Values, policies, and politics (link)

Great article by Nathaniel Frank about the need, in politics, to convince voters that you will fight for them on behalf of a recognizable set of values, something Democrats too often forget (The Roosevelts understood it, and the Kennedys and Johnson, and Truman, and with the 2012 convention, the modern party seemed to be remembering it--but Obama fell woefully short of communicating any core of values or vision for governing):

http://prospect.org/article/were-all-values-voters

" But policies mean little if they’re not communicated as part of a larger narrative that speaks to voters’ values. I don’t mean gay marriage and abortion, per se, but the belated understanding by Dems (decades after the GOP) that voters make choices based on whether a candidate shares their values more than whether she promises the best policies. Policies matter, but primarily insomuch as they express what a candidate values and telegraph that she can be trusted to represent values that voters hold dear.

That lesson went unapplied in the first presidential debate this week. Viewers were bombarded with wonkish talk, he-said-he-said assertions, and half-truths or outright falsehoods. In particular, President Obama seemed to get caught up in policy details without framing his positions as part of a digestible and resonant story about how he’d lead America.

To get their narrative back, Democrats should be making three main points over the next month..."
The details on this are worth it. Furthermore, he notes (with backing evidence!):

"Widespread economic insecurity has made Americans more open to government intervention. A trend has accelerated: Despite the general success of conservative think tanks in eroding trust in government through their “starve the beast” strategy, Americans are more—not less—supportive of government intervention in their lives today than they were in past years."

The whole article is worth checking out.

UPDATE:
Michael Tomasky in the 'Prospect' a few years back puts together some thoughts on the same subject, framing it around coming together around a common political philosophy that the average person can accept:
http://prospect.org/article/party-search-notion-0

The article (from a little before the 2006 recapture of Congress), is prescient in its observation of the difficulties Democrats have (and would have in the years since) making a case for who they are, and why you should vote for them (a gap the right-wing propaganda machine has been perfectly willing to fill with lies and hyperbole).

"For many years -- during their years of dominance and success, the period of the New Deal up through the first part of the Great Society -- the Democrats practiced a brand of liberalism quite different from today's. Yes, it certainly sought to expand both rights and prosperity. But it did something more: That liberalism was built around the idea -- the philosophical principle -- that citizens should be called upon to look beyond their own self-interest and work for a greater common interest.

This, historically, is the moral basis of liberal governance -- not justice, not equality, not rights, not diversity, not government, and not even prosperity or opportunity."