A different approach?

This morning I had the opportunity to discuss yesterday's post with a good progressive friend....actually a very intelligent progressive friend. He had some very definite opinions about the my concerns in the post and I'll share them with you now.

Generally, we agree with the symptoms....Democratic office holders and party leaders deserting the "grass roots" and going for the "big bucks" of big donors and big corporations... but he goes a step (or two ) farther than I do in the analysis...he proposes that there is an underlying cause for this phenomenom. He believes it's because we (as a party) have become focuses on winning elections as opposed to winning hearts. I told him I'd have to think about that a little bit and I cordially invite you to join this discussion also.

I think I understand what he means by "winning hearts". I think he means that we have to actually stand for something.....we have to represent something....we have to represent something of value to the electorate so that they will vote from the heart as opposed to....

as opposed to ....

what?

Why do people vote the way they do?

There was an interesting analysis of that question in the book What's the Matter with Kansas? but that provided more questions in answers because it was clearly shown that while there has been a conservative "outbreak" in Kansas it is equally clear that voting for conservatives is against the interest of most Kansans. There has to be more to it than that....here are a few attempts (feeble?) to find more satisfying answers:

Here's an eye-opening article by Bill Steigerwald over at Moderate Voice from his interview with the authors of How Voters Decide: Information Processing in Election Campaigns, by Richard Lau and David Redlawsk.

Q: Are voters usually rational when they choose a candidate?

A: Well, that depends on what you mean by “rational.” Can voters give you a reason for why they did what they did? Yes, absolutely. A more formal economic definition of rationality is … to very actively and conscientiously consider the consequences of the different alternatives for your own well-being, however you want to define that, and, in this case, vote for the candidate that maximizes your self-interest, however you want to define that. No. Not very many people do that.

Q: What kinds of information or forms of persuasion are voters most likely to be influenced by?

A: They’re most likely to be influenced by two things. To the extent that they have strong prior political beliefs — whether they’re Democrats or Republicans or liberals or conservatives — they really are going to see things in light of their own backgrounds, which is the nice way to say it, or their own biases, which is the less nice way to say it. If you’re a Republican and Dick Cheney tells you something, you are a lot more likely to believe it than if you are a Democrat — and then you’ll listen to Hillary Clinton. That’s one very big factor. The other factor — which those of us in political science tend to overlook a lot because we often don’t have the evidence — is people that you talk to: your friends, your family, your neighbors. If somebody you trust says, “That Mitt Romney is a real jerk,” then it is going to be hard for you — particularly if you don’t know enough about (Romney) to counter that information or argue against it — to reject that person’s statement.

Interestingly enough, it all boils down to just a few items when it comes to choosing a candidate.

You're more likely to choose a candidate if:

• The candidate "confirms" what you already believe.
• The candidate belongs to "your" political party...sort of a short cut to deciding if the candidate is suitable.
• And amazingly, candidates are usually chosen based on LESS not MORE detailed information about the issues. If I knew how to make those words flash I would.

So "winning their hearts" may mean manipulating the message and the issues to fit into what Lau and his associate found about voting patterns....it may mean fitting the entire campaign into that framework.

There are some good articles on the subject, here, here and here, or, in this abstract of a paper...

Abstract. The traditional class approach to politics maintains that the working class 'naturally' votes for left-wing parties because they represent its economic interests. Such traditional voting patterns have, however, become less typical, giving rise to the 'Death of Class Debate' in political sociology. Against this background, using data collected in the Netherlands in 1997, this article examines why so many people, working and middle class alike, vote for parties that do not represent their 'real class interests'. Critically elaborating Lipset's work on working-class authoritarianism and Inglehart's on postmaterialism, the article confirms that 'natural' voting complies with the logic of class analysis. 'Unnatural' voting, however, is not driven by economic cues and class. Right-wing working-class voting behaviour is caused by cultural conservatism that stems from limited cultural capital. The pattern of voting for the two small leftist parties in Dutch politics underscores the significance of this cultural explanation: those with limited cultural capital and culturally conservative values vote for the Socialist Party ('Old Left') rather than the Greens ('New Left'). Breaking the traditional monopoly of the one-sided class approach and using a more eclectic and open theoretical approach enables political sociologists once again to appreciate the explanatory power of the class perspective.
This article is cited by:
Marcel Lubbers

I've got to think about this for a while.....