To be fair, David, I'm not sure the Rs are solely responsible for equating oil and energy.  Both parties do that all the time, and while the logic doesn't hold, I'm not sure the motivations are so crass.  Everyone buys gasoline. Very few of us buy coal, natural gas, or even electricity.  (In the sense that many of us are lucky enough to have significant others who take care of paying the household bills once a month, and therefore don't have any intuitive sense of whether our heating & electric bills are going up, other than that one time at the end of the year when we happen to go through Quicken and click the "compare" function.)

I'm not disagreeing with you per se - just flagging that there is a politically rational reason to conflate oil policy and energy policy, even if it doesn't actually make any other logical sense.

And yes, I'm still waiting for a politician to remind us that we need to think bigger...

The reason "energy policy" is more important now than Iraq is because almost everybody is being hit with higher gas prices but very few have a personal stake in Iraq.  So as far as most people are concerned, they are feeling "pain at the pump", and that's the top issue.

However, DR is correct that this still is a great opportunity to bring up real issues.  What about encouraging electric cars?  public transit? high-speed rail?  And then add electricity costs, which are also shooting through the roof as Sean points out, then use that to push for solar/wind as a way to decrease the price of electricity.

  And, as usual the Democrats allow the Republicans to set the frame, and end up on defense rather than offense.

   One problem with pushing solar/wind (or new Nuclear -or even coal for that matter), is that practically any new generation will be more expensive than what it replaces. This is largely a function of Malthusian market forces applied to commodities (including steel, concrete, copper etc.). The best way to constrain future price rises is conservation. But this is still presumed to be a radioactive word, so it is rarely used by those seeking elective office. And it is clear that even with the best energy policy, energy will be getting more expensive during the near and midterm, so any programs that are conflated with a promise of price reductions can be painted as failures.

Could the word "Frame" be equally interchanged with the phrase "Concept Model"?

Since frankly a large problem with understanding Framing, is understanding a clear grasp of what Frame actually means.

Only other simple way I could think to describe it is "Spin" or "Angle".

-David Ahlport

I would differentiate between Conservation and Efficiency.

Since I associate Conservation with Behavioral Demand Destruction.

Where as I associate Efficiency with Technological Demand Destruction.

_

And frankly, I'm not a big fan of Behavioral Demand Destruction.

People are lazy, disengaged, and uninformed.

It's far easier to change equipment than it is to change behavior.  Especially when it's so culturally ingrained.

-David Ahlport

34 short of 2010?