{"id":26134,"date":"2007-07-05T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T05:15:40","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T05:15:40","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T05:15:40","slug":"the_new_lakoff_rhymes_with","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2007\/07\/05\/the_new_lakoff_rhymes_with\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Lakoff (Rhymes With)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: The last time that we heard about the Democrats and their message, we also heard about a guy they were relying on to help them come up with that message, his name was George Lakoff, rhymes with. USA Today has a story: ‘Democrats get advice on how to talk about issues.\u2019 It just never ends, these recurring themes that the Drive-Bys continue to pummel us with. We never see stories about Republicans getting advice on how to talk about issues. All we get are stories of Republicans ought not be speaking; Republicans ought to be shutting up. Well, Republicans don\u2019t need advice on how to talk because they all get talking points from Karl Rove, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. ‘Both political parties are in a constant search for advisers who can make them winners. Many Democrats think they\u2019ve found one this year in psychologist Drew Westen, author of a new book on passion and politics.\u2019 What happened to Lakoff? <\/p>\n

Westen\u2019s book is ‘The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation, released last week, has catapulted the Emory University professor from the ivory tower to the political epicenter. And Democrats throughout the capital are listening to his prescriptions and adapting them for practical use. Westen\u2019s essential point: ‘Passion is what drives us\u2019 in the voting booth, yet ‘the words we use on the left are emotionally barren.” Really? The words on the left are emotionally barren? All the left is emotion. ”The words we use on the left are emotionally barren.\u2019 To stop losing winnable elections, he says, Democrats need to engage the parts of the brain that aren\u2019t activated by facts and figures.\u2019 Well, that makes perfect sense if you\u2019re a Democrat. Don\u2019t tell people the truth and don\u2019t tell people the facts. That sounds like what the prescription is. But rooted in this is the belief that people are too stupid to figure it out and follow it, start giving them facts and figures and so forth. <\/p>\n

‘Westen has met with union leaders, political donors and fundraisers, liberal and centrist groups, party committees, members of Congress and all major presidential campaigns. The Senate Democratic Policy Committee is working with him on a ‘messaging project.\u2019 Last week Democratic senators each received a copy of The Political Brain.<\/p>\n

The centrist Democratic Leadership Council heard Westen at its spring retreat and invited him back to address hundreds of elected officials this month in Nashville. Westen is also collaborating with Third Way, a progressive, non-partisan think tank, on a strategy memo. The goal, says Third Way President Jon Cowan, is to get candidates of any party to focus on ‘the received impression\u2019 of their words — how people perceive what they\u2019re saying. That means learning that ‘reason and rationality … are not the most effective political weapons\u2019 in a campaign.\u2019 Well, the Democrats have got that down. What do they need to learn? There is no reason, and there\u2019s no rationality. All they do now is pummel us with emotion and fear and trying to scare everybody. Their politics is the politics of crisis and the politics of fear. <\/p>\n

‘Republicans have been honing their language since the late 1980s, when Newt Gingrich began mailing training tapes to tens of thousands of conservative officeholders at all levels of government. They learned what issues to talk about — and how to talk about them — as they commuted to and from work.\u2019 All this is fine and dandy, and I understand the desire to learn how to communicate better. Whatever happened to the simple concept here of the truth? Meaning, whatever happened to the concept of, if you\u2019re a candidate or an officeholder, tell people what you really think. Whatever happened to a message of inspiration? Whatever happened to can do attitude? Whatever happened to optimism? Those are the basic things that are missing here in, sadly, too much of both parties\u2019 rhetoric. That\u2019s why I say it\u2019s all fear based, it is emotion. Passion, by the way, Drew Westen is right about that, passion is magnetic. You listen to two people discussing something passionately, and it could be bowling and you\u2019ll stop and listen to it for a while. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Heidi, Kansas City, Missouri, you are next. I\u2019m glad you held on. Welcome to the program.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Hey, Rush. Dittos from a proud mother of three Rush babies.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Thank you. I appreciate that.<\/p>\n

CALLER: So you were talking earlier about how they don\u2019t have — that they\u2019re nothing but passion, and you\u2019re right, but — and they are —<\/p>\n

RUSH: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not quite what I said. They\u2019ve got this new spokesman. Last year was George Lakoff, now they found a new guy, Drew Westen has written a book.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Right.<\/p>\n

RUSH: And his point was you gotta be — use emotion.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Right. And they do use emotion, and it works for them.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Right.<\/p>\n

CALLER: They\u2019re just not using any emotion that is tapping into anybody new. Everything they\u2019re emotional about is negative for the country but positive for some special interest group. And those special interest groups are supporting them.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah, but they\u2019re going to support them anyway. This is just trying —<\/p>\n

CALLER: That\u2019s exactly right.<\/p>\n

RUSH: This is campaign fundraising time, this is the primary season, and they\u2019re just trying to feed the beast that\u2019s the kook fringe base. But you\u2019re right, I mean their passion is all negative, and it is all fearmongering. The thing that amazes me about the guy\u2019s book, what the Democrats think it\u2019s so important, is because the book says don\u2019t worry about facts and truth, you gotta hit \u2019em with emotion. What is liberalism if not an appeal to emotion? Fear, negative emotions.<\/p>\n

CALLER: You\u2019re absolutely correct. But the part that they\u2019re missing that they don\u2019t understand, and theory they\u2019re never going to understand, I mean you talk to liberals, they\u2019re, you know, don\u2019t confuse them with facts. And the thing is, is that they think that getting more emotional is going to help them, and it\u2019s not going to help them, it\u2019s not going to garner anything new for them because they\u2019re not going to be gaining the interest of anybody other than who they\u2019ve already gained the interest of.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, you know, I was singing that song all last year, leading up to the \u201906 elections in November.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yeah, but we didn\u2019t vote for the Democrats. People voted against the Republicans because of what the Republicans have done.<\/p>\n

RUSH: That\u2019s true. I couldn\u2019t agree with you more on that. But at the same time, I was stunned. I still think it\u2019s going to happen, I still think there\u2019s going to be backlash against them for all this, not just the rhetoric on the war and they\u2019re eagerness for losing it, and they\u2019re already proclamation we have lost it, but just this constant anger, rage, and hatred. It is not infectious. And that\u2019s your real point, isn\u2019t it? <\/p>\n

CALLER: That is.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Because passion, in order to work, people gotta be talking about what they love.<\/p>\n

CALLER: That\u2019s right. I mean, there was tons of passion with Ronald Reagan, and he garnered so much of the vote that had never, ever voted conservative before, because he was speaking about things that spoke to people at their core being. He wasn\u2019t frightening people. He was making people believe in themselves and believe in the country and believe that we had a chance to do something good.<\/p>\n

RUSH: That\u2019s exactly right. That\u2019s why people said of Reagan that he made \u2019em feel good about the country again. And the Democrats are not doing that. It\u2019s not in them to do that. Fear and crisis are the byword, the coins of their realm if you will, because they\u2019re about control in as many facets of life as they can secure. Heidi, great points, I\u2019m glad you called. Let\u2019s go to Steve quickly in Long Island out of New York. Welcome to the program, sir. You\u2019re up.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Hi, Rush. How are you? <\/p>\n

RUSH: Fine.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I just wanted to make a comment about the connection between the medical doctors and the terrorism in England.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I\u2019m just thinking about if Hillary gets elected, then what is she going to do when medicine is no longer a job that Americans are willing to do? Where is she going to get doctors from and how is she going to make sure they\u2019re safe?<\/p>\n

RUSH: So, yeah, this is a problem with socialized medicine.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Exactly.<\/p>\n

RUSH: All the good doctors start private clinics, if Mrs. Clinton would allow that. You know, those have sprung up in the UK, by the way.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yes, I know that.<\/p>\n

RUSH: And people who are able to afford their own health care are going to these private clinics, and that\u2019s got everybody roiled and has for some time. That\u2019s why it\u2019s a good point. That\u2019s why in the UK they\u2019re having to import doctors from around the world.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, it seems to me that she has some explaining to do exactly how she\u2019s going to staff national health service —<\/p>\n

RUSH: She\u2019s not going to get anywhere near that kind of detail. That\u2019s the whole point of talking about this book. She\u2019s not going to get in detail. Their advisors are telling them those details are just going to confuse people and in truth it\u2019s just going to scare people. They\u2019re going to keep talking about health care in one of these sop, sob story emotional ways. All the children that don\u2019t have it; we\u2019ve got to do something; we\u2019ve tried the private sector; we\u2019ve tried this, there\u2019s nothing working. It\u2019s going to be a totalitarians emotional appeal, and it will work on some people. Nobody\u2019s going to ask her those questions.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, we\u2019re too stupid to understand the details anyway, aren\u2019t we?<\/p>\n

RUSH: In their minds. Some of us aren\u2019t. See, they know some of us aren\u2019t. The ones that are smart enough to understand it are listening to this program and hosting this program.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Exactly.<\/p>\n

RUSH: So something has to be done about that.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I agree. Thank you very much.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay, Steve. I appreciate the call. Thanks so much. Oops, hit the wrong button. We\u2019ve gotta take a brief time-out here. Coming up the break at the bottom of the hour. But try this headline: Scientist tests husband\u2019s DNA, fidelity. A scientist tested the DNA in her husband\u2019s underwear and found out he had been unfaithful and she\u2019s the one in trouble because it\u2019s a violation of the law. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: The last time that we heard about the Democrats and their message, we also heard about a guy they were relying on to help them come up with that message, his name was George Lakoff, rhymes with. 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