I'm not a huge fan of The New Republic, but now and then they do have articles that are worth reading.
This one is no exception. Christopher Hayes writes about his experiences trying to convince swing voters in Wisconsin to vote for Kerry, and while his experience is anecdotal, it's very compelling.
If Hayes is onto something, then we've been seriously missing the mark as far as strategy towards the undecided, and need to make a two-pronged overhaul of our campaign strategies.
Here are the main points of Hayes's article, with a little elaboration on my part:
- The undecided aren't as rational as we presumed. We figured that they'd look after their own self-interests, which clearly Bush is eroding. However, the unspoken word here is "enlightened", as in enlightened self-interest. If a voter doesn't know all the facts or is mistaken about them--all the more possible if said facts don't fit into the voter's frame--then you cannot convince them otherwise easily.
- The undecided thinks politics is a chore, and so put off thinking about politics as long as possible. Hence, they are unlikely to start thinking about who to vote for until late into the election season, at which point they will have already established a frame for any information they know or might learn which would influence their decision. Obviously, this is a serious issue in itself.
- A large number of the undecided are "crypto-racist isolationists". I'm skeptical about how many people would fit this description, but there has always been an isolationist taint to America. Just ask any parent about whether their children should start learning foreign languages early on, and they'll respond with, "They should learn English first." You can point out that building skills in one language helps learning those skills in others, but it won't change the frame. Here I think Bush was being clever, for instance, in refuting those who say that Iraqis could never become a free people. In a sense, he was giving credence to the opposite view--that Iraqis were heathen savages who could never embrace Democracy--and thus paradoxically lending credence to his military action. But again, I'm skeptical, and would like to see some hard numbers here.
- Bush's failures actually helped him, oddly enough, by throwing doubt that any politician could fix the problems. Since Kerry was campaigning on a platform of fixing the problems Bush created, he was automatically cast in a doubtful light. And I certainly don't see any way of resolving that doubt without putting a Democrat in office that can actually improve the situation--a true catch-22.
- The undecided--and presumably a large part of the electorate--do not think of many issues as political issues. The notion that any government could fix social and structural problems with legislation and funding is not so much ridiculed as puzzled over. There's no connection in their minds between everyday problems and political solutions.
Hayes suggests that we should do two things to regain the trust of the undecided. One, we need to run more on character and values and less on issues and policy, at least for the short term. Two, in the long term, we need to "begin the long-term and arduous task of rebuilding a popular, accessible political vocabulary" in order to allow us to discuss issues with the undecided and to successfully convince them of the soundness of our policy decisions. In other words, we need to get much better at framing.
In fact, while Hayes doesn't refer to Lakoff once in his article, it's clear that what Hayes is describing is due to successful Republican framing and failed Democratic counterframing. If we are to reach the undecided, we must start by regaining control of the debate, perhaps by looking for weaknesses in the GOP frame and then exploiting those. If we do that well enough, the Republicans will find themselves unable to respond without reinforcing our frame--which is exactly what we need.