October 26, 2010
YOU'LL GET NO ARGUMENT THERE:
How Obama Lost the Narrative (David Corn, November/December, Mother Jones)
That brings us to perhaps the sharpest weapon in the presidential arsenal: telling the nation's story—framing the big political and policy debates. Democratic consultant Paul Begala points out that in 1982, when the country was in a recession and President Reagan was facing his first midterm election, Reagan "didn't blame President Carter or the Democrats. He indicted liberalism: too much government, too much taxation. To fix this mess, he said, we have to stay the course. That was his narrative. It was ideological; it was philosophical. It had sides. He had a story."
Had he just adopted the Gipper's narrative and ideology for his own Administration he'd be in far better shape today, as would the economy.
