Last weekend, I read the fascinating book The Political Brain, by Drew Westen. Drew is a trained psychologist, and believes the "theory of mind" political professionals who work for Democrats have developed is totally, utterly wrong. To simplify his thesis, no voters(not even well-educated ones) make voting decisions by rationally weighing where the candidates stand on the issues. Instead, people begin with their emotional feelings towards a candidate, and then rationalize reasons why they support a given candidate.
I think it tells us a lot about what has gone on during this primary fight...
Westen and his colleagues have done, over the past decade, repeated studies to find where voters stood on hot-button scandals in the media - and found partisanship determines most of it. One example he shows in his book is one of the Clinton sex scandals, the Kathleen Wiley case. After at first developing a complex model, involving all sorts of personal experience, to discover where people stood on the accusations. And ultimately found that a persons lean towards either of the two parties could predict ones opinion 80% of the time. Which explains the odd observation he makes that the people who supported Anita Hill were almost exactly the flip of those who supported Kathleen Wiley.
Those people not making decisions based upon partisanship generally make their political decisions solely based upon the mixture of feelings the candidate elicits in them. Given we're within the primary, where partisanship doesn't matter, I think that's really the crux of what's been going on during the primary. Both Clinton and Obama supporters ultimately support their candidate for emotional reasons, and then come up with reasons to rationalize their support later.
Witness the endless argument on MI/FL. There is no reason, none at all, that those that argue that the states should be seated, versus those that argue it shouldn't should have consistently been determined by what campaign you supported. But they have, with the exception of a few people I've seen in the blogosphere like Chris Bowers.
As another example to make fellow Obama supporters cringe is what happened with Wright. The first time Wright surfaced, most Obama supporters (myself included) praised Obama for sticking by his long time mentor. The second time, they praised Obama for doing the right thing and throwing Wright under the bus when he didn't show loyalty. All of this in a period of a few weeks.
Examples can go on and on. The point is neither side is engaged in rational thought. We're plowing through information looking for confirmation that what we know with "our gut" is true.
So, I've come to the conclusion that the debate between Clinton and Obama supporters is essentially useless. No one is converting anyone on either side - in real terms, it's almost as difficult as trying to show a creationist in an argument that he or she is wrong. Note that I say that with no malice towards Clinton supporters - we're all guilty of it.
The good news for some conclusion to this primary battle is that Drew Westen also notes most partisans follow the lead of political leaders in debate. E.G., if you are a Democrat, and no Democrat is speaking on an issue, you generally don't care, but if it's being debated in public, you develop an attachment to it. This suggests, as an ultimate Obama win seems inevitable, that once Clinton suspends her campaign, and Clinton's narrative wanes, as her surrogates vanish from the news shows and her big bloggers online focus on other things, the rank and file will begin to get over it. So I think worries of a divided party in the fall are very much overrated.
P.S. In case you're wondering, Drew responds in the postscript to the paperback to the current nomination campaign in very current terms (seems to have been written post OH/TX). He likes things about both candidates. He credits Obama, more than Clinton, as understanding people vote based upon emotional resonances, not based upon a laundry list of ideas. But he sees Clinton as better at fighting back against attacks.
P.S.S. The first page of the book contains a long, effusive praise of the book by none other than Bill Clinton. To begin with, is quote says "This is the most interesting, informative book on politics I've read in years..." So Clinton supporters should not feel scared to pick up the book.
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