I *don't* agree. The money works because the agenda has been set elsewhere. (Yes, I think there is too much money in politics, but I don't think it's the root of the problem.)
I think Kevin has a gut sense of the issue here - what money has done in politics, and not through contributions to congress critters but through the right wing machine, is set the agenda so that all the Tea Baggers know to talk about is taxes and smaller government, because that's "the solution" - EVEN when it's against their *rational* self-interest. Money doesn't do that - marketing does that. And that makes it a lot easier for money to have a negative impact in the political process, for a variety of reasons.
Imagine a world where raising taxes to pay for valuable services from the government was considered a good thing. That world is almost unimaginable, but that's a marketing outcome. But in *that* world, money donated to Congress would have a much different effect.
I'm not saying that the progressive's #1 job is to make taxes seem like a good idea (but that's not a bad goal, since many of the most popular aspects of our country are paid for - efficiently - by taxes, and would be better if there was more money for them). But you want a world where that's a legitimate option, not an automatic non-starter.
THIS should be the opening paragraph of the book! (Minus the last sentence.) And then the NEXT paragraph should answer the first one directly - "This handbook takes us off the defensive, and puts progressives on the offensive, with a clear, emotionally sticky vision, tactics, and slogans that will allow us to set the media agenda and return the political discourse where it belongs, to the people."
(Or something like that. Obviously, the words are a big challenge.)
Then the NEXT section should be the core set of value statements. (I'll see what I find in here along those lines, but I have a draft set myself, that need a lot of work, but that I developed using the conservative positioning statements as a model.)
And in the next version of the handbook, you remove the first paragraph, where we whine about how we're losing, and move everything up one place :-)
The key point missing here - we also need the *ways of talking about our positions* that resonate, that call to action, that frame the debate. In other words, a good marketing campaign (based not on rational argument, but on what cognitive psychologists, as well as marketers and right wing think tanks know works to effect change in people).
Going right to dorij's, rjcortez's and JSM's comments: If this were a conservative manifesto we'd already have a statement of the key problem ("Taxes are killing the country") stated in a simple, emotionally resonant form, that implies the action that needs to be taken, and that frames the debate.
I'm still only on paragraph five so I'm hoping I find this kind of statement later. But if not, then I want to help develop it. I don't think it's going to be as easy for us as it is for "them" - our positioning is somewhat more subtle and less black and white.
I think the key takeaway, for me, from Lakoff's writing (as well as the CPW's own stuff) is not that there are "progressive frames", but that the right wing has done a careful and extensive marketing job on the polity, and progressives need to get out of the ivory tower of elite rational argumentation and starting marketing ourselves.
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