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As Madisons progressives ponder the grim political terrain here and in Washington, Id suggest they think about it under three headings substance, language and tactics.

On substance, as you might expect, I believe progressives win, as they are interested in all of us, not just the large subset dominated by those who view themselves as somehow more patriotic and religiously correct my alternative to the silly politically correct than the rest of us.

But on language and tactics, progressives have been losing for a long time.

Think about it: In Wisconsin, how weary are you of hearing some Republican talk about a common sense solution or address an audience filled with hard-working people who deserve to keep more of their hard-earned money?

Look, there are self-made people on both sides of the left-right spectrum, people who have worked hard, taken risks, bettered themselves, and served others. So why are those references in politics almost always made by conservatives? Perhaps because progressives consider such language as code aimed against the least well off, or as trite, silly and opportunistic.

The problem, though, is that it seems to work.

Or consider the word reform. Stick that word on the end of anything and its sounds like it must be positive, right? To my mind, the GOP definition of reform is when Republicans take something from a group of people that is not part of their core constituency. Labeling these takeaways as reforms has been one of Gov. Scott Walkers greatest coups.

In Washington, why in the world do Democrats allow GOP pejorative descriptors to stick? Two of my least favorites are the death tax, which, one must admit, sounds creepy, and Obamacare.

Ordinary Americans would never be affected by estate taxes because of high wealth thresholds, but along the way, wealthy GOP interests rebranded it as the death tax. That term was coined in the 1940s but gained traction in the 1990s and dominates today.

And of course Republicans could refer to the health insurance reform as the Affordable Care Act, but instead succeeded in naming it Obamacare, which makes it sound like something flimsy, fly-by-night and peddled on cable television.

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