George Lakoff Retained by Fenton Communications as
Strategic Consultantfor Progressive Organizations

George Lakoff, the renowned cognitive scientist, linguist, and best-selling author, is teaming with Fenton Communications, the nation's largest progressive communications firm.

Lakoff is one of the country's most prominent experts on political thought and communications. He has revolutionized our understanding of how framing works in political discourse and is the leading scholar on how values structure our politics.

Lakoff is a founder and senior fellow at the Rockridge Institute, a progressive think tank in Northern California specializing in cognitive policy, the ideas behind the issues. Since 1972 he has taught at the University of California at Berkeley.

He has advised Democratic congressional leaders and advocacy groups throughout the country. Democratic campaigns, both national and local, have been structured around his books Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think; Don't Think of an Elephant; Thinking Points (with the Rockridge Institute); and Whose Freedom? His numerous papers on progressive advocacy can be found at www.rockridgeinstitute.org.

Lakoff is also a member of the international advisory committee of Prime Minister Zapatero of Spain, who used his books and Rockridge materials extensively in his recent successful re-election campaign.

Lakoff's latest book, The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st Century Politics with an 18th Century Brain, will be published June 2, 2008 by Viking/Penguin. The book surveys discoveries about the mind from neuroscience and cognitive science, showing their relevance to contemporary politics.

Lakoff's current research at Rockridge's new Center for Cognitive Policy is directed toward how progressives can preempt, counter, and overcome the overall system of conservative ideas that have confounded and intimidated progressives on issue after issue.

Professor Lakoff's nonpolitical books on cognitive science and linguistics include Metaphors We Live By (with Mark Johnson); Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind; More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor (with Mark Turner); Philosophy in the Flesh (with Mark Johnson); and Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Creates Mathematics (with Rafael Nunez).

He is known in academic circles for his many contributions to the study of meaning in language, for demonstrating how metaphorical thought works, and for helping to work out the details of how language works in the brain.

"We are delighted to be able to offer our clients access to one of the best communications thinkers in the world," said David Fenton, the company's founder and CEO. "George Lakoff literally wrote the book on communicating progressive values."

As a strategic consultant to the firm, Lakoff will be available to Fenton clients through its three offices in San Francisco, New York and Washington, D.C.

"I've worked with Fenton Communications on several projects furthering progressive goals and recognize that we share the same moral outlook, the same progressive instincts, and the same love for ideas and language. I respect the people at Fenton and enjoy working with them."

With more than 26 years of experience serving the public interest, Fenton's team of 65 professionals provide the full range of multimedia services - from strategic planning and media relations to advertising and online marketing and advocacy - to help its clients protect the environment, improve public health and advance human rights and social justice.