What makes people vote republican II

[metta 0]

I came across this article a couple of days ago. A young liberal journalist-Judith Werner attended Mccain Palin rally in Fairfax, VA and picked up the vibes from the grassroots. Again, I noted the rather commonplace attitude that many people sensed among liberals-especially the young liberals:

Businessman Scott Maclean on the Democratic Party: "Their attitude is: you don't get it and they don't expect you to get it because they're smarter than you – and I hate that."

I am also pleasantly surprised to find out that Werner has also read Haidt's "Why People vote republican " article.

No Laughing Matter

Judith Warner

"You can stand on my wagon, if you want."

I tend, when I'm not in big crowds, to forget that I'm short. In Republican crowds, I find, I feel particularly small.

And dark. And unsmiling. And uncoiffed, unmade-up and inappropriately dressed.

For the McCain/Palin rally in Fairfax, Va., on Wednesday, the organizers had asked people to wear red. I – unthinkingly – had dressed in blue, which was somewhat isolating.

I was isolated, too, because, unable to find the press area in the crowd of about 15,000, I was out with the "real" people. Which meant that I could hear everything from the podium and from the onlookers around me, but could see nothing, not, at least, until the mom beside me stopped struggling to balance atop her Little Tikes wagon with two toddlers in her arms and another screaming at her feet, and offered me a go at the view.

("It's Sarah. Sarah's going to be the vice president," she had told the little girls, clad in their matching polka dot dresses. "Sarah Palin.")

She was a nice woman. She told me history was in the making. She told me where to get lunch. She handed me back my reporter's notebook when one of her almost-two-year-old twins, fixing me with a dark look of mistrust, took it away. "Liberal media, eh?" her solemn eyes glared. "Well, watch what you say about my mommy and Our Sarah."

Do not think for a moment that I was being paranoid.

Fred Thompson had warmed up the crowd, his familiar old district attorney's voice restored to full bombast, and he'd been in fine form, denouncing – to loud boos from the crowd — the "lawyers and scandal mongers and representatives of cable networks" (boos from the crowd) who were at that very moment descending upon Alaska looking for dirt on their Sarah.

"I hope they brought their own Brie and Chablis with them," he'd said, to raucous laughter, as I willed myself to disappear, remembering, with a shudder, that my children had demanded Brie for breakfast only that morning.

I should have been finding this funny. My whole plan, after all, had been to write something funny this week about the whole Sarah Palin phenomenon. I'd arrived at an if-you-can't-beat-'em-laugh-at-'em kind of a juncture, I suppose.

I'd planned to make attending the McCain/Palin event a silly sort of adventure. I'd invited a friend who has six kids to come with me. I figured funny things were bound to befall us in Palin-Land, where, collectively, we'd have eight children between us (a funny thought in and of itself.) A Harold and Kumar Escape from the Barracuda sort of storyline was the idea – until my friend, done in by one too many sleepless nights, declined to accompany me, and I had to venture off alone.

And, forced to make new friends on the spot, discovered that the Palin Phenomenon is no laughing matter.

Those who think that it is — well, as Thompson warned on Wednesday, "they've got another thing coming."

I made my first friend on the shuttle bus that took us from a nearby mall, where we'd been instructed to park, to the field where the rally was held. She was from Leesburg, Va., an ardent McCain supporter, conservative and self-described "soccer mom," who grew up in Pennsylvania among girls who went hunting with their Dads.

Sarah Palin, she told me, "just seems like a regular person."

I did not argue with her. One does not argue when making new friends. And besides, we had so many other things to bond over. We talked about kids with issues. She had a son with A.D.H.D., cousins with Asperger's and dysgraphia, and a nephew with autism. ("They're lucky they live in New Jersey. New Jersey's pretty progressive," she said.)

We talked about the moral vacuity of modern parenting. "I see extreme spoiling, self-absorption," she said. "Constant bringing the kids up to love themselves without reflecting on how they affect others." We talked about the disastrous lack of respect that children now show adults and institutions, and about the ways this lack of respect translates into a very ugly sort of lack of decorum and a lack of basic manners: "This 10-year-old, my daughter's friend, she comes over and throws down a magazine with John McCain on the cover. 'Here's friggin John McCain,' she says. 'Let's see what lies he's going to tell now.'" She continued: "These 10-year-olds think they're better than me. That they don't have to say hello. That they think I'm beneath them."

You go girl, I was thinking, in so many words, until the talk turned back to politics: "So often these kids that are so incredibly full of themselves, I find their parents are Democrats. The Democrats, they hate 'us,' the United States, but they love 'me,' that is, themselves," she said.

I heard a lot more talk that day about the need for respect – and about arrogance and selfishness and about Democrats and liberals who think way too highly of themselves.

Fred Thompson on the liberal media: "This woman is undergoing the most vicious assault … all because she is a threat to the power they expected to inherit and think they're entitled to."

Businessman Scott Maclean on the Democratic Party: "Their attitude is: you don't get it and they don't expect you to get it because they're smarter than you – and I hate that."

I heard, repeatedly, a complaint about sterile individualism, about selfishness and the desire for a revalidated "us" – from John McCain's boilerplate attack on "me-first Washington" to this curious reflection, from a mother of nine, on the field with eight of her children, on the question of whether she, like Palin, could ever imagine balancing the demands of her large family against a high-profile political career like Sarah's.

"My daughter asked me, 'Mom, would you do that if you had the opportunity?,'" she recalled, as the six-year-old in question looked on. "I said 'I don't know. Maybe she was born to do that. Maybe that's the sacrifice she has to make to serve her country.'"

The daughter lifted high her hand-painted, flower-adorned Palin sign.

"She'll really be a big step forward for women," the mother said.

No, it wasn't funny, my morning with the hockey and the soccer moms, the homeschooling moms and the book club moms, the joyful moms who brought their children to see history in the making and spun them on the lawn, dancing, when music played. It was sobering. It was serious. It was an education.

"Palin Power" isn't just about making hockey moms feel important. It's not just about giving abortion rights opponents their due. It's also, in obscure ways, about making yearnings come true — deep, inchoate desires about respect and service, hierarchy and family that have somehow been successfully projected onto the figure of this unlikely woman and have stuck.

For those of us who can't tap into those yearnings, it seems the Palin faithful are blind – to the contradictions between her stated positions and the truth of the policies she espouses, to the contradictions between her ideology and their interests. But Jonathan Haidt, an associate professor of moral psychology at the University of Virginia, argues in an essay this month, "What Makes People Vote Republican?", that it's liberals, in fact, who are dangerously blind.

Haidt has conducted research in which liberals and conservatives were asked to project themselves into the minds of their opponents and answer questions about their moral reasoning. Conservatives, he said, prove quite adept at thinking like liberals, but liberals are consistently incapable of understanding the conservative point of view. "Liberals feel contempt for the conservative moral view, and that is very, very angering. Republicans are good at exploiting that anger," he told me in a phone interview.

Perhaps that's why the conservatives can so successfully get under liberals' skin. And why liberals need to start working harder at breaking through the empathy barrier.

Edited September 15, 2008 by metta

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

So in other words political parties should eshew discussions of policy and focus more on empathising with voters via artificially constructed idealised images of political candidates?

That might be the way to win elections - but it doesn't exactly make for better, more informed politics...

If this is the direction we're going to take in future - perhaps someone should call Ryan Seacrest...

Edited September 15, 2008 by Paul Daniels

[metta 0]

So in other words political parties should eshew discussions of policy and focus more on empathising with voters via artificially constructed idealised images of political candidates?

That might be the way to win elections - but it doesn't exactly make for better, more informed politics...

If this is the direction we're going to take in future - perhaps someone should call Ryan Seacrest...

The point I am trying to make is well reflected by a quote;

that this election will not be decided by fellow junkies, but rather by people whose attention to and interest in politics is quite different.

in this article.

Given the dismissive attitude many Dems hold with regard to those who vote the other way, I would argue that republicans often win the elections because they understand the electorate better that the hoity toity Dems. They talk about swift boating and so forth but if you look at the Britney Spear/paris Hilton ad that McCain ran against Obama, it is obvious that the GOP campaign understand very clearly what the issue is in the minds of the electorate vis a vis Obama. There is nothing devious or obnoxious about the ad. It just addressed the public's doubt with a very simple but effective message. Obama's poll numbers started heading south after that.

[Jenn! 918]

mmmmmm....brie

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

So in other words political parties should eshew discussions of policy and focus more on empathising with voters via artificially constructed idealised images of political candidates?

That might be the way to win elections - but it doesn't exactly make for better, more informed politics...

If this is the direction we're going to take in future - perhaps someone should call Ryan Seacrest...

The point I am trying to make is well reflected by a quote;

that this election will not be decided by fellow junkies, but rather by people whose attention to and interest in politics is quite different.

in this article.

Given the dismissive attitude many Dems hold with regard to those who vote the other way, I would argue that republicans often win the elections because they understand the electorate better that the hoity toity Dems. They talk about swift boating and so forth but if you look at the Britney Spear/paris Hilton ad that McCain ran against Obama, it is obvious that the GOP campaign understand very clearly what the issue is in the minds of the electorate vis a vis Obama. There is nothing devious or obnoxious about the ad. It just addressed the public's doubt with a very simple but effective message. Obama's poll numbers started heading south after that.

Obama certainly has issues regarding the public perception of his experience and capabilities.

But do the Republicans deserve to win the election simply by having better marketing? After the last 8 years I would imagine they would have to justify their re-election to a 3rd term with guaranteed policy commitments.

Perhaps people really will be that shallow to vote on (or against) personality rather than policy. I'm sure stranger things have happened.

[metta 0]

So in other words political parties should eshew discussions of policy and focus more on empathising with voters via artificially constructed idealised images of political candidates?

That might be the way to win elections - but it doesn't exactly make for better, more informed politics...

If this is the direction we're going to take in future - perhaps someone should call Ryan Seacrest...

The point I am trying to make is well reflected by a quote;

that this election will not be decided by fellow junkies, but rather by people whose attention to and interest in politics is quite different.

in this article.

Given the dismissive attitude many Dems hold with regard to those who vote the other way, I would argue that republicans often win the elections because they understand the electorate better that the hoity toity Dems. They talk about swift boating and so forth but if you look at the Britney Spear/paris Hilton ad that McCain ran against Obama, it is obvious that the GOP campaign understand very clearly what the issue is in the minds of the electorate vis a vis Obama. There is nothing devious or obnoxious about the ad. It just addressed the public's doubt with a very simple but effective message. Obama's poll numbers started heading south after that.

Obama certainly has issues regarding the public perception of his experience and capabilities.

But do the Republicans deserve to win the election simply by having better marketing? After the last 8 years I would imagine they would have to justify their re-election to a 3rd term with guaranteed policy commitments.

Perhaps people really will be that shallow to vote on (or against) personality rather than policy. I'm sure stranger things have happened.

Well, it would be equally shallow not to take into account, personalities. As one would learn in environmental education course, "everything is connected to everything."

But policies are implemented by or driven by personalities. is it not?

So you do have to look at personalities that would drive the policies.

As is known on this board, I supported hillary not because I am a blind follower of Hillary Clinton but because I believe that she is the most qualified to push for policies I like in a comprehensive way.

OK, I support the Dem's healthcare policy but to get there, the Dem President has to improve the economy, the Iraq, Afgan Wars then formulate a policy toward terrorism, China, russia and what have you.

Given the complexity of issues and the expertise to understand the history, background and nuances of each given issue, I doubt that Obama who only a few months earlier has crammed the material just as Palin is doing now, posses a real grasp of the issues. At least enough to make well-reasoned choices from a panoply of options that will be put forth by experts. Biden will help with his knowledge but the decision has to be made by the POTUS. That brings me to judgement and decision making and Obama's judgements especially with regard to his VP selection raises a big Red Flag to me. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to reckon that Obama/Clinton ticket would cover many weak fronts of his campaign such as women, white blue collar votes, experience etc. Yet, it was obvious to me that he could not overcome his own personal demons such as pride, diffidence (purported difficulty handling Bill) residual animus from the primaries etc.

With all the momentum that he and the Democratic Party has going for them, we are sadly witnessing a tight race 53 days from the general.

What does it say about him. When it comes to a crutch he has still not grown politically mature enough to overcome personal feeling to make politically mission critical decisions. This is pretty much in dissonance with his bipartysan image. if he cannot come together with former rival from his own party then how can he go across the aisle to acheive bipartisan cooperation.?

McCain on the other hand has a track record of bipartisanship in making laws.

Also, if you look at his core, he has but two issues: honor rto the country and to win a war once American enters one. The rest he has declared is politcs and therefore open to compromise. For these reasons, I believe that Mccain will cross ideological boundaries to reach a solution to national issues that become obvious imperatives.

On these count, I believe, personalities matter. Track records matter.

Lastly, on change, McCain has shown that he can and will go against his party. Palin's record also shows that her political rise was tied to very bold and insurgent moves against party powerhouses where has Obama's rise has always been tied to getting along/sucking up to the powers that be, be it the Chicago political machine (read Emil Jones, Ricahrd daley) or the Trinity church(read jeremiah Wright).

[panamania79 2]

So in other words political parties should eshew discussions of policy and focus more on empathising with voters via artificially constructed idealised images of political candidates?

That might be the way to win elections - but it doesn't exactly make for better, more informed politics...

If this is the direction we're going to take in future - perhaps someone should call Ryan Seacrest...

Or David Hasslehoff.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

So in other words political parties should eshew discussions of policy and focus more on empathising with voters via artificially constructed idealised images of political candidates?

That might be the way to win elections - but it doesn't exactly make for better, more informed politics...

If this is the direction we're going to take in future - perhaps someone should call Ryan Seacrest...

The point I am trying to make is well reflected by a quote;

that this election will not be decided by fellow junkies, but rather by people whose attention to and interest in politics is quite different.

in this article.

Given the dismissive attitude many Dems hold with regard to those who vote the other way, I would argue that republicans often win the elections because they understand the electorate better that the hoity toity Dems. They talk about swift boating and so forth but if you look at the Britney Spear/paris Hilton ad that McCain ran against Obama, it is obvious that the GOP campaign understand very clearly what the issue is in the minds of the electorate vis a vis Obama. There is nothing devious or obnoxious about the ad. It just addressed the public's doubt with a very simple but effective message. Obama's poll numbers started heading south after that.

Obama certainly has issues regarding the public perception of his experience and capabilities.

But do the Republicans deserve to win the election simply by having better marketing? After the last 8 years I would imagine they would have to justify their re-election to a 3rd term with guaranteed policy commitments.

Perhaps people really will be that shallow to vote on (or against) personality rather than policy. I'm sure stranger things have happened.

Well, it would be equally shallow not to take into account, personalities. As one would learn in environmental education course, "everything is connected to everything."

But policies are implemented by or driven by personalities. is it not?

So you do have to look at personalities that would drive the policies.

As is known on this board, I supported hillary not because I am a blind follower of Hillary Clinton but because I believe that she is the most qualified to push for policies I like in a comprehensive way.

OK, I support the Dem's healthcare policy but to get there, the Dem President has to improve the economy, the Iraq, Afgan Wars then formulate a policy toward terrorism, China, russia and what have you.

Given the complexity of issues and the expertise to understand the history, background and nuances of each given issue, I doubt that Obama who only a few months earlier has crammed the material just as Palin is doing now, posses a real grasp of the issues. At least enough to make well-reasoned choices from a panoply of options that will be put forth by experts. Biden will help with his knowledge but the decision has to be made by the POTUS. That brings me to judgement and decision making and Obama's judgements especially with regard to his VP selection raises a big Red Flag to me. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to reckon that Obama/Clinton ticket would cover many weak fronts of his campaign such as women, white blue collar votes, experience etc. Yet, it was obvious to me that he could not overcome his own personal demons such as pride, diffidence (purported difficulty handling Bill) residual animus from the primaries etc.

With all the momentum that he and the Democratic Party has going for them, we are sadly witnessing a tight race 53 days from the general.

What does it say about him. When it comes to a crutch he has still not grown politically mature enough to overcome personal feeling to make politically mission critical decisions. This is pretty much in dissonance with his bipartysan image. if he cannot come together with former rival from his own party then how can he go across the aisle to acheive bipartisan cooperation.?

McCain on the other hand has a track record of bipartisanship in making laws.

Also, if you look at his core, he has but two issues: honor rto the country and to win a war once American enters one. The rest he has declared is politcs and therefore open to compromise. For these reasons, I believe that Mccain will cross ideological boundaries to reach a solution to national issues that become obvious imperatives.

On these count, I believe, personalities matter. Track records matter.

Lastly, on change, McCain has shown that he can and will go against his party. Palin's record also shows that her political rise was tied to very bold and insurgent moves against party powerhouses where has Obama's rise has always been tied to getting along/sucking up to the powers that be, be it the Chicago political machine (read Emil Jones, Ricahrd daley) or the Trinity church(read jeremiah Wright).

Well perceptions aren't exactly with McCain either - there's been question as to his economic expertise (I'm thinking specifically of an interview he did a couple of months ago regarding the credit crisis where he suggested that regulation of the financial services industry is not the way to go to address the credit crunch) and his admission that it isn't his strong suit. The other thing that bothers me is that while he does indeed have this record for going against his party, he seems to have sold his soul to cement the base of his electorate by nominating Sarah Palin (with her 'interesting' religious views).

As I said - I suspect he'll win, but I wouldn't vote for him (if I could vote of course).

[Sofiyya 1,687]

For those of us who can't tap into those yearnings, it seems the Palin faithful are blind – to the contradictions between her stated positions and the truth of the policies she espouses, to the contradictions between her ideology and their interests. But Jonathan Haidt, an associate professor of moral psychology at the University of Virginia, argues in an essay this month, "What Makes People Vote Republican?", that it's liberals, in fact, who are dangerously blind.

Haidt has conducted research in which liberals and conservatives were asked to project themselves into the minds of their opponents and answer questions about their moral reasoning. Conservatives, he said, prove quite adept at thinking like liberals, but liberals are consistently incapable of understanding the conservative point of view. "Liberals feel contempt for the conservative moral view, and that is very, very angering. Republicans are good at exploiting that anger," he told me in a phone interview.

This is o so true. One reason why is because most liberals only talk to each other. I remember when Bush won term 2, all my liberal friends were up in arms. How could this happen?!, they demanded. We don't know ANYONE who voted for HIM! Well, the snearing self-absorption and contempt for anyone not like them has a lot to do with it. As a former liberal, I see that clearly. There is little in the way of democracy and, oddly, open-mindeness, in the thinking of too many liberals.

The overwhelming attitude is that people who don't support who and what they support should be unable to compete intellectually, because they are lacking in intellect if not coming from a liberal paradigm. They should be unable to vote. Only liberal stances are worthy of promulgating. The left wants total control over the marketplace of ideas, and if they don't get it, they become petulant children, placing blame and tearing down anything or anyone that threatens to thwart their self-perceived domination of societal norms. Due to this tendency, they are easy to rattle, easy to lead, easy to fool.

This is not about stereotyping all liberals, but it does apply to the strident leftists that politics tends to spawn. Just my view, formed over several decades, and repeatedly proven true.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Well to be perfectly honest - how COULD someone have voted for George W. Bush? The man is totally unrepresentative of most Americans...

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Well to be perfectly honest - how COULD someone have voted for George W. Bush? The man is totally unrepresentative of most Americans...

You are well acquainted with most Americans, eh? Apparently not since he won twice.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Well to be perfectly honest - how COULD someone have voted for George W. Bush? The man is totally unrepresentative of most Americans...

You are well acquainted with most Americans, eh? Apparently not since he won twice.

And you're quite blatantly after an argument. Whether the man won the election or no - doesn't make him representative of the people who voted for him; neither does it make his policies representative of people's interests.

Edited September 16, 2008 by Paul Daniels

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Well to be perfectly honest - how COULD someone have voted for George W. Bush? The man is totally unrepresentative of most Americans...

You are well acquainted with most Americans, eh? Apparently not since he won twice.

And you're quite blatantly after an argument. Whether the man won the election or no - doesn't make him or his policies representative of the people who voted for him.

I'm not looking for an argument. I'm well aware that you don't have one. I'll bet, however, that you would not accept the same statement as true fro your opposition if your prefered candidate had won instead.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Well to be perfectly honest - how COULD someone have voted for George W. Bush? The man is totally unrepresentative of most Americans...

You are well acquainted with most Americans, eh? Apparently not since he won twice.

And you're quite blatantly after an argument. Whether the man won the election or no - doesn't make him or his policies representative of the people who voted for him.

I'm not looking for an argument. I'm well aware that you don't have one. I'll bet, however, that you would not accept the same statement as true fro your opposition if your prefered candidate had won instead.

Sure you are - the combative cynicism in your posts, not to mention the "you'd be singing a different tune if your guy won" counterpoint you just made that assumes my beliefs, not to mention my partisan loyalties.

I made a (very) general statement of opinion - you can take it at face value or not. But I'd like to think that if a person vehemently disagrees with something they'd actually make a point of "proving" the statement wrong rather than pull out the neener-neener rubbish.

You seem to have some affinity for the current administration - how you explain how they represent your day-to-day interests?

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Sure you are - the combative cynicism in your posts, not to mention the "you'd be singing a different tune if your guy won" counterpoint you just made that assumes my beliefs, not to mention my partisan loyalties.

I made a (very) general statement of opinion - you can take it at face value or not. But I'd like to think that if a person vehemently disagrees with something they'd actually make a point of "proving" the statement wrong rather than pull out the neener-neener rubbish.

You seem to have some affinity for the current administration - how you explain how they represent your day-to-day interests?

Your defensiveness toward my statements doesn't equate to me looking for an argument. I'm used to people disagreeing with me and take it in stride, but am, at the same time, not hesitant to express my own views.

Why do you admit tomaking a very general statement, yet expect someone else to be specific in their "proof"? Do you intend to offer any roof, or simply continue to make very general statements? BTW, is the complete BS remark in response to my post on the other thread not neener neener rubbish?

In a nutshell: I'm rich and not in need of government handouts, nor do I see myself a a victim or a perpetrator. I have no affinity toward any administration because they do not rule my life - I do.