Bad News For Republicans

The modestly-sensible Rahm Emanuel said:

``If we believed in conspiracy theories, we'd think that only Karl Rove could dream up the idea of a linguistic professor from Berkeley urging Democrats to `practice reframing every day, on every issue.'''

But it wasn't Rove who foisted that "linguistics professor from Berkeley", George Lakoff, on the Democrats.

He was a self-inflicted wound.

Lakoff is a Chomskyite tranformational linguist from Berkeley via MIT who wasted thousands of Democrat man-hours talking about metaphors of terror and framing issues.

And he's on the outs, according to Andrew Ferguson. And that can only be good for the Democrats.

Oh, he was influential:

``Towers are symbols of phallic power,'' Lakoff explained, ``and their collapse reinforces the idea of loss of power.''

And if you think the Twin Towers were symbolically profound, wait till you get a load of the Pentagon: ``Another kind of phallic imagery was more central here,'' Lakoff wrote. ``The Pentagon, a vaginal image from the air, was penetrated by the plane as missile.''

A man who could write such things may be suited to many tasks, but ``counselor to a major political party trying to win elections'' is not one of them.

Yet that is what Lakoff became before the 2004 elections. He spoke at conclaves of Democratic candidates, and the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee bought boxes of his book on political strategy (``Don't Think of an Elephant'') and passed them out like party favors.

But a lefty thinker has a half-life like an N-Sync solo project:

But Democrats lost elections listening to Lakoff, just as they'd lost elections before he became their swami. Now the more respectable elements in the party are giving him the heave-ho.

The liberal New Republic magazine trashed his newest book in a brutal review two weeks ago. ``If Democrats take the ideas of George Lakoff seriously,'' said the reviewer, ``they just might succeed'' in losing the election.

Lakoff has become a stock figure of fun in the pages of the progressive magazine the American Prospect. His invitations to speak before the Democratic caucus have dried up.

And in their new book ``The Plan,'' Democratic strategist Bruce Reed and Representative Rahm Emanuel hold up Lakoff as an exemplar of how not to win elections.

Note to Democrats; Ignore Reed! Rebuke Rahm!

Embrace Lakoff!

Posted by Mitch at October 11, 2006 06:12 AM | TrackBack