Marshall McLuhan was wrong. Or if he was right then, he's at least a little bit wrong now.
"The medium is the message," McLuhan famously said, and so began our 24/7 media universe. McLuhan was right when he forecast how important the media would become, but George Lakoff is right, too. Framing the message is vital.
But to quote a political golden oldie, "where's the beef?"* Forget theory -- how do we win?
Jim Wallis in today's New York Times slices up a good helping of visionary red meat. Interestingly, the same edition brings news that the most aggressive of the so-called liberal 527 groups, Americans for Coming Together, is cutting back to a bare-bones operation. ACT's leader, the former head of the AFL-CIO's political department, Steve Rosenthal, tells the Times, "This is an extremely unpredictable business."
Maybe not. Maybe we can now predict, after getting our donkeys kicked from Ohio to Florida, that when Democrats focus on the mechanics of elections they lose the vision thing. Jim Wallis has the right idea. Pass it on.
*When Walter Mondale said "where's the beef" to Gary Hart he was following up on an idea originally hatched by an old friend of mine who was dating one of Mondale's campaign managers. He came home one night and she said, "Honey, I was watching this Wendy's commercial where a little old lady keeps asking, 'Where's the beef?' You should have Mondale say that to Hart." The rest is history.
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