None so blind as he that will not see...

One of the storylines from the post-election analysis last year was that the Democrats had a communication problem. For which, they were looking at taking the advice of UC Berkeley professor of linguistics and cognitive sciences George Lakoff. It is Lakoff's position, argued in his book Don't Think Of An Elephant, that " Democrats and liberals often find themselves on the periphery of the public policy debate....the Democrats have barely tapped the need to retool."

He has suggested that same-sex marriage should be referred to as "the right to marry.'' Trial lawyers like vice presidential nominee John Edwards should instead be called "public protection attorneys,'' and the term environmental protection, which brings to mind big government and reams of regulations, should instead be termed "poison-free communities.''

Lakoff, and the Democrats, were predictably (and in many respects appropriately) mocked by certain segments of the right. The Lakoff/DNA position is that the voters are really liberal, and the Democrats just need to think of better names for their policy positions, while the right side of the blogosphereand punditocracy think that the Democrats big problem is their policy positions.

Well, there's another spectacular example of the Democrats' belief that packaging is the example tonight. The Pew Center has released the results of a poll which reveals that "fewer people see Democrats as friendly to religion now than felt that way a year ago." The Democrats think that that's a message problem, not a policy problem.

"We're at the beginning," said Democratic spokeswoman Karen Finney, who said religious voters share many of the values of the Democratic Party. "But we know we need to do a better job of talking about our values in a way that people see we share their values."

See? It's just a matter of "talking about our values" so that religious people understand that "we share their values."

The problem is, it's just not true. They can talk about their values and frame their values all they want, but they aren't going to convince the majority of religious people that they "share their values" because it just isn't true.

The majority of religious people don't believe that:

• Abortion is a fundamental constitutional right.


• Gay marriage is just the same as heterosexual marriage.


• It's OK for kids in the 6th grade to get condoms, but not hear a prayer.


• Pornography is protected free speech while prayer is hate speech.


• If an artist wants to cover a picture of the Virgin Mary in elephant dung, or photograph a crucific submerged in urine, there's no problem with tax-payer support. If a parent wants to put a child into parochial school, they've got to pay that themselves AND continue supporting the public schools.


• The Boy Scouts should be condemned for refusing to allow male homosexual scout leaders to work with young boys (after all, it worked pretty well for the Catholic Church, huh?)

Again, the problem with the Democrats isn't that they can't accurately get their message across. No, the problem for the Democrats is that their message has gotten across, loud and clear...