Emotion drives voting

When one looks back on presidential voting of the last few elections, it seems obvious that what drives votes is not rational calculations, but emotion.  What Bush and Rove deserve credit for is understanding that votes are driven by emotion.  Thus, every political strategy is designed to stoke a strong emotion in their core voters.

More below the fold.  It is long, but thorough.

In 2004, the key issues were Iraq, War on Terror and cultural issues (i.e. abortion and gay rights).  Bush drove people's fears on each issue.  By using the flip-flop issue, he stoked people's fears about Iraq of losing a war like we did in Vietnam.  They explicitly threatened another 9/11 as to the War on Terror and raised the terror alerts whenever Kerry gained traction.  The cynic in me also thinks that Bin Laden's video was timed to help Bush.  Finally, the cultural issues are about sex.  The wingnuts fear the power of sex.  They hate it when their children get knocked up so they blame Hollywood.  Gay means deviancy according to their religion.  Thus, gay sex = evil.  By stoking fears of gays with the marriage issue, it angered and scared the wingnuts to vote.  Fear is a powerful motivator and Rove used fear to get his core to the polls.  Kerry had the fear of the draft to motivate the young (this worked) and the fear that Bush was ruining the economy.  History shows that people worry about survival before they worry about money.  Bush had the stronger emotions to play to more people.

In 2000, Gore should have won because he tapped into the envy emotion.  The greed corporations are keeping the people down.  Bush pandered to the same emotion with tax cuts and using the government as the enemy.  Since both arguments pandered to the same emotion, it is not a surprise that the election was even.

In 1996, Dole failed to find an emotional issue that resonated.  The fake Clinton scandals could not overcome the strong emotions the Clinton stoked against Gingrich.  Basically, Clinton demonstrated how the Republicans wanted to cut Social Security and Medicare.  He had four years of growth to use to stoke feelings of economic security that were associated with him.

In 1992, national security was not an issue and Bush was being blamed for the economy.  Clinton and Perot played on the economic fears and Clinton won.  Bush tried to play up cultural fears.  However, Clinton could speak the language of the Baptist and the economy was a more powerful fear.

1988, Bush played up national security fears (remember the tank) and cultural issues.  With the economy in decent shape, Dukakis's economic fears, while prescient, were not enough.

In 1984, Reagan played up national security fears and economic fears (taxes).  Mondale failed to find an emotional core with which to attack Reagan and lost.

In 1980, Reagan used patriotic rhetoric and Iran to attack Carter as weak.  Sadly, Carter was weak on Iran, which is why it stuck.  Carter used scare tactics that Reagan would get us into a nuclear war.  Reagan disarmed this tactic at the debate and won.

My guess is that one can continue this analysis on a deeper level with polls to confirm if my memory is correct.  The point is that we Democrats need to find several emotional issues with which to attack the Republicans because we know that they will attack us.  My suggestions:

1. economic populism - with the lack of a rise in real wages and the growing problem of China holding so much of our debt, this should play well.  Class warfare is encouraged here even if we get attacked by the press.

2. peeping tom government - do you want the government to invade your private life.  Turn Schiavo around on them.  We democrats want to let you live you lives the way you want.  The Republicans want to control you.  Demonize the Rupthugs.

3. Army size - They want to spend $300 billion on F-22 F/A instead of the troops we need to secure Iraq and protect against Iran.  Hit them hard on the loose nukes.  The failure to inspect cargo holds and ports.  Point out that the chemical plants are not secure because the Republicans would rather cut taxes for millionaires than protect the people.  We should advocate increasing the size of the army by 500,000 troops.  Realistically, this won't happen, but if they try to raise the ante, we can accuse them of pandering.  When asked why we need the additional troops, we need to say because we need to be able to invade Iran if they refuse to give up their nuclear program.  Do not be afraid to say that we are willing to go to war.  Democrats have a national security gap because too many people believe that we are afraid to go to war.  There is some truth to the stereotype.  To overcome it, we need to not only say we are willing, but propose changes to the armed forces that show we are thinking about doing it.  We must be able to show that we are credibly thinking about war before voters will trust us.

I do not suggest going after cultural issues because they are losers for us. Our issues are just, but they do not inspire sufficient widespread passion in our favor.  Be firm in our views, but always turn the questions back to the three talking points above.  I believe this is the key to success in 2006 and 2008.