With Hillary's historic call for purpose, determination and unity tonight, this convention has concluded its second overwhelmingly successful broadcast day.
If the goal of the first day was to introduce the Obamas as a family and put a final nail in the pitiful right-wing delusion/smear of "they're not like us", then mission accomplished. And after Hillary's magnificent performance tonight, possibly her best ever, the last vestiges of intraparty conflict, and more importantly the media myth of intraparty conflict, are going the way of the dodo.
So now we move into Day 3, the purpose of which must be to lay out the powerful and dramatic attacks which will undo the McCain machine and leave conservatism on the scrapheap of history.
As Sun Tsu said in the greatest military document ever written, The Art of War, "Know thy enemy and know thyself and you shall face a thousand battles without disaster." My battle plan for Kicking Ass in the tradition of Sun Tsu, below the fold.
If anyone understands the heart and soul of the Obama message, it is George Lakoff. The cognative scientist and instigator of the progressive framing movement, Lakoff has been following Obama's thematic career with journeyman's insight.
To understand Obama, you must understand the guiding philosophy behind the headlines. Lakoff:
Hope and change are not the fundamental ideas behind the Obama campaign; they make sense only if you know the content of the hope and the change. The fundamental ideas are empathy, responsibility, and aspiration.
Empathy, Responsibility, and Aspiration. The air war will be fought in terms of Hope and Change, but in order to engage conservatism and the McCain campaign on the new battleground created by the overwhelming success of Obama's historic messaging, we must fight on our terms, without quarter, and without fear.
What has always bothered me about Lakoff is that while his insights are crystal clear and filled with purpose, he has never taken the next step and transformed the clear-minded statements of principle into Frank Lutz style language of political warfare. Lakoff is a master of deconstructing the frames and storylines behind such winning right-wing frames as "Tax Relief", "Nanny State", or "Cut and Run". He has never taken the next step and provided Democrats with the same kind of language that is both readymade for action and immediately accessible for political engagement.
Below I will take that step for the three bedrock principles upon which the Obama message stands. Each creates a framework and immediately recognizeable narrative, around which speaches, diatribes, discussions, debates, conversations, billboards, or bumperstickers can be built. For each one of these is both a statement of what America is, and simultaneously an indictment of those who stand against the core American principles behind Obama.
Conservatives without a Conscience
Definition: Those who will use any emotional or religious attack to disrespect or degrade the patriotism of another American for political gain.
When conservatives speak of Family Values they are engaging in a unique bigotry that denies the value of anything that deviates from their definition of normal. As a result, any level of hate, even self-hate, may be projected onto those others and used to marginalize and deny the rights of those "others". America was built on a principle of freedom that includes freedom for those who do may not agree with us all the time. Those who deny this are Conservatives without a Conscience, and like Craig, Vitter, Foley and a thousand other hypocrites, they are often guilty of the precise "crimes" of which they accuse others for political gain.
Deadbeat Conservatism
Definition: Those who do not love America enough to support her long term survival, excellence, and success.
When conservatives, call for no tax pledges or rally for Small Government, what they are really demanding is cult-like adhereance to the ideology of governmental incompetence not because Government is capbable, but because government can, as Lincoln espoused do for Americans what they cannot do for themselves and on their own. Most specifically, this is an assault on the governmental role as a bulwark against runaway greed, royalism, and corporate power. Thomas Frank's new book "The Wrecking Crew" lays out this argument perfectly. It is not a mistake that conservatives screw up government. It is intentional.
When you talk about Deadbeat Conservatives, you are talking about a worldview that requires government to abdicate its Responsibility to regular working people. Responsibility for Americans is not only personal responsibility, but is also the responsibility of families, communities and the nation as a whole. The Small Government meme is the messaging of irresponsible and greedy aristocrats seeking a class society.
Another Bush Maverick
Definition: Those who allow themselves to be guided so powerfully by fear that they disregard wisdom, go it alone, and squander the moral principles upon which America was founded.
When conservatives call for a Strong military, they are advocating for the neocon principle of preemptive war as embodied by Bush and McCain. This is specifically formulated for the current political world, but it simultaneously degrades the myth of the Maverick, and ties McCain to the Bush failure. Bush and McCain live in a world so filled with fear that they are unable to see a world in which all people in all nations aspire to greatness. They live in a world where there are only win-lose situations. For those encumbered by fear, neither trillion dollar military spending nor 2.3 million prison populations can make them feel secure in their own skin. Without hope, without aspiration, there is only fear, and Bush Mavericks will turn their attack or turn their backs on anyone in order to scrabble in the dark for some unattainable shadow of security.
America is founded on a greater aspiration - an aspiration that we can live free to speak, free to practice our faith, free from want, and free from fear. Obama and all Americans know this to be true, but those who oppose us are Bush Mavericks, angry, unstable, and too scared to face the world with respect.
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Each of these epithets may be used and should be used both to introduce lines of attack against Bush, McCain and the Conservative movement, and to summarize those attacks as well. The more the terms are used and explored, the greater the value and impact they will continue to have.
In terms of the current lines of attack from the campaign, McCain is out of touch, viz. house-gate, because he is a Conservative without a Conscience (lacking empathy), he is dangerous and angry and thus a Bush Maverick living by fear and not hope. He is also a Deadbeat Conservative willing to continue the disastrous economic policies of the Bush Administration.
rinse. lather. repeat.
No how. No way. No McCain.
In her wake, she made everybody, Obama and Clinton supporters, media types, Republicans, Democrats, independents, conservatives, moderates, the politically involved and uninvolved, everybody, focus on the extreme importance of this election. The only ones left were Pat Buchanan and Bill Kristol, babbling nonsense and unsuccessfully trying to hog the microphone. Stand back, guys, you are on the wrong side of history.