How to Get Framed

Well, Friday the 13th came a day early for me and my old dinosaur of a laptop finally gave up the ghost.   I have photos of me duct taping it together in a final, futile attempt to keep it together long enough to get me thru this adventure and home.  To no avail.  It is currently sitting on the desk next to me desperately trying to download the precious novel and photos to a thumb drive.  Say a prayer for me.

But other than that the convention has been great.  I came here on a secret mission to try to get the party members to think in terms of Lakoff’s “Frames.”   Carefully wording what we say to appeal to people’s deepest emotional, political, ethical frames.   We all know that most everyone can find something in our Ten Key Values to agree with.  In fact most folks can find a lot to agree with but we have a hard time getting our message out in a way that really speaks to people.   My plan was to attend as many meetings and workshops as I could and try in subtle and not so subtle ways to get my party thinking about the careful framing of our message.

Yesterday’s workshop with Darryl! Moch was good but not the opportunity I was hoping for.   Then last night we had the International Reception with Green colleagues from Benin, New Zealand, The European Union and Germany.   It was inspirational but still no way to activate my plan.

This morning I was on the Pulse Morning Show with Pat LaMarche.  She had, as usual, done her homework and so she packed a lot of facts into a very short interview.  I think it went well.

Then my opportunity arrived, and this time I didn’t miss it.  John Rensenbrink and Karen Young have crafted a document they are calling their “Open Letter to the American People”.   It was printed in Green Horizon this spring and they have solicited feedback and been revising it since.  They held a workshop this morning to continue that process and it was one of the better working sessions on any issue that I have ever attended at a Green Party function.   It was lively, mostly civil and very constructive.   And when I brought up the concept of “frames” and “deep frames”  and mentioned Lakoff several faces lit up around the room.   The discussion continued in the afternoon when a couple of us got together to work on deconstructing John’s and Karen’s document with framing in mind.   Our plan is to write a shorter version with all the negative frames removed and all the positive ones enhanced.

Anyhow it was a full day.   It is very late at night.  Tomorrow is the actual nominating convention.   I have other things I need to write before I can go to sleep.   So more later on all this plus pictures and a story about our trip to the Farmer’s Market this evening!