OUR Divide over so-called Moral Issues...

[MsTryska]

I don't know if anyone caught the C-SPAN Georegtown U PoliSci class with a panel of 2 pollsters, one from each party, a moderator from the Post, and a lady from newsweek who had been on Vatican detail.


Lots of interesting stuff was said.

One of the most interesting tidbits came fromt he republican pollster Fabrizio:

In 2000 Self-identified gay voters amounted to 4% with 25% going to Bush.

In 2004 Self-identified gay voters amounted to 4% with 23% going to Bush.


I understand that many gay people feel that moving away from the "gay marriage" issue somehow leaves them twisting in the wind.

I don't think anyone i saying that. I think the unifying Democratic Ideal, is equal rights for Everybody. So we have to work towards that. Marriage Equality is important, but we don't necessarily have to keep screaming "legalize gay marriage!" to ge the point across.


We need to frame both Marriage Equality and the Right to Choose as issues of Personal Freedom. The Govenment has no right to tell us what to do! to sum it up.

But we also need to backdoor these issues. We keep them as the centerpiece, and we Lose. Do we want to win the majority, and be able to get our issues resolved, or do we want to Stick to issues that scare the bejesus out of the apparent (slim) majority, and keep getting our asses whupped.


This isn't about giving up on gay rights, or giving up on being pro-choice, it's about re-packaging.

[RafterMan]

1. I didn't see anyone in the campaign

screaming "legalize gay marriage!"

I agree with repackaging, but not with softpeddaling. The position needs to be firm, clear and easy to understand. Wrapping it in personal freedom is good, but you can't turn mushy when someone else tries to make them the centerpiece, because someone else will. You have to be prepared to win the argument.

[MsTryska]

2. Oh no doubt....

no surrender on the idea of Equality for all.

And no...no one on the campaign trail was screaming "legalize gay marriage" but they weren't the one scarign the bejesus out of those who got scared.


It was the newsclips of rallies and protests, and weddings, juxtaposed with Pride Parades.


ANd to be honest, i don't know how i feel about that. On the one hand the protesting has to go on, and I'd never want to tone down pride parades....but this is how the media spins it.


Just like back in the day ERA and pro-choice protestors looked like rabid hysterical women.

[lawladyprof]

3. Re-packaging suggestion

Sorry, I posted this on another thread but it is relevant here too. It is about giving voice to our values in a way that invites many (not all but many) in, reminds many that we do have common values.

I thought that for the most part our ads were bland and superficial. We are dealing with people who respond to emotional appeals (recall commentary about the girl whose mother was killed on 9-11 and that the focus groups were so moved by it--one commentator said men were crying). Well, that ad made me mad but in a more cerebral, intellectual way. "If Gore had been president, she wouldn't have lost her mom" and "Any president would have hugged her (let no photo-op go by)" and when she said she said she felt safe because Bush was president, I said, "Idiot." But it illuminate one fact. People responded to it emotionally. And then I remembered the ads used so effectively against Clinton's health care plan. Those, too, were emotion driven vignettes.

So our ads should be single issue ads. No more shotgun (multiple issue) ads. They should tell a story--note these can archtypes and use actors. James who lost his job and his health insurance and then had a car accident and who is now faciing bankruptcy, Phil whose super-smart 13 year is in trouble because he is bored by teaching to the test, a rural Nepalese woman whose baby died because of the defunding of family planning agencies who would have provided clean birth kits, Meredith in college but now has to drop out because state funding cut, Sally who found that Bush's drug cards didn't help her a bit, Tom and his wife, a retired couple, who learned that their former employers were dropping their medical insurance because they could do so and throw them onto Medicare only), Ben and Joan putting off retirement so they can help their kids because their son's job was outsourced, Mary and Phil whose marriage is strained because Phil's mom is asking if she can come and live with them because she doesn't think she'll have enough social security to live on when she retires in a few years, Sonia who needed a "partial birth abortion" (I know that is not a medical term and is an invention of the right) for medical reasons and now can't have another child--her baby lived a minute or two, now we see her in the nursery taking a teddy bear out to put with attic sale stuff--she'll never need it. There's thousands of pathos-filled stories-results of Bush/Republican policies that tug at the heartstrings and also (sadly) play the fear card ("that could happen to me").

The point is to draw the viewer in to a story he or she can identify with. The protagonist should not talk to the viewer (well, maybe a quick one or two lines). The ads should be a slice of life, a mini soap opera. These ads do not change our message but they bring our values to life. It is not abandoning our principles but repackaging them and making them vivid.

There is benefit from analyzing what went wrong (picking over the bones), but I had the uncomfortable feeling that the campaign was too cerebral, too rationale. I didn't see the danger because that approach resonated with me. But even if I had I didn't/don't know anyone of influence to suggest this idea to. Finally, the fault lay in not analyzing Republican success and co-opting it.

[MsTryska]

4. Yes! I totally agree!

those are excellent.



Soemthing i was thinking of, speaking of ads, yesterday, whilst watching Bush's Brain:


The first cycle of commercials we should run before getting to the heart of the matter in any ad campaign, is a "disclosure" for the other side....this is something that has to come form a PAC.....


"The republicans have a long history of running vicious campaigns....Cleland, McCain, Kerry - all heros, who's service to our country was smeared and belittled, they'll whisper unfounded rumors, (maybe with flashes of Ann Richards, and the whisper campaign scrolling, and then a flash of Mccain and the whisper campaign about him) they will take things out of context, they will set up attacks on themselves, that never existed. Don't be fooled!"


soemthing along those lines would go pretty far in defusing some of the Rove dirty tricks.

then if he tries them again, run the commercial again with a "we told you before it started this would happen...."

i really like your ideas of vignettes of human life under Bush tho.