing of the message (4.00 / 1)

It appears to me that there are clear themes underlying his approach, it is just that there is a lack of adequate framing, especially in soundbite terms.

Here is my attempt at a 10-word soundbite summary of Obama's platform, and why I see these as consistent themes underlying his policies.

Green jobs.  Wall Street for Main Street.  Integrity.

These three add up to "change you can believe in".

Green jobs is a single convergent solution to the three major issues: energy, economy and climate change.  Contrasts strongly with "drill, drill, drill" and other nonsolutions and inaction of Bush/McCain.

Reagan trickle-down economics was "Main Street through Wall Street" - give tax cuts and subsidies to corporates and rich people, and eventually others would benefit.  As Obama says, this is a failed economic policy, obvious from 40 years of flat real income growth for the bottom 90%.  Obama's policies and rhetoric are consistently about "Wall Street working for Main Street", pushing them to prosper in ways that do not hurt people:

Universal health care approach is about ensuring that companies do not reject those with pre-existing conditions or actual health problems, utilizing competition to deliver better care within pricing constraints.  Free trade is OK only if worker interests are protected.  No tax breaks if jobs are moved offshore.  Regulate financial industry to eliminate deception and exploitation.  McCain's school vouchers would allow private schools to cherry-pick the rich and brighter students, while the public school system suffers, whereas merit pay is about rewarding excellence while not defunding schools based on test scores.  This is a consistent theme of encouraging enterprise and economic activity while constraining it to be beneficial to people: Wall Street for Main Street.

Integrity includes no character assassination, integrity of Government, and integrity of policy making in terms of pursuing broad consensus rather than blindly pushing partisan agendas (non-partisan, not bi-partisan).

This covers nearly all aspects of the core platform other than Iraq War.  Perhaps it should be "Integrity and Judgment".

So I believe there is a consistent theme/message that has not been articulated in soundbite terms.  Whether the campaign does so or not, the netroots can identify and push soundbite versions of the core themes (and perhaps suggest them to the campaign as well).

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by: swaminathan @ Thu Aug 21, 2008 at 02:03:27 AM UTC