Remapping the Culture Debate
Garance Franke-Ruta
Description:
Excerpt: "In the great debate about how Democrats can stage a comeback (beyond simply waiting for the coming Republican implosion that never seems to arrive), American Environics [a Canada-based marketing firm] rejected some of the more popular recommendations out there. Rather than focusing on reframing the Democratic message, as Berkeley linguistics and cognitive science professor George Lakoff has recommended, or on redoubling Democratic efforts to persuade Americans to become economic populists, as another school of thought suggests, the American Environics team argued that the way to move voters on progressive issues is to sometimes set aside policies in favor of values. By focusing on “bridge values,” they say, progressives can reach out to constituents of opportunity who share certain fundamental beliefs, even if the targeted parties don’t necessarily share progressives’ every last goal. In that assessment, [Michael] Shellenberger and [Ted] Nordhaus are representative of an increasingly influential school of thought within the Democratic Party."
Excerpt: "In the great debate about how Democrats can stage a comeback (beyond simply waiting for the coming Republican implosion that never seems to arrive), American Environics [a Canada-based marketing firm] rejected some of the more popular recommendations out there. Rather than focusing on reframing the Democratic message, as Berkeley linguistics and cognitive science professor George Lakoff has recommended, or on redoubling Democratic efforts to persuade Americans to become economic populists, as another school of thought suggests, the American Environics team argued that the way to move voters on progressive issues is to sometimes set aside policies in favor of values. By focusing on “bridge values,” they say, progressives can reach out to constituents of opportunity who share certain fundamental beliefs, even if the targeted parties don’t necessarily share progressives’ every last goal. In that assessment, [Michael] Shellenberger and [Ted] Nordhaus are representative of an increasingly influential school of thought within the Democratic Party."
Resource Access:
Available to the General Public
Available to the General Public
Copyright / Creative Commons Status:
Copyright
Copyright
Document Source and Bibliographical Information:
The American Prospect (February 2006)
The American Prospect (February 2006)
