Bluebelle

Sarah Palin Day: Let's Learn about Language!

If you're anything like me, you love anything involving:
     1) dialectal analysis of spoken American English, and
     2) proper sentence diagramming.

(You think I'm kidding? I'm not kidding. I love this stuff. I'm going to teach high school English, after all.)

Sarah Palin, bless her heart, brings both absolutely riveting topics to the fore! Thank you, Governor! (And thank you, Slate, for publishing both articles!)

American voters: adults or children?

Paul Reiser frames this absurd election perfectly:

"I think the tone of this whole campaign would have been very different if Senator Obama had accepted my request for us to appear in town hall meetings all over America," the Senator from Arizona tells us.

Am I just losing my friggin' mind? Seriously. I keep looking around the room to see if I'm living in some suddenly altered state where everything we know is now called the opposite, and nobody notices. Or can stop it.

"I wish I didn't have to take your lunch money, but you should'nt of hadda brung it."

We're in the 3rd grade again. The skinny, smart kid who just moved in to the neighborhood is getting roughed-up by the asshole bully. The kid who hits you in the head with your hand and says, "Why're you hitting yourself? Why're you hitting yourself?"

"Um, actually I'm not. You're hitting me."

"You calling me a liar?"

"No, I'm just pointing out that..." SMACK!

"Why're you hitting yourself?"

And there seems to be no one to appeal to. There're no grown-ups around when you need 'em. No one to step in and say, "Alright, that's enough now. We don't do that here, fella." And in the absence of any authority, the asshole gets to keep doing it.

"Why're you hitting yourself? SMACK! Why're you hitting yourself?"

[snip]

America: "Well, respectfully, Governor Palin, it could be argued that you are, in fact, relatively inexperienced."

Her: "I know you are but what am I?"

"Hm? No, perhaps you misunderstood. We are talking about you."

"I know you are but what am I."

"Well, Governor, just listening to your speech, you seem awfully caustic."

"You are."

"And, frankly, a little bitter."

"You're bitter."

"I mean, where's your sense of humility?"

"I'm rubber, you're glue. It bounces off me and sticks to you."

"My God - you're... dangerous."

"I know you are, but what am I?"

Maybe that's the problem. Obama treats us like adults, and McCain's team treats us like children.

(Read the whole thing here.)

Grab bag of goodies* (*except with political stories instead of actual goodies)

Phew -- I just can't keep up with all of the stuff coming out that I want to post! Maybe I should just quit school and blog full-time. (Confidential to MWM: Just kidding, dear.)

Obama brings out the big guns: BILL CLINTON! Admittedly, he's not my favorite Dem, but people love him. I've seen it myself. After you hear him give a speech, you're so won over, you'll do nearly anything. (No comments, please -- get your mind out of the gutter!) The point is, he's incredibly charismatic, he knows how to win votes, and he is especially good at getting working-class white votes. Go to work, Bill! (Note: I've met Bill Clinton!)

Oopsie! Norm Coleman screwed up, and it could cost him a million dollars. Not good news in the last weeks leading up to his defeat. However, good news for Al. (Note: I've met Al Franken too!)

Roger Ebert turns his critical eye to Sarah Palin, calling her the "American Idol" candidate.

What defines an "American Idol" finalist? They're good-looking, work well on television, have a sunny personality, are fierce competitors, and so talented, why, they're darned near the real thing. There's a reason "American Idol" gets such high ratings. People identify with the contestants. They think, Hey, that could be me up there on that show!

My problem is, I don't want to be up there. I don't want a vice president who is darned near good enough. I want a vice president who is better, wiser, well-traveled, has met world leaders, who three months ago had an opinion on Iraq. Someone who doesn't repeat bald- faced lies about earmarks and the Bridge to Nowhere.

George Lakoff has some suggestions for the Obama-Biden campaign:

In 1980, Richard Wirthlin -- Ronald Reagan's chief strategist -- made a fateful discovery. In his first poll he discovered that most people didn't like Reagan's positions on the issues, but nevertheless wanted to vote for Reagan. The reason, he figured out, is that voters vote for president not primarily on the issues, but on five other factors -- "character" factors: Values; Authenticity; Communication and connection; Trust; and Identity. In the Reagan-Carter and Reagan-Mondale debates, Mondale and Carter were ahead on the issues and lost the debates, because the debates were not about the issues, but about those other five character factors. George W. Bush used the same observation in his two races. Gore and Kerry ran on the issues. Bush ran on those five factors.

In the 2008 nomination campaign, Hillary ran on the issues, while Obama ran on those five factors and won. McCain is now running a Reagan-Bush style character-based campaign on the Big Five factors. But Obama has switched to a campaign based "on the issues," like Hillary, Gore, and Kerry. Obama has reality on his side. And the campaign is assuming that if you just tell people the truth, they will reason to the right conclusion. That's false and they should know better.

Obama needs to be Obama again, the inspiring figure who gives us hope, not the dull policy wonk. He underestimated McCain's debating abilities, and needs to prep both externally by giving the press new questions to ask, and internally, by being precise and making his values clear. And he has to remember that voters vote on the basis of values, authenticity, communication, trust, and identity. If he is going to bring realities into the campaign, he has to do it via a strategy that includes all of those.

McCain = EX-CHANGE

It's kinda amusing that McCain is trying to paint himself as the "Change" candidate. You know, 'amusing' in the sense of wanting to pat him on the head, pinch his cheek, and say, "Aww, you're so delusional" in the same tone of voice you'd use to speak to a Chihuahua suffering from 'big dog' syndrome.

McCain has part of that right, except he's forgetting the first syllable.

McCain isn't CHANGE; McCain is EX-CHANGE -- exchanging eight years of Bush for four years of McSame.

Let's take a closer look:

exchange: an act of giving one thing and receiving another (especially of the same type or value) in return.*

That's exactly what McCain-Palin represents -- trading Bush-Cheney for another thing 'of the same type or value'. Do we really want four more years of plummeting home values, skyrocketing unemployment rates, stagnation in Iraq, no health care for millions of Americans, the ongoing assault of the environment, policies that willfully ignore scientific facts in favor of political ideology, and continuing deceit and corruption from the White House? (Just to name a few!)

Seems like a pretty raw deal to me.

In the words of Palin's most oft-repeated lie: "Thanks, but no thanks."

*Source: The OED. For all of you non-English geeks out there, that's the Oxford English Dictionary, which is THE definitive source for all things English-language-related.

This isn't about cheering for "your team" on Nov. 4

Check out this article written by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT): "This Election is Not a Soap Opera or a Football Game: It is About the Future of Our Country" on the Huffington Post:

In a democracy, elections are not beauty pageants or reality shows, or soap operas for political junkies. Elections are the real business of democracy, and they should be about real things.

Listen up -- George Lakoff speaks!

Progressives, liberals, Democrats -- lend me your (virtual) ear! If we wanna win this election, we gotta learn how to TALK about it!

From political linguist George Lakoff: Palin Appeals to Voter Emotions -- Dems Beware

An excerpt:

The Democratic responses [to Palin] so far reflect external realities: she is inexperienced, knowing little or nothing about foreign policy or national issues; she is really an anti-feminist, wanting the government to enter women's lives to block abortion, but not wanting the government to guarantee equal pay for equal work, or provide adequate child health coverage, or child care, or early childhood education; she shills for the oil and gas industry on drilling; she denies the scientific truths of global warming and evolution; she misuses her political authority; she opposes sex education and her daughter is pregnant; and, rather than being a maverick, she is on the whole a radical right-wing ideologue.

All true, so far as we can tell.

But such truths may nonetheless be largely irrelevant to this campaign. That is the lesson Democrats must learn. They must learn the reality of the political mind. [. . . .]

What is at stake in this election are our ideals and our view of the future, as well as current realities. The Palin choice brings both front and center. Democrats, being Democrats, will mostly talk about the realities nonstop without paying attention to the dimensions of values and symbolism. [. . . .]

Our job is to bring external realities together with the reality of the political mind. Don't ignore the cognitive dimension. It is through cultural narratives, metaphors, and frames that we understand and express our ideals.

Note: I love love love George Lakoff's ideas about political language and linguistics. His book "Don't Think of an Elephant" remains one of my favorites four years after I first read it. I'm currently reading his latest book, "The Political Mind". When I'm finished, I'll definitely write about it here.

So what if I'm a linguistics geek -- I don't care. Lakoff's ideas have the potential to shift the public perception of political parties. (Did you like that 'p' alliteration?) Democrats should take this guy's advice -- language is powerful, especially when its meaning is subconscious.

Small-town values

Real people, real values, common sense, and . . . fishing.

(Fishing?)