Modeling Journey

In my last post I berated the Liberals brains trust and their blogging supporters for failing to read and apply the lessons on framing given by George Lakoff (Don't Think Of An Elephant).

The Liberal folly continues.

The Tories have tweaked the 'Ignatieff is a carpet bagging absentee and elitist Canadian' framing in a second (and very effective) attack on the Liberals. This tweaking is successful, because it forces the discussion of the merits of Ignatieff as a leader of the Liberals (and as a potential prime minister of all Canadians) into the frame the Tories have settled on.

The Tories have achieved this with one posting by a Tory blogger:

" “The ads will backfire”, “Canadians are turned off by negative ads”, “This isn’t the United States (oops)” are the sounds coming from the Parliamentary Press Gallery and other members of the media elite in this country. They claim to tell us what we think when it’s clear that they’re out of touch with the effect that those ads will have on us as Canadians."

And, whoops, there the Liberal commentators go, racing after the Tory hare.
Bloggers attack the premise that the Canadian media is biased against the Tories. Liberal party members join the chase.

And meanwhile, Harper smiles his cold little smile as the Liberals adopt his framing of Michael Ignatieff, and dance to his tune.

Round Two to Harper and his Tories.

When will Liberals ever learn?