Tell me what you think when you hear the phrase "Parking at UB."
It's miserable? It sucks? It makes you hate the world?
Well, what if I told you that when you come to campus tomorrow morning, you will neither "battle" for a spot nor "trek" from the lots to the buildings?
No. Instead, you will have the chance to experience your very own "personalized car placement adventure!"
If you think, "That's B.S.," then congratulations -you have not been fooled by re-framing, a marketing strategy that tries to win you over on things you don't like by calling them by a different name.
But if you're a Democrat, you should be aware that, as we speak, some of the people who lead our party are eating this strategy right up.
A linguist named George Lakoff wrote a best-selling book called "Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate." Lakoff says the Democrats can win the next election with the same policies we lost with last time as long as we re-frame our beliefs in a way the public likes.
"Don't Think of an Elephant" is one of two books out there right now that offer two different paths to the American left.
A few shelves over from "Elephant" sits a big thick book with a blue globe on the cover: "The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time" by the economist Jeffrey Sachs.
The key to the resurgence of the left lies in one of these books. In the other is a formula for another generation of struggles and broken promises.
"Don't Think of an Elephant" has become a big hit among Democratic politicians who are still trying to sort out why we lost an election that we were sure we would win. It says, for instance, that when Republicans talks about "tax relief," we can fire back by defending "membership fees" or "investments" in America.
The problem is, who do you know that would buy into it?
Do you think that if you tried this with your friends, they would say, "Sweet! Membership fees! Where can I sign up?"
Why should a person who lives in a "red state" be any different? (And wouldn't everyone just want lower membership fees, anyway?)
If we Democrats are going to win again we have to stop thinking of the American people as a group that is far different, and somewhat dumber, than the people we know.
I talk with Democrats about politics all the time and I get the sense we all think that people voted for Bush because they were fooled. But our strategy can't be simply to try to fool them back.
It's true that Bush voters were more likely than Kerry voters not to know the facts about certain things, like whether Iraq had WMDs, and who was responsible for Sept. 11. But Bush won for a far simpler reason - as Marc Cooper writes, people "were terrified by Sept. 11, and a small majority concluded, rightly or wrongly, that the incumbent was clear in this thinking on the matter - and that John Kerry, at best, hadn't anything much different to offer."
That's just why "The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time" shows a much better path to the American left.
Jeffrey Sachs calls for a plan that would have all the world powers give grants, not loans, to poor nations for targeted improvements based on their unique history and ethnography. He makes the grand claim that "we can realistically envision a world without extreme poverty by 2025."
The reason this is the key to the future for the left is that it is not a strategy to get back in power; it is an example of a way of thinking about solving real problems.
If you're a Democrat, think about the last political talk you had with another Democrat. Did you talk about ambitious plans that would really help people? Or did you talk about election fraud, Fox News and Halliburton?
Sure, we need to find a way to tell the people of the Republicans' failure, and talk about our ideas in a way that appeals. But we can't think that the most important thing is getting back in power at all costs. We need to truly commit to starting with the ideas.
We have to think of what made us love America - the great and ambitious things we have done to make life better for its people and for the people of the world.
And when we get back in power, we must fulfill the pledge a great American president made in his inaugural: "May God strengthen our hands for the good work ahead."
***
I'm graduating this spring, so this is my last column for The Spectrum. The title of the first, two years ago? "A Liberal's Case for War." Go figure.
So, with a nod to Principal Skinner, I announce my retirement, effective at the end of this sentence ... the one I'm writing ... this one, right now ... period.
Thanks for reading.
