Newsweek has an interesting article up about how Republicans approach election, and how Democrats do. According to Drew Westen of Emory University - author of The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation - Republicans know how to win elections: you got to appeal to the emotions of the voters. Voters, according to Drew, do not base their votes on rationality, but on emotional consideratiions. People vote, one could say, with their hearts, not with their brains.
The author, therefore, appeals on Democrats to stop being so damned rational. Democrats have to attack Republicans, Democrats have to play on people’s emotions. According to the author, Republicans have already mastered this “dark art,” now it’s time for the Democrats to learn from their political enemies.
Hot Air and Ann Althouse are not exactly happy with the article at Newsweek, let alone with Drew’s book. Same goes for Jason Steck. Seemingly, they feel attacked.
I do not. I am a conservative and I do not believe that the authors mean to say that conservatism is ‘emotional’ and ‘irrational.’ What they are saying is that Republicans use emotions to get people to vote for them. That is an entirely different matter altogether. And, in this respect, I most definitely agree with the author of the book and with the author of the Newsweek article. Republicans are much better in appealing at the emotions of the voters. Campaigning is an art, Republicans have mastered it. From a strategic perspective, the Democrats have made one major mistake in the past: they always tried to explain everything, they always tried to send not one, but ten messages at a time. Instead, they should focus on one main issue, and do so emotionally.
For those interested, I greatly encourage you to watch State of the Nation, a fascinating DVD about the Kerry - Bush elections / campaigns. It really exposes where the Kerry campaign failed.
That’s an interesting take on it and I think you may be right, though it seems that those authors put a much more negative slant on it. What you seem to be saying is that politicians do emotionalize their arguments out of necessity because that’s what people respond to, and that the GOP has done this more effectively than the Dems. What the authors cited seem to be saying is that the GOP uses emotional campaigning because their policies won’t hold up to logical rational dissection.
That’s the source of offense; also, it’s ironic for conservatives to hear someone state this because generally we consider that on the policies and philosophies themselves, the conservative ones are the less emotionally based ones (we feel often that the liberal policies are based on making people feel that the government CARES, rather than logically assessing whether or not the policies will accomplish the stated goals.)
“I am a conservative and I do not believe that the authors mean to say that conservatism is ‘emotional’ and ‘irrational.’ ”
Conservative != Republican.
“Seemingly, they feel attacked.”
Did you read my post, Michael? I don’t feel attacked. I’m not a conservative or a Republican. I attacked Newsweek for pandering. Everyone knows political appeals need to be emotional, and both parties try to do what they can. If one party has done it better than the other, that’s a different matter. But the notion that the Democrats have stayed rational and not stooped to emotional appeals is just ridiculous. The only thing I felt attacked by was Newsweek implying that I’m stupid enough to swallow that.
“Did you read my post, Michael? I don’t feel attacked. I’m not a conservative or a Republican.”
Ha. Thanks for the giggles, Ann.
It’s possible to get people to be emotional about being rational. I have met very few people that have zero intellectual curiosity. Most of them just think a) they aren’t smart enough to figure it out b) they won’t be told the truth/have access to the information and/or c) that it’s not relevant to their every day lives.
Emotional appeals should be made sure, but they should be made to have people become more proactive. Most of the appeals by both sides are just wrong and easily proven so. Many of the issues (say outsourcing) have different local and global effects, where the global benefit outweighs the local loss (if done “properly”). Getting people to focus on nuances and having them start suggesting how to mitigate the local effects (gee what a concept, asking the people that live there if they have any ideas) is something we’re entirely missing.
Ann,
Yep, I read your post and that’s the impression I got. I know you’re not conservative as such, but you’re not liberal either. That means that, following your interpretation (which might well be accurate btw, I simply have a different interpretation which are, in my opinion, both valid), you’re irrational and overly emotional as well (only liberals are ‘rational’ theme).
I agree with that.
That’s a good point you raise, and although I do agree that democrats appeal to people’s emotions as well, they don’t do that as much as the Republicans do and when they try to do it, they do a miserable job.
Of course Republicans are irrational! If they weren’t, they’d be Democrats!
The more I think about it, I don’t even agree with the premise that the GOP has been better at the emotional tugs except lately. The Dems certainly did a good enough job of it when they dominated Congress for years prior to the 90s. They appealed to emotion on issues of poverty and race, and they invented the fearmongering on foreign policy with the daisy ad against Goldwater. They’ve even tried to use that approach again by saying that Bush’s policies have made us less safe rather than more safe.
Recently, their attempts haven’t been as successful but I think that has to do more with whether or not people are responding to the particular emotional pleas which correspond to each party’s positions on the major issues of the day.
I agree and then disagree with you Christine. I agree with the first couple of paragraphs, but I disagree with this:
Again, you should really watch State of the Nation, it’s an incredibly interesting documentary. If there’s one thing clear, it’s that the Democrats did not sell their goods well. They try to sell 10 messages per ad, for instance, it doesn’t work like that. One message. Repeat it constantly. They didn’t appeal to emotions well enough.
Wow. What a dumb article. I’m using the term “dumb” here in all of its philosophic specificity.
I mean c’mon, no one at Emory reads Machiavelli anymore??
Were either of my grandfathers Enlgish aristocrats instead of Midwestern working stiffs, I’m sure they would have said “Poppycock!”
What was the “Camelot” days of JFK if not emotionalism of the cheapest sort? For that matter what was “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” is not a martial play on emotions?
All you need to do is read Edmund Morgan’s “Inventing The People” to see that our earliest politicians knew how the voters operated. It is amazing that it took until 2007 for someone in academia to “rediscover” it.
Yes, I can see your point about the messaging. I guess I feel it was an additive problem though; they were playing defense since the GOP had already branded itself as the party that is tougher on terrorism, and then their efforts to craft an opposing (but also emotional) message were pretty lame.
Mind you, I’m not condoning any of it, just calling it like I see it.
Um, #11 was in response to #10 but Rich cross posted. I agree with Rich’s #10 and it reinforces my point that the Dems have only been lousy at emotional messaging lately, not historically.
Ugh…meant to say, #11 was in response to #9.
If Democrats have a problem, it’s not a failure to appeal to the emotions. Have you attended a political rally or meeting in Chicago lately? Those are Democrats revving up the crowd and they’re not doing it with an appeal to reason.
As I noted in my own post on this subject, we have been trained since babyhood to give our emotions free rein and put reason into the back seat. Politicians and marketers of all stripes recognize this and cultivate it.
I think the idea of this book/article is not “look what we’ve discovered. Emotion works in politics!”
No, its real point is to persuade us that:
a) All Republican victories of recent times have been due to their better manipulation of cheap emotional appeals, and the Democrats’ “too-good”-ness to follow the GOP into this gutter.
b) In future elections, Democrats will start to imitate the GOP’s cheap emotional appeals and will go into the gutter when necessary, and if anybody has a problem with it, remember, the Republicans started it, and Democrats only took it up when they were left with no choice to remain competitive.
c) However, despite the gutter attacks to be expected from Democrats, it’s okay because Democrats stand for rationality, while Republicans have cheap emotional appeals and nothing else.
I think it’s those themes that insult readers’ intelligence. I’m surprised that, as a moderate site, you aren’t more sensitive to this kind of sophistry. As someone else implied in a comment before mine, all politics involves a mix of appeals to emotion and appeals to reason — and always has, since pre-history.
Republicans didn’t invent dirty politics, and Democrats hardly have clean hands. The fact that this writer pretends there is this clear moral divide between the two parties makes him a disingenous partisan with a low opinion of his readers, not someone who should be taken seriously.
Actually that’s So Goes The Nation. with the 04 election movie title.
Really stellar stuff.
Actually we’re hard wired that way. When emotions are triggered, it’s very hard for the cognitive part of our brains to override them. Joseph LeDoux is a neuroscientist who studied this; his book The Emotional Brain is a pretty good read.
Is that what the book says? Or does it say that, in the absence of training to allow reason to rule, that the emotions tend to dominate?
Note that what I’m disputing is hard wiring vs. programming. I don’t believe that we’re hardwired as you suggest (if so, it would be impossible for reason to dominate under any circumstances and that clearly isn’t the case) and I’m skeptical that a study could be constructed that would disprove the proposition. If it’s not disprovable it’s not science.
I probably overstated it in my oversimplification of it. The thesis is more like what you’ve stated:
And really his research wasn’t on all emotions, but specifically on fear. It has to do with the pathway from afferent stimuli reaching the brain and routing through the amygdala; once the fear pathway is initiated it is difficult to extinguish it (and for some people, the wiring makes it exceptionally difficult, which is his thesis for a basis for anxiety disorders).
An example would be seeing a snake and having a visceral fear reaction almost before you are cognitively aware that you saw anything at all; and then your brain processes the visual image further and realizes it’s really only a stick. You understand that at the cognitive level but the primitive part of your brain has already set off the physiological reactions of fear so your heart continues to race for a few moments.
In other words, it does take a conscious effort to override the fear and to some extent, the imprint of it is still there even when you “know better”. So I’m not suggesting that the hardwiring means that we can’t be trained, as you say, to override the emotional brain. From the way you initially stated it though, I inferred that you meant that the dominant emotional reaction itself had been trained into us, when really it would be more a matter of lack of training on how to allow our cognitive brains to dominate.
Voters Only Care About Guiliani, Clinton and Obama
Leading Emotional Response Polling Used to Predict Candidate Viability
GAINESVILLE, FL — October 2, 2007 — More voters feel that former New York City Mayor Rudolph Guiliani is the “hottest” presidential candidate, according to a new type of non-verbal poll conducted by the leading company for predicting consumer behavior based on “Emotional Temperature.” Only Guiliani, Sen. Hilary Clinton and Sen. Barak Obama arouse enough visceral excitement in voters to sustain them through the long primary process, concludes the SenseUS™ poll conducted by AdSAM® and Itracks, conducted September 15-21, 2007.
“Our poll correctly shows how intensely voters feel about each candidate, both positively and negatively,” said Jon Morris, PhD, president of AdSAM® and professor of advertising at the University of Florida. “Guiliani leads all candidates in terms of Emotional Strength, which is most important now to the GOP as only 31% of Republican voters are enthusiastic or excited about their party”
Proven Method for Disproving Conventional Wisdom
The viability of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is called into question by the poll. Although he performs strongly in many traditional preference polls, 56% of Republicans feel “ambivalent” or “uninterested/unexcited” about him.
“To sustain a long campaign, a candidate must inspire strong feelings in voters,” Morris said. “In addition to Guiliani, Obama and Clinton, the only other candidates to register positive Emotional Temperature were Sen. John McCain and former senators Fred Thompson and John Edwards.”
The SenseUs™ candidate poll used the same AdSAM® methodology the company employed in 2006 to prove that ads that use sexy models in national women’s magazines are not compelling or effective at motivating female readers to buy. To measure the Emotional Response the participants were asked “How does (name of each candidate)make you feel? . The participants were then shown three rows of manikins – an icon-like figure - that represented their emotional reaction. Then they were asked to select one on each row. The first group of manikins represented pleasure, the second arousal or engagement, and the third control or dominance.
What Most Polls Miss
According to Dr. Morris, most polls focus heavily on rationale measures, which only reveal half the story, as every human response is a combination of rational and emotional processing. Previously, the AdSAM® method has been used in over 600 proprietary studies worldwide and incorporated into research of many FORTUNE 500 companies.
About AdSAM®:
AdSAM® specializes in Emotional Response measurement. The cross cultural technique has been used in over 26 countries in communications, marketing and other research.
About Itracks:
Itracks is a leading provider of data collection for market research. Information on the company and industry trend summaries are at http://www.itracks.com and http://www.itracksnews.com.
Media Contact:
For a copy of the Executive Summary of the SenseUs poll please contact Conrad Morris at (800) 563-8654 or email conradmorris@adsam.com