Yes, you can have a political narrative but no, you can't own it

So the US presidential election moves from the gruelling primary election campaigns to a no doubt brutal general election campaign. A lot of the analysis about the Democratic contest boils down to one question: who created Barack Obama and who destroyed “frontrunner” Hillary Clinton? Looking ahead, the underyling question is: whose narrative is winning out: Barack Obama’s or John McCain’s?

Most of the debate around “what is our narrative?” still tends to gloss over one brutal truth: we don’t control our story. Nobody controls their story. One story can be drowned out by counter-stories, especially if the latter are simpler and more deeply rooted in the audiences values or prejudices. Most importantly, it is the political audiences who decide their brand perception of any politician or party. Whether it’s Labour, the Tories or the Lib Dems, the voters decide how they perceive us. Their brand perception is set when they think we have(n’t) satisfied their wishes or needs.

Those perceptions are influenced by a number of factors, including media coverage. That’s what makes a new study of the US primary elections by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University especially interesting. For the third time, they are examining the “master narratives” about the candidates’ character: personality, history, leadership, and appeal. The master narratives are important. The notion that Al Gore tended to lie and exaggerate or that George Bush was a compassionate conservative proved to be powerful messages. They shaped how the press covered the 2000 race and possibly influenced the outcome.

The study suggests that Senator Obama has not an especially easy ride, nor Senator Clinton a much tougher one, from the media:

"From January 1, just before the Iowa caucuses, through March 9, following the Texas and Ohio contests, the height of the primary season, the dominant personal narratives in the media about Obama and Clinton were almost identical in tone, and were both twice as positive as negative, according to the study, which examined the coverage of the candidates’ character, history, leadership and appeal—apart from the electoral results and the tactics of their campaigns.

"The trajectory of the coverage, however, began to turn against Obama, and did so well before questions surfaced about his pastor Jeremiah Wright. Shortly after Clinton criticized the media for being soft on Obama during a debate, the narrative about him began to turn more skeptical—and indeed became more negative than the coverage of Clinton herself. What’s more, an additional analysis of more general campaign topics suggests the Obama narrative became even more negative later in March, April and May."

Still, Senator Obama succeeded in projecting his desired narrative:

"The dominant personal narratives for Obama were ones he tried hardest to project, a sign that he largely succeeded in controlling his media message, particularly early on. The most common of all was the notion that he represents hope and change. This was followed by the idea that he is a charismatic leader and powerful communicator. Obama has also succeeded in getting substantial coverage that refutes one of his greatest possible vulnerabilities, the idea that his appeal is too narrow or limited to blacks and elites. These three impressions permeated the coverage of his candidacy. "

There was a catch though -- and we’ll hear a lot more about it over the coming months.

"The most prominent negative theme in the coverage about Obama was the claim that he is inexperienced."

Hillary Clinton got much or her desired narrative across too:

"Clinton had just as much success as Obama in projecting one of her most important themes in the media, the idea that she is prepared to lead the country on “Day One.” She has also had substantial success in rebutting the idea that she is difficult to like or is cold or distant, and much of that rebuttal came directly from journalists offering the rebuttal."

But her campaign had one big failing:

"The most prominent negative theme about Clinton was the idea that she represents the politics of the past."

Perhaps she faced an insurmountable obstacle as well:

"With Hillary Clinton . . . the public seemed to have developed opinions about her that ran counter to the media coverage, perhaps based on a pre-existing negative disposition to her that unfolded over the course of the campaign. "

I have previously blogged about the “two John McCains”. Sure enough:

"For McCain, one master narrative stands out above all in the coverage—that he is not a true or reliable conservative. More than five in 10 of all the assertions studied about McCain conveyed that idea, about six times as many as the number of assertions rebutting it. While this narrative—not conservative enough—might have been a problem for him in the primary race, it is harder to evaluate its implications for the general election. If McCain is seen as a maverick, someone not tied to President Bush, it will likely enhance his standing among independents and moderate swing Democrats. Yet lack of conservative credentials could also dampen turnout among some of the GOP base."

Now for the big question: in the Obama / McCain contest, when it comes to the voters, who’s winning the battle of the narratives? The answer is, neither of them.

"The analysis suggests that both Obama and McCain are heading into the general election battle with less control over their personal messages than they might like. In many ways, the coverage of the campaign has been dominated by a series of small storylines or boomlets of coverage that so far have raised unresolved questions but not yet framed an overall storyline—Obama’s friendships and core ideology, the meaning of his promise of change, McCain’s core ideology, his relationship with lobbyists, and a looming battle, largely quiet during the primaries, over the direction of the conduct of the war in Iraq. "

Now, hang on to your seat and watch the narratives and counter-stories fly.

[Thanks to Jafapete for the reference to this study.]

Sick politics

How many times have you heard the Liberal Democrats patronised or mocked as: a bit loopy; or well-meaning-but-not-quite-serious; or “limp wrested”? Remember the cartoons of Ming Campbell with a zimmer frame? There are epithets for Nick Clegg now too; I don’t need to repeat them here. And you must have noticed how Gordon Brown constantly refers to the Liberal Democrats as “the liberals”. Somehow, I don’t think he’s helpfully trying to analyse our party philosophy.

In subtle and not so subtle ways, our opponents keep trying to ridicule and undermine us. By using language and clever framing, they try to make us seem less valid, less real and less authentic – in short, not legitimate in politics.

This technique is as old as politics itself. In my experience though, the right do it better. I used to belong to the New Zealand Labour Party. Many years ago, it was led by a decent man but he had a high voice and minimal charisma. Popularly known as "Bill" Rowling, he was mocked by his main opponent as “Wallace”. In one general election campaign, a band of tories paid for newspaper adverts with cartoons showing a mouse-like caricature of Rowling caught in a trap.

The past masters at this type of politics must be the US Republicans. In the late 1980s, Newt Gingrich (later Speaker of the House) ran a political action committee that mailed a pamphlet called Language, A Key Mechanism of Control to Republicans all over the country. The booklet offered rhetorical advice to Republican candidates who wanted to “speak like Newt.”

Republicans were told to describe their opponents as “sick”, “shallow”, “pathetic” and “corrupt”. There were some generalities for Republicans to apply to themselves and their policies. These included “change”, “choice”, “commitment”, “hard work”, “moral” and “common sense”. In 1990, the pamphlet was awarded a Doublespeak Award by the National Conference of Teachers of English. But the Republicans finally won control of both Houses of Congress in 1994 and held on until after the 2006 elections.

The same tactics were later used in what David Bromwich of The Huffington Post calls the delegitimation of President Bill Clinton. It started with Whitewater and ended with the then president’s impeachment trial. The whole thing left Bill and Hillary Clinton, understandably, very bitter.

Geoffrey Nunberg has shown how George W. Bush’s presidential victories in 2000 and 2004 were a result of the Republicans’ superior skill at political framing. Nunberg and George Lakoff have shown how Republicans high-jacked the language of politics to push liberals and their values seem outside the political mainstream.

The same tactics are now being used against Senator Barack Obama. The negative frame being used is race. David Bromwich condemns none other than Bill and Hillary Clinton for joining in with the extreme Republican right. He traces what he sees as attempts by the Clintons to delegitimate Obama and then says:

"Hillary Clinton's recent careless-careful mention of the assassination of Robert Kennedy, in answer to a question about why she would stay in the Democratic race when all the numbers are against her, raised the tactics of delegitimation to a pitch as weird as anything the Clintons can have seen in the years 1997-98.

"The most disturbing element of her remark was this: that it chose to treat assassination as just one more political possibility, one of the things that happen in our politics, like hecklers, lobbyists, and forced resignations. The slovenly morale and callousness of such a released fantasy is catching. So when, a few days later, the Fox News contributor Liz Trotta was asked her opinion of Senator Clinton's statement, Trotta said: "some are reading [it] as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama...Obama. Well...both if we could!" Liz Trotta laughed as she said that. Later, she apologized, as Senator Clinton also has apologized."

Bromwich is horrified by this apparent acceptance of political violence and worries where it all will lead.

His final comments might be just a little alarmist. I’d like to think so. But make no mistake: Senator Obama will struggle against vicious attempts to frame him as too liberal and, yes, too black to be president. As with his rise from underdog to near-certain nominee, Senator Obama’s general election campaign – and the campaign to stop him - will provide a once-in-a-generation case study of how political frames and story-telling really work. Let’s hope there’s a happy ending this time.

As for what the Liberal Democrats should do about the on-going efforts to attack our legitimacy, the obvious answer is to make the charges less credible. More tough choices, fewer wish lists. More focus on results, less talk about process. More narrative, fewer litanies. Otherwise, I’m all for fighting fire with fire. Once again, Vince Cable offered up one of our best attack lines when he called Gordon Brown’s fall from grace “from Stalin to Mr Bean”. More recently, he slated the Tories as “a bit flaky” on key policy areas. We need some more of that.

(With thanks to Jafapete for the Bromwich reference.)

Learning from Barack Obama's original sin

Here’s another reason why the US Democratic presidential primaries are so closely fought and why just a few points separate either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton from John McCain.

OK, it’s all about narratives, the candidates telling their stories. It’s more than that – the contest is about how America wants to see itself.

Roger Cohen of The New York Times says that the US may now be ready to confront one of the darkest chapters in its history, its central conflict; what Barack Obama has called America’s “original sin” – slavery and segregation.

In so doing, Cohen reinforces an invaluable insight into what makes a political narrative work.

“It’s striking how the three contenders for the presidency offer different self-images for America. John McCain comforts the classic heroic narrative. Hillary Clinton breaks the male hold on that narrative and so transforms it. Obama transfigures it in another way by personifying America’s victory over its most visceral blemish.”

In Leading Minds (1995), Howard Gardner showed how great leaders’ stories have addressed “issues of personal and group identity” for their audiences. He showed how providing audiences with a way of reframing their thoughts and plans for the future, “where they have been and where they would like to go”, is fundamental to the effectiveness of any leader’s story.

Recent political history offers some good examples. During World War II, Winston Churchill told the British people how and why they would prevail against Nazi Germany. Margaret Thatcher told a story of reversing national economic decline and “making Britain great again”. Tony Blair talked in 1997 about a national renewal, a “new Britain”.

Gordon Brown delivers sermons about “Britishness” but he does not tell stories that connect people with his ideas and, most importantly, a vision for the future. David Cameron avoids stories about identity, doubtless recognising that his party may want to live in little England but the voters do not. Nick Clegg has started to tell the story of a “better Britain”, in which government leads the way in enhancing individual opportunities. That’s a welcome move. The next step is to play that into the stories that Liberal Democrat inclined voters believe already about their country. We need to understand what Roger Cohen calls their self-image of the nation.

Come see about me

Which matters most – personal stories or policies and issues?

It's a false choice.

Exhibit A. Matt Bai of the New York Times has tidily explained the main difference between the strategies of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. He relates it all back to their top campaign strategists.

Senator Obama is advised by David Axelrod:

". . . an advertising guy . . . who perfected the craft of encapsulating an entire life in 30 seconds, he has a gift for telling personal stories in ways that people can understand. Axelrod’s essential insight — the idea that has made him successful where others might have failed — is that the modern campaign really isn’t about the policy arcana or the candidate’s record; it’s about a more visceral, more personal narrative.

"This is probably a big reason why Mr. Obama has, from the start, focused almost exclusively on broad themes of “hope” and “change.”"

Senator Clinton is advised by Mark Penn:

". . . a pollster, and pollsters tend to look at campaigns as a series of dissectible data points that either attract voters or drive them away. Get a health care plan and an economic plan that 70 percent of people say they view favorably. Pay attention to words that move the dial in focus groups, like “real solutions for America” or “ready to lead on Day 1.” "

"Mrs. Clinton’s relentless focus on pragmatism and specificity, as well as her willingness to shift slogans, are not simply a result of her own personality but also of Mr. Penn’s strategic outlook, which values testable ideas and phrases over more sweeping imagery and themes."

Of course, Mr Obama does polls and Mrs Clinton has tried to convey a story. But their respective strengths leave no room for wonder that the campaign has been so closely fought. Matt Bai concludes:

"Mr. Axelrod’s storytelling has created a dynamic hero who sometimes seems estranged from the practicalities of governing; Mr. Penn’s data has created a credible platform put forth by a candidate whose theory of leadership can seem small. What voters love in one they crave in the other. "

Exhibit B. The New York Times reports this morning that the near-certain Republican nominee, Senator John McCain plans to use his life story and military experience to connect with voters. He is starting a Service to America tour, taking in key stops from his and his family’s careers in the forces, in an effort to introduce Senator McCain to a wider audience.

But Republican pundit William Kristol warns convincingly that “biography isn’t enough” because the American electorate doesn’t always show due gratitude to war heroes. He adds that this may reflect “a healthy hard headedness” and “a sensible pragmatism”.

He then argues that:

"Candidate McCain should be working overtime on a broad reform agenda — education reform, health insurance reform, tax reform, government reform, Wall Street reform. He could start by outlining an up-to-date, capitalism-friendly and transparency-requiring approach to regulating the credit markets. (He might also suggest taxing “carried interest” as ordinary income, if only to watch the fur fly among hedge-fund fat cats.)"

I think that a candidate needs both “personal stories” and “issues”; they need have to work in tandem.

OK, so that’s all about America and people on this side of the Atlantic tend to be more reserved. Politicians aren’t expected to spill their personal stories to the same extent. The conventional wisdom is that British elections are decided mostly on competence, party images and issues.

But UK party leaders still need to embody their parties' narratives. They need to tell personal stories, to make the narratives appear more authentic.

Remember John Major’s televised trip back to Brixton in 1992, which brought home the politics of opportunity and aspiration.

Or the youthful Tony Blair’s 1997 promise of a new Britain under New Labour. His physical appearance, a young man with a young family, sent a subliminal message. Labour's pledge card tapped into the concerns of his target voters.

Today, the leaders’ failure to tell powerful personal stories illustrate the weaknesses of their respective parties’ narratives.

Gordon Brown has not told a personal story that enables him to connect with the electorate. He thinks Labour’s narrative is about “opportunity for all” but nobody seems to have noticed.

David Cameron has told of his own family’s experiences of the NHS. But that doesn’t – yet – amount to the personal story. The vision and substance of the Conservative narrative is still a work in progress. But he’s a new face for an electorate that wants change.

Nick Clegg opened his speech to the spring conference in Liverpool by mentioning his grandmother, a Russian exile and his mother, who spent part of her childhood in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Indonesia. “They found a home in Britain because ours is a nation of tolerance, of freedom, and of compassion.” But these stories aren’t about him. And the narrative that Nick Clegg is gradually building is about creating a better politics; and this co-exists alongside another about fighting for a more equal Britain, “the people versus the powerful”.

Let’s see who gets there first.

Groupthink and the story that really matters

It isn’t just the Liberal Democrats who beat themselves up about their dearth of compelling narratives and storylines. Having plummeted in the polls, Labour are hard at it too (more on this soon).

But no politician should imagine that the stories that they tell about themselves will transform their political fortunes. The winners are always who do the best job of understanding the stories that are in the voters’ minds and then adapt their own messages.

At the same time, the public’s view of the world will be strongly influenced by the stories that the media are telling. Their stories chop and change and the media follow the herd.

Patrick Coolican of the Nevada Sun neatly sums up how this has worked so far in the U.S. Democratic primaries.

"The vogue word in journalism for groupthink is "narrative." A bunch of reporters and editors read one another's dispatches, talk at events and on planes, and come to a rough consensus about where things stand and what's important:

"Barack Obama is viable. Obama is a weak debater and not "tough enough." He has committed "missteps" on foreign policy. Latinos won't vote for a black man. Yes, they will. Jeremiah Wright has dealt the Obama campaign a game-changing crisis. Obama parried with the most significant speech on race since Martin Luther King Jr.

"Hillary Clinton isn't electable. Clinton is unflappable and unstoppable. Clinton isn't connecting with Iowa voters. Clinton is finished. Clinton found her voice. Clinton is unstoppable. Clinton is finished. Clinton may win it."

Patrick Coolican confuses “political narrative” with “media narrative” but he makes a valid point. Whilst there is still a range of quality commentary across the UK media, I am sure that it applies to the bulk of reportage in this country. This time last year, Gordon Brown was set to be a disastrous, unpopular prime minister. For his first twelve weeks, he walked on water. After he finally said there would be no snap election in the autumn, Brown wasn’t very good. There was a brief respite over the New Year. Now he is an unmitigated disaster, in deep trouble, heading for defeat.

Last summer, David Cameron was cast as a lightweight, disliked by his own party. By the turn of the year, he was firing on all cylinders. A few weeks ago, he should have being doing better in the polls. Now he is.

Sir Menzies Campbell was too old – no, “seen as too old” – to be a party leader.

In the space of just three months, Nick Clegg has been depicted as a waffler who then mishandled the Lisbon Treaty vote and endangered his authority but may now be doing quite well.

Media bashing is an easy alibi for politicians. But I am sure that there is still too little understanding - and detailed analysis - of the power of the media and its prevailing narratives and how those stories are formed.

Back to Mr Coolican. After being self-critical for, on one occasion, helping to turn a notion into a conventional wisdom, he makes a call for change:

"When we [journalists] thought for ourselves, out in the hinterlands, we did some quality work. For instance, in the spring of 2007, when the D.C. and New York media began its inevitable pushback on Obama with a raft of stories about him being all fluff and no substance, we examined this narrative and reported on a new element: blogger pushback to the pushback. . . .

". . . Here's the important question: How do we avoid false narratives and get at more salient and fundamental issues?

"Or more plainly: What should we political reporters be doing with our time? When is our supposed "analysis" simply a rehashing of the campaign machinery's narrative?

"I'm pretty sure we do too much shorthand, guesswork "analysis," which often amounts merely to repeating groupthink we've read or heard elsewhere.

"We ought to be analyzing what the candidates propose and whether they possess the skills and character traits to get it done.

The rest should be left to voters. It's their groupthink that matters."

Anyone disagree?

She's lost control

Yesterday, Salena Zito of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review had this to say:

Part of the reason Clinton is not winning is that her political narrative has been defined by everyone else. In a large sense, her "brand" is not her own.

When an advertiser or strategist is selling something, whether a product or a candidate, brand is important. Think of it as a little index card in the brain that conjures up one or two images that define what or who a product or person is.

The initial image of Hillary is not that she is not Barack Obama, but is part of Bill Clinton.

"The question for Hillary is, what can she put on that index card in voters' brains that is going to make a difference for her in the stretch?" wonders media strategist John Brabender, who makes his living branding candidates, mostly Republicans.

I think this comment highlights two interesting points. First, there are the linkages between a “brand” and a “narrative” or “story”. They are really just different aspects of what Salena Zito’s “little index card”. A story is the engine by a brand which is communicated and brought to life so that people can understand it, both on the rational and emotional levels. The Democratic primaries have reinforced the basic reality that a political narrative is not about listing off policies or values -- “I am a liberal etc.” It’s about marketing and branding and works when a candidate tells stories that engage with the emotions and expectations of the voters, so as to define him or herself. S/he must also embody those stories. Senator Obama has understood this. His next challenge, however, is to outweigh all the counter-stories.

The other is that Senator Clinton has not been an effective storyteller. This point was well made by E.J. Dionne in the Washington Post ten days ago. It was also made by Stephen Denning – a sage of storytelling – last October!! He compared Senator Clinton, then the Democrats’ frontrunner with Al Gore, their nominee in 2000, and observed:

As a good student who does her homework and is articulate in debates, Hillary has not found a way to make herself likable. She has been unable to communicate what sort of a person she really is and what she really believes in.

Like Gore, Hillary generally makes her case through abstract arguments, discussing and analyzing problems and proposing solutions. This leaves an audience dazed rather than inspired. It fails to engage them at an emotional level. Like Gore in 2000, she tends to sound mechanistic and bureaucratic.

Although it’s possible that the Republicans will be so utterly divided and inept that Hillary may win anyway, don’t count on it.

The lesson of 2000 is that a presidential candidate who doesn’t how to connect with the electorate, is vulnerable and likely to squander the most powerful rational advantages. She may be defeated even by an improbable candidate with no national or international experience.

Clinton rules, UK

The campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination is getting away from Hillary Clinton. As I have argued previously, one of the main reasons is Barack Obama’s narrative, which is more in tune with his target audience’s emotional needs, more simple and more personal. Senator Obama well and truly embodies his story.

But there may be another factor: what the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman calls “Clinton rules”:

“the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organisations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.”

I have my share of reservations about the Clintons. They are not selfless ingénues, the innocent victims of a massive right wing conspiracy. For years, they, Bill Clinton especially, have brought many of their problems on themselves. But Paul Krugman's basic argument is correct: too often, much of the media’s default position is that they are up to no good.

He gives another, less contentious example:

“. . . Al Gore was subjected to Clinton rules during the 2000 campaign: anything he said, and some things he didn’t say (no, he never claimed to have invented the Internet), was held up as proof of his alleged character flaws.”

Although Clinton rules may be working in Senator Obama’s favour now, there’s also a warning for him:

“ . . . if history is any guide, if Mr. Obama wins the nomination, he will quickly find himself being subjected to Clinton rules. Democrats always do.”

The brutal reality is that media counter-stories will always drown out any stories that politicians try to tell about themselves. Look at the way the way the media narrative on Gordon Brown has changed in the past six months.

The best antidote is usually inoculation: don’t do anything that feeds or lends credence to the counter-story. (Translation for Liberal Democrats: don’t do anything flaky or that makes you look less than serious; make sure all the policies and messages add up).

But counter stories on the scale of Clinton rules can’t ever be fixed. For instance, the last Lib Dem leader suffered from “Campbell rules” (he’s too old and useless). Perhaps there is also a “Lib Dem rule” (they don’t matter).

You don’t have to do an in-depth textual analysis of the Evening Standard or the Daily Mail to see how, in this country, media cynicism has fuelled the public’s contempt for politicians. All parties have lost out. But it’s still the gorilla in the room when politicians and pundits fret about the collapse of trust in politics.

Who might be next? Are we now seeing a “Ken rules” (allegations of dodginess)? A “Darling rules” (totally incompetent)? These won’t necessarily benefit the Liberal Democrats. And how long till there’s a “Clegg rules”?

[With thanks to my longstanding friend Peter for the reference to Krugman’s article]

Hey! someone's trying to steal my narrative.

More liberal criticism of Hillary Clinton’s campaigning. The New Republic’s column The Plank complains that Senator Clinton is appropriating Barack Obama’s frames and messages.

"Sometimes, imitation is just the sincerest form of lameness, and Clinton adviser Mark Penn's effort to brand Barack Obama the "establishment" candidate is one of those occasions . . .

"Obama makes headway by framing himself (accurately) as a change agent?Clinton abruptly starts pitching herself as a change agent, too. Obama describes Clinton (again, accurately, at least in relative terms) as the status-quo candidate in last night's speech? This morning we have Penn's I'm-rubber-you're-glue routine. Next thing you know, Clinton will start attending rallies in a men's suit and skinny tie and talking about how much she loves "The Wire," too.

"Silly, obvious fibs like this are one reason that so many in the media are skeptical of anything that comes out of the Clinton camp. It's an insult to the intelligence of the people being spun. (Massachusetts was an upset win for Clinton? Obama's the establishment candidate?)"

There’s more. The Plank claims that Senator Clinton is playing into the counter-story that the Republicans will spread about her.

"But the worst part of it all is that the GOP has won the last two presidential elections largely by framing the Democratic nominee as book-smart but inauthentic, someone who really doesn't know who they are. Hillary's attempted reinventions over the last few weeks--from establishment juggernaut to counter-establishment rebel; from Strong Woman to Sensitive Soul; from "leader" to"change agent"--are just doing the GOP's general-election work for them."

That’s important. An inauthentic candidate is one who cannot embody their narrative; such a candidate is doomed. It’s often seemed to me that centre-left and liberal candidates are especially prone to helping their opponents tell counter-stories about them.

Let's hope the Liberal Democrats don't fall into this trap (again) over the coming months – by, for instance, not appearinging serious; producing messages and promises that don't seem to add up; or by looking inconsistent and nannyish.

Hillary Clinton's dragon slayer narrative

Just like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton is using old archetypes for her political narrative. In today’s New York Times, Maureen Dowd says that Senator Clinton is portraying herself as a slayer of dragons.

"As she talked Sunday to George Stephanopoulos, a former director of the formidable Clinton war room, Hillary’s case boiled down to the fact that she can be Trouble, as they say about hard-boiled dames in film noir, when Republicans make trouble.

" “I have been through these Republican attacks over and over and over again, and I believe that I’ve demonstrated that much to the dismay of the Republicans, I not only can survive, but thrive,” she said.

"And on Tuesday night she told supporters, “Let me be clear: I won’t let anyone Swift-boat this country’s future.” "

Ms Dowd is not impressed.

"Better the devil you know than the diffident debutante you don’t. Better to go with the Clintons, with all their dysfunction and chaos — the same kind that fueled the Republican hate machine — than to risk the chance that Obama would be mauled like a chew toy in the general election. Better to blow off all the inspiration and the young voters, the independents and the Republicans that Obama is attracting than to take a chance on something as ephemeral as hope."

And:

"Hillary Clinton denounced Dick Cheney as Darth Vader, but she did not absorb the ultimate lesson of the destructive vice president: Don’t become so paranoid that you let yourself be overwhelmed by a dark vision . . .

". . . Darkness seeking darkness. It’s an exhausting specter, and the reason that Tom Daschle, Ted Kennedy, Claire McCaskill and so many other Democrats are dashing for daylight and trying to break away from the pathological Clinton path."

The Republican attack machine should not be dismissed lightly. If you don’t believe me, or you like your political narratives hard boiled, check out this little classic from George H.W. Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign against the then Massachussetts governor, Michael Dukakis. If you're still up for it, check out the swift boat spots used against John Kerry in 2004 -- the ads referred to by Senator Clinton. The machine could yet waste Senator Obama - or Hillary Clinton herself.

Still, as Maureen Dowd points out, Barack Obama is getting some valuable tutelage:

"The relentless Hillary has been the reticent Obama’s tutor in the Political School for Scandal. He is learning how to take a punch and give one back. When she presents her mythic narrative, the dragon she has slain is the Republican attack machine. Obama told me he doesn’t think about mythic narratives, and Tuesday night in Chicago he was reaching up for “a hymn that will heal this nation and repair the world.”

"But, if he wants to be president, he will still have to slay the dragon. And his dragon is the Clinton attack machine, which emerged Tuesday night, not invincible but breathing fire."

Barack Obama's liberation narrative

While the Super-Duper Tuesday jury is out, the brilliant American political columnist E.J. Dionne jr. assesses Barack Obama’s political narrative. Dionne finds Biblical archetypes in the rhetoric that Obama uses and suggests that his talk of salvation and liberation is precisely what Democrats are yearning for.

"Barack Obama has surged to rough parity with Hillary Clinton in the national polls not because Democrats reject her carefully thought-out solutions to the central public problems but because he has created in the party's rank and file a feeling of liberation -- from intimidation by Republicans, from old divisions, from history itself. "

Then there’s the Obama narrative of how to make change happen.

"The larger difference between Clinton and Obama is in their respective theories of change. Implicit in the Clinton narrative, as she put it on the stump last weekend, is the idea that "making change is hard." Only someone with carefully laid plans and the toughness to go toe-to-toe with the Republicans in the daily and weekly Washington slog can hope to achieve reform.

"Obama agrees to an extent. "I know how hard change is," he says. But he promises to transcend the old fights -- the liberation narrative again -- by building a "bottom-up" movement to create inexorable pressure for reform that would draw in even Republicans.

" "Good intentions are not enough," he said in his Wilmington speech. They need to be "fortified with political will or political power." Obama marries a softer rhetorical line on Republicans with a more far-reaching and activist analysis of how change happens. He thus manages to go to Clinton's right and left at the same time.

"That's why Obama is on the move in a way that worries Clinton's lieutenants. She promises toughness, competence, clarity and experience in a year when many Democrats are seeking something closer to salvation. "

After all, every good story needs a happy ending.

Dionne concludes:

"One of the politicians who spoke before Obama at the rally, Delaware state Treasurer Jack Markell, cited the New Testament letter to the Hebrews in which Saint Paul spoke of "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." It was a revealing moment: While Clinton wages a campaign, Obama is preaching a revival."

In the frame

What links the epic face-off between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama with today’s Guardian report that a new counter-terrorism phrasebook has been drawn up by a Home Office research unit “to advise civil servants on how to talk to Muslim communities about the nature of the terror threat”?

They are both striking examples of attempts to frame politics and political debate.

Framing is about giving people a way to think about political issues. This is usually done by using a model or structure or question. A strong frame enables you to push your best issues to the fore and help people to see the political choices in your terms. This way, it should help you to deliver a compelling narrative.

The American linguist George Lakoff showed how, in his first term, George W. Bush used the “tax relief” frame to great effect.

“It got picked up by the newspapers as if it were a neutral term, which it is not. First, you have the frame for "relief." For there to be relief, there has to be an affliction, an afflicted party, somebody who administers the relief, and an act in which you are relieved of the affliction. The reliever is the hero, and anybody who tries to stop them is the bad guy intent on keeping the affliction going. So, add "tax" to "relief" and you get a metaphor that taxation is an affliction, and anybody against relieving this affliction is a villain.”

In British politics, “investing in public services” has worked well as a frame for both Labour and in 1997 and 2001, the Liberal Democrats. You don’t “spend”; you “invest”. So, as the Conservatives learned the hard way in 2001 and 2005, if you want to spend less, you want to invest less in the services that voters use. One of Tony Blair’s favourite frames, not used by his successor, was “choice” in public services. Another was “the war”, “the clash” between the west and “Islamic extremism”. The Guardian has a table that explains what is heard when these phrases are used: that terrorists are soldiers fighting for cause; that extremism is the fault of Islam; and that homogeneous groups are involved in the “battle”. If ministers follow the phrasebook, they will abandon one of the government’s core narratives.

Over the pond, Senator Clinton is trying to frame hers as the candidacy of policy substance and Senator Obama’s as the candidacy of rhetoric. The left-leaning blog Buzzflash argues that Senator Obama and not Senator Clinton is the best candidate to both deliver the framing of progressive ideas and to change the public mindset. Whilst I have written admiringly of Senator Obama’s ability to present a powerful narrative for his candidacy, it is not (yet) clear to me that he is framing policies that are inherently progressive. As he must do at this point, he is framing himself: the candidate of change, of post-boomer era culture war politics and the embodiment of a sense of optimism about America’s future. That’s quite different to framing issues or policies.

And while we’re on the subject: have you spotted any Liberal Democrat frames lately?

The Clintons as Greek tragedy

Political narratives work when they trigger familiar cultural stories, myths or archetypes in listeners’ minds. During World War II for instance, Winston Churchill used the narrative of “Britain: the strong island people” to rally the country against Nazi Germany. In so doing, he invoked an archetype that went back at least to the Spanish Armada.

There is much comment at the moment on Bill and Hillary Clinton’s dance with political death. The former president's attacks on Barack Obama have caused deep resentment in the Democratic Party.

An old story is there that people know well but can’t quite identify. Now, Gloria Feldt suggests that it is:

". . . the narrative of destroying that which one loves the most . . . one of humanity's most recurrent and heartbreaking tragedies, Greek or otherwise."

At the same time, Barack Obama’s narrative, based on renewal and a rejection of the old, is gaining more momentum.

Hillary finds her voice

Following her win in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, Senator Hillary Clinton told her supporters that “I have found my own voice”.

What Senator Clinton may really have found is the outline of a new political narrative. Rather than being the best qualified candidate, she is the agent of the people against the powerful – “the rot at the top”.

Karen Tumult of TIME says:

"One of the things Clinton learned from her defeat in Iowa, those around her say, is that her emphasis on experience and readiness was missing its mark. Her speech Tuesday night was less about her and more about the voters: the ones who have lost their mortgages, who can’t afford health care and can't get student loans. "Too many have been invisible for too long," she said. "Well, you are not invisible to me." Where she had begun the race declaring she was "in it to win," you could almost hear the gears grinding towards a new message as Clinton shifted her focus outward on Tuesday night: "We are in it for the American people.""

Exit polls show that women voters were instrumental in Senator Clinton’s victory. On Monday night, she was visibly emotional when speaking about her commitment to politics and this may have helped her seem more authentic, especially to women.

Senator Clinton also seems to be on to a counter-story against Senator Barack Obama. In Saturday's debate, she declared that "words are not actions" and sought to reframe the contest, away from Obama's compelling rhetoric and back to the question of how to deliver real change -- and who is better equipped to do it.

In short, Senator Clinton has started to inject herself into the change narrative, the most powerful in American politics this year.But the whole story still needs some work before it is simple and emotive enough for Democratic primary voters to fully embrace. That’s one reason the next few weeks will see a lot of hard slog by both Clinton and Obama.