Letters to the Editor
Retired Military Patriot
Published Letters: 2275 Editor's Choice: 11
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Dems problem is appealing to the rational part of the mind
[Read the article: Barack Obama's Republican edge]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A David Brooks book review in a New York Times Sunday Book Review of THE POLITICAL BRAIN: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation by Drew Westen, professor of psychology at Emory University may provide the answer as to why Democrats lose national elections. The professor says the Dems primary problem is they appeal too much to the rational part of the brain.
Brooks writes:
He (Westen) then goes on to assert that Democrats have been losing because they have been appealing to the rational part of the mind. They issue laundry lists of policies and offer arguments with evidence. They don’t realize how the images they are presenting set off emotional cues that undermine their own campaigns.
For example, the right side of John Edwards’s mouth tends to curl up. “Humans innately dislike facial asymmetries,” Westen observes, “and this should have caught the eye of his advisers.” In Connecticut, Ned Lamont ran a commercial showing Joe Lieberman morphing into George Bush, but in the ad Lieberman was smiling. “Smiling faces innately activate parts of the brain (and facial mimicry on the part of the observer) that reinforce happiness, not distaste.”
Republicans, Westen continues, are brilliant at using words and images that set off emotional cascades. Ronald Reagan used the word “confiscation” in reference to taxation, and was able to persuade people to agree to lower taxes. He called Nicaraguan contras “freedom fighters” and was able to secure them funding.
Westen urges Democratic candidates to go for the gut, and includes a number of speeches that he wishes Democratic candidates had given. He wishes, for example, Al Gore had hit George Bush harder for being a drunk. He wishes Gore had interrupted a presidential debate and barked at Bush, “If someone is going to restore dignity to the Oval Office, it isn’t a man who drank his way through three decades of his life and got investigated by his father’s own Securities and Exchange Commission for swindling people out of their retirement savings.”
At another point, he imagines Gore exploding: “Why don’t you tell us how many times you got behind the wheel of a car with a few drinks under your belt, endangering your neighbors’ kids? Where I come from, we call that a drunk.” If Democrats would go for people’s primitive passions in this way, Westen argues, they’d win elections.
Brooks goes on to debunk the theory. I think Westin has a point and that’s why I think Obama has the best chance to appeal to the emotional part of voters’ brains in a sane, positive way, not in a base, mean way like the Repugs do. Because of the divisive, dirty politics the Repugs have used to bombard brains into submission, I believe that the majority of voters are looking for AUTHENTICITY in the upcoming elections when judging a candidate and not rhetoric or base political ads like the one used against Harold Ford. I heard on MSNBC that Rudy Giuliani just hired the ad firm that created that ad. I haven’t seen any authenticity in any Repug candidate, except for Ron Paul.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/books/review/Brooks-t.html?8bu&emc=bu
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@doc5467
[Read the article: Barack Obama's Republican edge]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"There is no Democrat running who would not be preferable to any Republican running and that's not pessimism or cynicism; it's just being "honest."
OK doc, you have a diagnosis, so what’s the plan for a cure? How do we alleviate or at least lessen the disease? I’m sick of being in the operating room of the sick Repugs. Refusing to enter the room because you can’t find a doc you like and thus making it harder for a Dem to get elected, could increase the epidemic, not lessen it.