Mark,
There are at least two major differences between the promotion of cryonics and the sort of fear-mongering rhetoric used by politicians.
1) Politicians use wording that is often ominous or non-specific. In fact, it's rare for politicians to even say the words death or die, they often even stay away from saying things like, 'our lives are at risk.' Instead, they refer to amorphous threats like bad guys or terrorists. They don't dwell on the topic of death, they focus on positive values like defending freedom. So, yes, they tweak that primal fear to get our emotional investment, but they have to know their limits. Overdoing it can cause unintended consequences, people get turned off, candidates are avoided or just ignored. Some politicians, like Giuliani, become a joke.
Unfortunately, cryonics, by it's very nature, requires a great deal of death talk. It's important for people to understand all the details of such an arrangement. Many people I know are uncomfortable with the topic of death, they'd rather not think about it at all. This is probably also why people often procrastinate on making a will or buying life insurance.
2) The threats they discuss are couched in a familiar context. Conservatives, for instance, reaffirm a religious and sometimes xenophobic worldview. Liberals often emphasize fairness and populism. These are outlooks many of their constituents find in common. So when their 'death anxiety' is triggered, it strengthens these core values they already hold.
Cryonics, on the other hand, is completely foreign and bizarre to most people. When we provoke thoughts of death in the uninitiated, it shouldn't surprise us when they turn to their core values, clinging ever more fiercely to religious ideas of immortality.
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