Earlier this year we posted this entry on how Democrats need to relate emotionally to voters. In the July 29, 2007 edition of the Washington Post, Drew Westin, a psychologist who writes on the voters and campaigns, has an excellent article in the Washington Post.
The following is from the article:
When you hear a pollster or strategist say, "We've got 'em beat on the issues," you know you're on the dispassionate river, and you know you're going under. By my count, voters disagreed with Ronald Reagan on about 75 percent of "the issues." But they liked him. They believed he would restore America's greatness. They voted with their values.
So do Democrats, but their candidates too often hide their values in the fine print of their policies. Democratic pundits, strategists and primary voters require their candidates to do precisely the things that lose general elections: to offer their 16-point energy plans rather than to offer their life stories, their values, their visions and a couple of well-chosen "signature issues."
Westin goes on in the article to describe what he thinks, based on his research regarding voters, that Democrats need to do:
Data from thousands of voters surveyed since the late 1940s suggest that voters tend to ask four questions (in this order) that determine how they vote:
· How do I feel about the candidates' parties and their principles?
· How does this candidate make me feel?
· How do I feel about this candidate's personal characteristics, such as integrity, leadership and empathy?
· How do I feel about this candidate's stands on issues that matter to me?
Candidates who focus toward the top of this hierarchy and work their way down generally win. They drink from the wellsprings of partisan sentiments, which account for more than 80 percent of votes. They tell emotionally compelling stories about who they are and what they believe in
Westin was once on a radio program on public radio and he said that Democratic candidates act like the voters are like Thomas Jefferson, sitting around Monticello, reading essays, and pondering politics and policy. Well, most of us have too much going on in our lives to be TJ. We have to worry about our jobs, our families, our relationships, our finances, and everything else that makes up our day, to ponder politics. That's why most voters use emotion to cut through the clutter surrounding campaigns.
The problem, of course, with using emotion is that voters can be manipulated. Republicans know this and are good at it. Democrats make their jobs easier by not using emotional arguments to sell themselves, their party, and their policies.
We are not talking about manipulating voters, but we are talking about presenting politics in such a way that voters can emotionally connect to our candidates, our party, and can emotionally relate to what we want to do if elected. FDR understood, this. Harry Truman understood this. JFK understood this. LBJ understood this. Bill Clinton certainly understood this. The question is does the current group of Democratic candidates understand this?
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2 comments:
I read about Westen's book about three weeks ago and blogged just a tiny bit about it - not so lovingly. Not because I disagree but because what he says is a no-brainer that I feel as if I've been saying forever - that it is indeed about emotions and how you feel when faced with the names. It still amazes me how long the obvious can go, being made even more obvious, and still be left unheeded. (Sorry if this comes off as having a harsh edge - it just aggravates me that people still need people like Westen to tell them that it's the emotions stupid. I don't think I really have a sixth sense or anything - didn't you always kind of know that it's the emotional attachment?)
Yes, but I don't think that everyone is getting the message. I think there are a lot of candidates who are logical but not emotional. I sometimes wonder if Hillary is one such candidate, although I understand she can have a very emotional edge to her.
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