----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave Land" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, May 15, 2005 11:16 PM Subject: Re: The American Political Landscape Today
> > On May 15, 2005, at 9:07 AM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: > > > At 10:59 AM Sunday 5/15/2005, Nick Arnett wrote: > > > >> How does one go about persuading people to vote for candidates with > >> whom > >> they fundamentally disagree? Politics is quite mysterious. > > > > > > Perhaps it's because so often when people get to the polls they hold > > their noses and vote for the least objectionable of the available > > choices or the one they think is likely to either do the most for them > > personally or at least to do the least to harm them? > > This does not appear to be the case. People often vote *against* their > self-interest. This conundrum appears to be resolved by the > understanding that people vote their identities, not their interests. > The Republican party did a superior job in the past election of > appealing to the middle in this way. > Isn't there a simpler explanation? Conservative Democrats are people who are traditional Democrats, based on families, etc., but are actually conservative. Thus, they identify themselves as Democrats but often do vote Republican based on their views of the issues. The old "yellow dog Democrats" in Texas, for example, were often very conservative. With all due respect, this type of analysis, when not cross checked by other techniques, can yield the results that are desired, instead of the results that are accurate. I think Gautam has overstated the present conservative numbers, but conservatives do appear to outnumber liberals by about 2 to 1. IMHO, staring at what empirical information that is available and trying hard to fit it with rough models is one of the best ways to get beyond ideology. Indeed, one could even do this to determine who has been able to find common ground across the political spectrum most and find out what techniques were used. I fear, though, that getting around ideology is a liberal coping mechanism for denying the fact that liberals need to retool and rethink their ideas in light of the last 40 years of experience. Dan M. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
