Rachel Maddow was excellent in this video.  But her argument is complicated. It's much easier to understand "Obama is elitist and condescending."  Regular folk always cling to simple concepts.

by yturks on 04/15/2008 12:18:18 PM EST

It's annoying how that applies to SO MANY arguments we have with conservatives.  They appeal to emotion (obviously liberals do too, don't get me wrong) and it works better because:

1)-They frame the issues in a more simplistic way that appeals to many voters.

2)-The issues they choose to argue are easier to frame to begin with. For example, "they want to kill babies" and "they want gays to take over" and "all the libs want to do is raise your taxes and take your heard earned money and waste it on BS". Oh yeah, and, "they want to take Gods out of schools/they hate God".

I could go on, but you get the idea.

A lot of the arguments on the left are more complicated and nuanced, sometimes because they have to be and other times because (unfortunately) some people just don't know how to distill and frame issues.  They go on to argue from the conservative frame, and often lose for that very reason.

PS---I watched Maddow do this live yesterday and she was awesome.  You know who else nailed the bitter issue?  They did.

by Tom Hanc on 04/15/2008 12:35:25 PM EST

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