Yes!
Yes!
Unfortunately, "language" and "words" are often picked and used to sway feelings and opinions, and that comes about by certain words and phrases having negative or positive connotations. This sort of practice seems to be getting worse these days and a lot of people have their political persuasions affected by mere words and not too much "thought" on the subject. And that's unfortunate.
But, since that's the way it is... (and with sound-bites and all...) -- the only thing to do is to take a word or phrase, and claim it for yourself and "turn it right back around" on the opposing side. That's about the only thing that works, and it takes the ground right out from under the opposition when you do that.
The other option (like is used in the "pro-life" camp) is to sling words back-at-'em, and use the same game (altough not as effective as appropriating the word for yourself). In the pro-life camp -- when they say, "pro-choice", you can say, "Oh, you mean 'pro-death', don't you?" ... :-)
Anyway, it's big game, actually, and like I said, it's too bad that it is, but that's the way it goes ... [ ... and it's the same game we learned as kids on the playground, too ... LOL ... ]