Selectorate-sensitive politicians (i.e. those particularly likely to gain and hold
power) are constrained and enabled by the notions used by their selectorates. They
tend to more or less proactively accommodate to them either reflexively when they
too hold those notions or by consciously opportunistic acts of symbol manipulation
(labeling, exemplification, and association). Policy issues and stances, salient events,
political parties/movements/factions, and prominent personalities are then subjects
for framing and counter-framing in light of judgements about the selectorate’s
notions. Informative examples are the testimony of expert witnesses for the prosecution
and defense in the Rodney King police brutality trial (Goodwin 1994), and
the politics of public school ‘‘reform’’ in Nashville (Pride 1995).