DISQUS

I just posted this comment at Taylor Marsh's Website. I just posted this comment at Taylor Marsh's Website in response to a few idiots. Looks like I hit on something:

It is interesting (also sad at times) to see the emotional commitment exhibited by the "Drive by Obamamaniacs." Pay attention, for a second, to the composition of Obama's electoral constituency. What emerges is a group of followers attracted to his (false) "hope mongering" to quote the Obama man himself. Now, a lot of these voters are well-educated, "party elitists" and college students, etc. These people are unlikely to be affected by the growing income disparity, the subprime lending situation, family in Iraq, and/ or a host of other issues related to the troubled times. (Interestingly, the opposite is exactly true of Clinton's supporters.) In other words, Obama's voters are low-involvement voters in this primary election.

The social psychologist Dr. Richard Petty (no not the NASCAR driver) of Ohio State University has conducted quite a bit of research throughout his distinguished career on just this topic. What he has shown is that low-involvement consumers (voters) are unlikely to be persuaded by strong arguments, the kind being advanced by Dr. Paul Krugman. Now, if you read Dr. Krugman's posts on the top Democratic contenders' healthcare plans, you will also notice that there is in no way an endorsement of Hillary Clinton. He is equally rosy toward Edward's plan. Dr. Jonathan Gruber of M.I.T. makes similar points (campaign Obama misquotes him too incidentally) in a separate post. Drs. Krugman and Gruber layout the economic theory, use analogies to explain said theory, and back up their claims with facts. In other words, Drs. Krugman and Gruber present strong arguments. As demonstrated by Taylor's posters with a bent towards Barack, these types of arguments are not working. What would have worked much better would have been for Dr. Krugman to say something like, "I'm a past winner of one of the most distinguished prizes in economics (the John Bates Clark Medal - and he is), so you should be listening to me on economic issues and not some wet-behind-the-ears Jr. Senator)." Obviously, he doesn't do that. Why would he? He is not invested in a particular campaign. He's just giving expert opinion.

Let's touch on Oprah in light of her campaign appearances and Petty's theory. Sad to say, Oprah will probably be effective for Obama. As Petty's research shows, low-involvement and uncommitted voters are probably going to be persuaded by endorsers (see Petty et al. 1983 - Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 10, #2). I think team Clinton knows this and I think that they will try to blunt this by stressing the experience thing even more. Candidate Clinton has been saying this over and over to uncommitted voters. Essentially, she is trying to counter Obama's weak argument of "hope" with a weak argument of "experience." That message could actually work under different circumstances and I think it will work against Obama if he is the Democratic nominee. This is exactly the reason that Obama is unelectable. Dick Morris, and I hate to agree with him, sums it up best: "Democrats are going to be reluctant to nominate someone . . . who has been senator for 104 weeks before running for president."  Why Hillary's weak message of strength fails to blunt Obama's weak message of hope has nothing to do with some proverbial threshold of experience that the MSM has been pedaling. Experience as a weak message only works if you can stimulate anxiety (e.g., via a war). This is why Obama will lose in a general election because the Republicans will find a way to make the electorate anxious. And, this is less likely to work against Hillary (and Republicans know it).

The theoretical reason that people choose experience over change when anxious has to do with risk-aversion. People are risk-averse (i.e., choose experience) when they think some sort of loss looms large. Americans felt this during the 2004 election because we were at war. This finding has been consistently demonstrated elsewhere by Dr. Daniel Kahneman (Dr. Krugman's Princeton colleague) and won him the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics. Unfortunately, low-involvement Democratic voters aren't feeling anxious. Under this current risk-less/ low anxiety scenario, someone saying "hope" all the time and trotting out Oprah Winfrey fits will look attractive (and I think the Obama people know this).

Since Taylor Marsh is a Hillary Clinton supporter, I will close this post by expressing how I think Hillary can successfully combat what is going on politically:

In order to combat the upswing in Obama support, Clinton should remind people that there are a lot of bad things happening in our country right now. There are and people should be aware of this. Now, Democrats can try to deceive themselves all they want on this, but the Middle East situation is still a disaster. Iran may not be actively pursuing building the superficial aspects of nuclear weapons, but they are still pursuing nuclear enrichment. You Democrats that have a hard time hearing that, ask yourselves why does Iran feel that they need nuclear energy when they are sitting on oodles of oil? This and other facts that people should know will make people feel anxious. The issue of Obama's corporate-Democract leanings that dblhelix raises is another example of an anxiety-provoking truth. At the same time, Hillary should continue to stress change versus experience. As a result, these anxious low-involvement voters will be attracted to her candidacy.

The other way Hillary can play this is to turn low-involvement voters in to high-involvement voters. She can do this by bringing experts to Iowa that can explain the issues to voters. Hillary has taken positions favored by a lot of Americans. She is on the right side of the immigration debate, social security, and national healthcare. Why not invite Iowans to information sessions where Clinton surrogates can explain the issues to them? In fact, I would argue that she should invite Iowans regardless of party affiliation or preferred candidate. If voters are focused more on the issues, a point made by former President Clinton, Hillary wins. This is the strong argument pathway of persuasion.