In Sunday's Washington Post, Zach Goldfarb reviews the political staff's prognostication skills.  The article makes some good points, but raises serious doubts about their ability to analyze data.

In July, the [Post] political staff came up with a list of eight questions that would frame the campaign. Over the past four months, individual articles -- which remain online here -- looked at races where the bellwether questions were most vividly on display.

I give the Post credit for intellectual honesty.  Unfortunately, it appears they have trouble reconciling the data with their preconceived notions.  They also have trouble counting to eight, so maybe we shouldn't expect too much too soon.

 Here's the point they keep dancing around:  We have a mandate.  Unlike the "moral mandate" of 2004, this mandate for change is broad, but not deep.  If we deliver real change, we can make this durable.   Since this is Sunday, I will stick to clickable graphics.   This one is from The New York Times and shows the Senate victory adjusted for population.  There are plenty more below the fold....

Though the mainstream media frequently talks about the "War on Terror" with terminology lifted from the battlefields of World War II, the net has featured some terrific discussion of what it means to engage in warfare against an enemy that refuses to fight by your own standards of "honorable behavior."  In particular, Pericles' diary on asymmetrical warfare is one of the clearest, most informative pieces of writing you're likely to find in any forum.

But as we're appreciating the difficulty that conventional armies face in asymmetrical engagements, let's remember the quote by Mao Tse-Tung: "all politics is war."  And on the political language front, Democrats are fighting a conventional war against an enemy that just won't "fight fair."

As the 2006 elections approach and the 'Rubber Stamp' Republican party corrodes into their 'Culture of Corruption' and scandal, we should be careful not to dismiss the lessons of the past. We should not forget the reasons that the Republican party is in its current dominant position. We should not ignore the people and the strategies that earned the GOP the power they so hastily and aggressively abused.

Fronting those efforts was a man named Frank Luntz -- a master political wordsmith -- and the person responsible for such memorable frames as: "Tax Relief", "Retirement Security", and "Lawsuit Abuse Reform".

Barely a year has passed and the heated discussion of Luntz's New American Lexicon -- then revealed by DailyKos -- has been replaced by talk of the GOP's deserving self-implosion. Now, I know that hopeful progressives are not counting on the right's collapse to take the left to political victory in 2006 and 2008, but we are comforted by the belief that these circumstances are in our favor -- for the time being. Let's not get too comfortable -- understanding that it will take a much larger, broad-based effort to return America to it's rightful set of progressive values.

One part of that effort will be for all of us -- elected officials, activists, and voters -- to remember and appreciate the power of Frank Luntz. To facilitate that, we present to you -- as part of our Political Cortex Framing Project -- Luntz's New American Lexicon in a fully searchable, copy/pastable, web-friendly format. Read it. Digest it. Learn from it.

Frank Luntz Republican Playbook (New American Lexicon) -- Searchable Text-Version

• PART I "Introduction"
  
• PART II "Setting the Context and Tone"
  
• PART III "Growth, Prosperity, & Restore Energy and Economic Security"
  
• PART IV "International Trade: Promoting America's Competitiveness"
  
• PART V "The Budget: Ending Wasteful Washington Spending"
  
• PART VI "Tax Relief & Simplification"
  
• PART VII "Social Security = Retirement Security" (Part a)
  
• PART VII "Social Security = Retirement Security" (Part b)
  
• PART VIII "Lawsuit Abuse Reform: A Commonsense Approach"
  
• PART IX "An Energy Policy for the 21st Century"
  
• PART X "Appendix: The 14 Words Never to Use"
  

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The Bush administration is in a state of collapse. Around the country, people are starting to talk about the need to impeach and remove Bush from office. Many of these people, like the one-time Republicans described here are, like William Buckley, totally lost and devoid of answers. Especially in Red or Purple areas, everybody will know who the resident liberal is - even if you have never said a word about it.

Announcing the launch of the Political Cortex "Framing" project.

The project will be an ongoing effort to provide a 'handbook' of framing suggestions. To begin, we'll present a 5-part primer to bring those unfamiliar with the concept of 'framing' into the loop. Over time, we will present framing suggestions and resources on various issues. For convenience, we will include a link to the main 'Framing' page in our 'Resources' section.

As we journey down this path to framing supremacy, we will borrow generously from the pioneer in this field, George Lakoff. In his groundbreaking work, Lakoff, author of "Don't Think of an Elephant" and "Moral Politics", and a Fellow at the progressive Rockridge Institute, has set the stage for a progressive framing revolution.

First, what are 'value-based' answers?

A: They are answers that:

* Establish your position on the issue at hand

* Frame the issue in a way that elicits a specific context and vision based on your core values. That vision will then be the one within which the issue is evaluated by observers.

Important: 'Yes' and 'No' are not value-based answers and should almost never be used when discussing serious issues.

Technique: Regardless of the framing of a question, give your answer as a statement of your position -- one that you want everyone to hear. Do not play into the questioner's traps by dignifying their heavily spun questions. By directly addressing the question, you will lose and a framing opportunity will be lost.

Think strategically! Think long-term!

In the final chapter of our basic framing primer, we'll take a look at the techniques used to bring it all together -- multiple-issue strategic initiatives and slippery slope initiatives.

In the past, most progressive initiatives have been highly focused on single issues without regard for the larger picture. In contrast, most conservative initiatives have been developed with the specific purpose of targeting a broad range of conservative causes.

They've accomplished this primarily by using 'Multiple-Issue Strategic Initiatives' and 'Slippery Slope Initiatives':

We've defined framing and discussed it's vast importance in the fight for ideological supremacy. And we've discussed the differences between the progressive and conservative world views -- necessary for the creation of effective frames. Now it's time to learn how to frame.

There are 5 major steps:

In the words of Lakoff:

1) Define our basic progressive vision
2) Establish our values coming out of a basic progressive vision
3) Define principles that realize those progressive values
4) Derive policy directions that fit these principles and values
5) Establish a 'ten-word' philosophy that encapsulates all of the above

This is the type of depth of understanding that is needed to appeal to the masses. Without it, we as a progressive movement, are flailing in the wind, pointing here and there without any sort of structure, fluidity or connection to a fundamental, moral, ethical, and effective value structure.

To effectively frame the issues and the world around us, we must first understand how conservatives and progressives are different. To truly understand these differences, it's important that we digest them on a deeply intuitive, emotional and intellectual level. George Lakoff's metaphor of the 'Nation as Family' will provide such insight.

Introducing the 'Nurturant Parent' and 'Strict Father': Lakoff simplifies the contrast between progressive and conservative world views by presenting each as a style of parenting. This flows within a much broader metaphor that equates the nation to family -- suggesting that 'progressive thought' is that of the 'Nurturant Parent' while conservative thought is that of the 'Strict Father'. Where each has the following characteristics:

"Tax Relief", "Tort Reform", "Partial Birth Abortion", "Death Tax", "Marriage Penalty". You've heard them all before. You've digested them. You've probably even used the terms yourself.

And each time you did you were helping to legitimize the Republicans' views on the issues -- that taxation is an affliction requiring relief, that our court system is corrupt and therefore requiring reform, that a very rare procedure (usually reserved to save the mother's life) is equivalent to killing a born child, that you 'can't even die without being 'afflicted' by taxation, that the current tax structure is an assault on marriage (and in turn that the 'tax and spend' Democrats are attacking marriage.) You were reinforcing and legitimizing their frames -- their vision and context of ideas, rationales, images, and perspectives -- in short, the conservative world view.

Don't blame yourself, though. They've been perfecting these frames and their means to meld them with 'mainstream' thinking in America for decades. It's only recently that the left has realized the power and effectiveness of frames in driving the national debate and subsequently the electoral results.

Folks, we CAN pick up 100 seats in the Senate and House. We can do it by repeating to ourselves the word "hysterical" every time we come across the word "Republican." Then, we go online and look in the papers, print out every single instance of GOP hysteria and give it to our neighbors and friends and publish it on our blogs and in this community.

A perfect example of hysterical Republicans yelling and screaming is happening right in our backyard. Here in Washington, the GOP sunk to a new low by launching an attack ad in the mail which looked like a sex offender notification card.

In 1990, Newt Gingrich published a booklet he called "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control". He mailed his little manifesto to Republican leaders throughout the land and encouraged them to "paint a vivid, brilliant word picture." Gingrich, showing distrust for his fellow Republicans' judgment, saw fit to supply the leaders with two lists of keywords, a positive word list to use in describing themselves and a negative keyword list to describe those evil Democrats.

Gingrich's positive words for Republicans (hold your nose)

"Active, activist, building, candid(ly), care(ing), challenge, change, children, choice/choose, citizen, commitment, common sense, compete, confident, conflict, control, courage, crusade, debate dream, duty, eliminate good time in prison, empower(ment), fair, family, freedom, hard work, help, humane, inventive, initiative, lead, learn, legacy, liberty, light, listen, mobilize, moral, movement, opportunity, passionate, peace, pioneer, precious, premise, preserve, principle(d), pristine, pro-flag, pro-children, pro-environment, prosperity, protect, proud/pride, provide, reform, sights, share, strength, success, tough, truth, unique, vision, we/us/our, workfare"

Particularly entertaining was the inclusion of such words as "Eliminate good time in prison", "peace" and "pro-environment". No. They did not include "Audacity" in their "pro-Republican" word list. Anyway, Newt continues with his choice of words to describe the opposition.

Perhaps what they meant to list were "Eliminate peace and the environment" and "pro-prison"?

The Republicans made a monumental political blunder when they passed the $100 billion tax cut bill on a vote that was almost totally split among party lines. They handed us a perfect opportunity for us to brand us and brand them as well. By this vote, we have shown that we are the party that puts the money in, while the GOP has shown that they are the party that keeps the money out.

The Republicans ignore a basic fact of life year in and year out -- it costs money to run this country effectively. Therefore, they can never be credible again when talking about the sanctity of human life, because upholding the sanctity of human life involves quality of life. And they can never be credible again when talking about jobs, the economy, health care, or education, because it costs money to fund them. On the other hand, we have always fought to put money into the economy so people can have a better quality of life.

Yesterday afternoon, we were alerted via the Drudge Report to the latest GOP "Democrats are traitors and surrender monkeys" attack, aka the "White Flag" campaign:

The DRUDGE REPORT has learned from a top GOP operative that the Republican National Committee will provide state parties with a web video prior to release tomorrow afternoon that shows a white flag waving over images of Democrat leaders making anti-war remarks.

Nothing surprising here, I grant you. Just the "unpatriotic, cowardly" smear we've all come to know and love. But something struck me in a quote from this story:

A Democratic strategist who had the web ad described to her said, "This is way over the top but we have no one to blame but Dean, Kerry and others who continue to pander to the anti-war activists within our party."

And if you believe a "Democratic strategist" said that, I've got a bridge to sell you. This is pure GOP talking point material. And I have a proposal.

Let's face the fact; Democrats seem to be all over the place on the issue of immigration reform. Even self-proclaimed progressives can't seem to reach any consensus on this issue. Without fail, every discussion about immigration will at some point degenerate into accusations of racism, naiveté, and ignorance. We need to get a handle on this issue soon because the Republicans are about to create a storm of anti-immigrant backlash in the upcoming elections and Joe Sixpack is ready to choke it all down willingly. If you thought the Right Wing "Blame it all on the gays" campaign was something, wait till "It's all the "illegals' fault" starts showing up in the daily talking points. What's the matter with Kansas?... Illegals of course.