The Name Game

From "Don't Think of an Elephant!" by George Lakoff:

We get compassionate conservativism. The Clear Skies Initiative. Healthy Forests. No Child Left Behind. This is the use of language to mollify people who have nurturant values. This is the use of Orwellian language - language that means the opposite of what it says - to appease people in the middle while you pump up the base. That is part of the conservative strategy.
Liberals and progressives typically react to this straight in a self-defeating way. The usual response is, "Those conservatives are bad people; they are using Orwellian language. They are saying the opposite of what they mean. They are deceivers. Bad. Bad."
All true. But we should recognize that they use Orwellian language only when they have to: when they are weak, when they cannot come out and say what they mean. Imagine if they came out supporting a "Dirty Skies Bill" or a "Forest Destruction Bill" or a "Kill Public Education" bill. They would lose. They are aware that people do not support what they are really trying to do.
...
[Global warming] science seems increasingly to be going against the conservative position. However, conservatives can counter the science using the right language. People who support environmental positions like certain words. They like the words healthy, clean, and safe because these words fit frames that describe what the environment means to them. Therefore [they] use the words healthy, clean, and safe whenever possible, even when talking about coal and nuclear power plants. It is this kind of Orwellian weakness that causes a piece of legislation that actually increases pollution to be called the Clear Skies Act.

It is not an accident that conservatives are winning where they have successfully framed the issues. They've got a thirty to forty year head start. And more than two billion dollars in think tank investments.
And they are still thinking ahead. Progressives are not. Progressives feel so assaulted by conservatives that they can only think about immediate defense. Democratic office holders are constantly under attack. Every day they have to respond to conservative initiatives. It is always, "What do we have to do to fight them off today?" It leads to politics that are reactive, not proactive.