If Kerry-Edwards win on November 2, the progressive movement will need to mobilize massive support for the new Administration and insist that it live up to its promise. By doing so, we can bring "One America" closer to reality. If Bush wins, the imperative to strengthen our movement will be even more urgent.

Many methods are needed. The progressive movement needs visionaries who plant seeds, push the envelope, and open minds to new possibilities. We need nonviolent, direct action to move matters forward. We need policy wonks to craft well informed legislation. We need media and marketing skills to reach wider audiences. And, as Susan Strong, Metaphor Project founder, puts it, we need activists who know how to "talk American."

With all this in mind, Toward Peace, a loose network of activists based in San Francisco, has initiated an independent Reaching Beyond the Choir Project that will identify for the progressive movement one or more concise statements of purpose clearly rooted in underlying American moral values.

With the 1996 publication of Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, made a major breakthrough by analyzing how political language works. Four years ago, Lakoff co-founded the Rockridge Institute to "reframe the terms of political debate." Recently, interest in Lakoff has increased dramatically. In the last year, he caused a great stir with his presentation at the Take Back America 2004 Conference. He has been consulted by several Democratic presidential candidates, made a presentation at the Democratic Senators' annual retreat, been invited to address the California delegation at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and worked with more than 100 advocacy organizations. Magnolia Films is currently producing a documentary on his work. He has been widely quoted in the national media and on July 23, he was interviewed on "NOW with Bill Moyers."

At the Take Back America conference, Lakoff argued that progressive activists need to use value-based messages that touch people more deeply than is the case with traditional, issue-oriented platforms. By first connecting to the progressive side of people who are ambivalent, we can then talk more persuasively about policy ideas.

According to Lakoff, political beliefs are layered onto deep-seated moral convictions about what is right and wrong, how people should live, and how parents should raise their children. These convictions are instilled at an early age and are often unconscious or semi-conscious. Political conflict often derives from disagreements about what is moral behavior.

Americans want government to act in concert with and reinforce their moral convictions. As they want parents to raise good children, they want government to foster good citizens. So Americans respond positively to politicians and activists who share their sense of morality.

Unfortunately, progressives have largely left the moral arena to the radical right. By appearing to be the ones who care most about morality, the radical right seized a major tactical advantage. But progressives are beginning to articulate more clearly the moral foundation of their worldview. If we continue to move in this direction, we can win the debate about moral values because our perspective is more inclusive, humane, and sustainable.

From Lakoff's perspective, personal morality, social values, and political principles reinforce one another. Progressive personal morality affirms that both parents are equally accountable for nurturing their children and raising them to be nurturers who experience empathy and accept responsibility. This morality leads to social values such as opportunity, service, cooperation, trust, honesty, strength, and progressive individualism.

These values promote progressive political principles that are widely supported by the American people. In particular, most Americans embrace what Lakoff calls the "American Commitment," which declares that if you work hard, play by the rules, and pay your dues, the nation will provide protection, freedom, fairness, political equality, prosperity, the best possible natural environment, healthy communities, and a reasonable standard of living. Other principles identified by Lakoff include political equality, responsible government, and moral leadership.

Bill Clinton demonstrated the effectiveness of talking about values, but he mistakenly did so by moving to the center, rather than helping to revitalize America's progressive tradition. "When you move to the middle, you shoot yourself in both feet," Lakoff stated during a recent interview on KPFA-FM in Berkeley. "You not only alienate your base, but you also wind up helping the other side by activating their model and their positions. So the appropriate thing to do is to speak to your base, because that also speaks to the folks in the middle."

In this year's presidential campaign, John Edwards adopted Lakoff's approach and touched a nerve with his "Two Americas" speech. His call for "One America" affirms that the nation should be like a family -- united and caring for one another.

After being informed during the "NOW with Bill Moyers" interview that Kerry recently used the word "values" 28 times in a 40-minute speech, Lakoff commented, "He's right. You have to say it over and over. But now there's the next step. You can't just repeat the word values. You have to say what they are. You have to start talking about things like fairness, safety, freedom, community, trust, honesty, integrity. These are values. Then he has to say why he has them in detail. And then every time he mentions a program or an idea he has to say why they follow from these values."

To date, the co-sponsors of the Reaching Beyond the Choir Project are unaware of a short, comprehensive "Statement of Purpose" for the progressive movement that uses values-based language of the sort recommended by Lakoff.

So the goal of this Project will be to find any such statements summing up the key aims of the progressive movement that have already been written and encourage the writing of new ones. Individuals, informal groups, and organizations are invited to submit statements up to 2000 words in length. During and following a post-election public forum, project participants will discuss, evaluate, and rank the statements that emerge, and then widely disseminate the results of these deliberations.

This process may produce one statement that clearly gathers the most support. Such a statement could help provide a unifying focus for the progressive movement and help facilitate the formation of one or more new coalitions that will advance our cause more effectively than would be the case with continued fragmentation. On the other hand, several statements with strong support may surface, in which case various statements might be used in different situations.

Progressive activists need to learn from Lakoff, Kerry, Edwards, and others, and apply these lessons to grassroots organizing. If we do, we'll be better able to build a popular force that can persuade elected officials to practice what they preach.