Once upon a time, conservatives were famously good at what George Lakoff called "moral politics." They won over Americans with simple -- often simplistic -- value propositions. Progressives, meanwhile, often struggled with this dimension of politics, gravitating more toward consumerist appeals about expanding individual rights or delivering economic gains. Most maddeningly, conservatives grabbed the value of work and, for a long time, scored big political and policy gains by trumpeting the edict that nobody should get welfare or social benefits who didn't work.