Voters just want to have fun
There might just be something to this.
Commenter “Bob from Virginia” writes:
Bernard Goldberg just pointed [out that] the normal conditions of “you fail you get fired” don’t apply to this President, because his appeal is emotional.
Which ties in quite nicely with this comment from “Bart” at PJ:
I’ve looked at this election from every angle I could, and taking into account the results of the last several elections, my conclusion is this: the race for President of the US is a high school level popularity contest. Issues do not matter. The state of the country does not matter. Nothing matters but with which candidate the average voter would prefer to spend a night out on the town.
Carter, a scolding Sunday school teacher versus Reagan, your favorite uncle.
Mondale, the old school smarmy apparatchik versus your favorite uncle.
Dukakis, an uptight, emotionless drone versus GHWB ”“ slight edge to GHWB.
Clinton, Elvis reborn, versus”¦ GHWB.
Clinton, ibid, versus angry old man Bob Dole.
Gore, your worst nightmare of a high school principal, versus aw shucks GWB.
Kerry, a self-absorbed fop versus the above.
Obama versus another angry old man. Obama versus a squeaky clean choir boy.
I know some will accuse me of being Master of the Obvious, but that has always been one of my humble gifts. Call it the Cyndi Lauper electorate ”“ they just want to have fun. Republicans need someone fun at the top of the ticket.
And note that, in the Cyndi Lauper song, it’s girls who especially want to have fun. Note also that, in the 2012 election, unmarried women and the under-30 crowd voted for Obama in droves. And so:
By the way, that’s Cyndi’s real mother in the video, but her father is played by professional wrestling manager “Captain” Lou Albano.
Yet another sign of the decline of America. The Presidential Election is just another popularity contest for the great masses who subsist on American Idol and similar fare. The wake-up call will be sudden and it will be hard.
Quick, tell Sissy about the Lauper GJWHF meme!
I prefer the “who do you think would win in a fistfight?”
Carter-Reagan: obviously Reagan
Reagan-Mondale: obviously Reagan
Bush-Dukakis: close, but after the tank riding fiasco, Bush
Clinton-Bush: clearly Clinton
Clinton-Dole: are you kidding me? Clinton.
Bush-Gore: though Gore won the popular vote, I think we all know Bush would win the fistfight. Thanks to the Electoral College, the pattern holds.
Bush-Kerry: obviously Bush
Obama-McCain: in his youth, McCain might have had a chance
Obama-Romney: I suspect Romney in a real fight might do better than expected, but the public Romney, rich guy who says “sport” instead of “sports” versus Obama, the basketball player? Obama.
Ah Ha! One of the best reasons I’ve heard to date to abstain from voting.
Agree somewhat.
Palin is fun, but I don’t think she could win. Rick Perry is fun, but he couldn’t win either.
Coolness is more of a straw that breaks the camel’s back, that marginal extra something that puts someone just over the top. It matters a lot, don’t get me wrong. But the ground rules of cool are basically one:
Don’t be a stodgy old rich white guy.
How does Christie stand up in terms of cool with Obama? Hard to say. How about Rubio, Jindal, or Martinez? Again, hard to say. Whoever wins will be labeled the cooler one, and the “flaws” along those lines will be magnified in the loser.
Basically, all we can take from this insight is don’t nominate a stodgy rich old white guy. But don’t nominate someone just because they seem cool, either. Which we knew already (even though we had no choice but to go for Romney or some other stodgy rich white man, or else easily “Palinizable” people like Cain and Perry – that wasn’t our fault; it was just who decided to run).
Or, how about a new acronym: SWORG (Stodgy White Old Rich Guy).
If cool rules, then no more SWORGs.
*Note that these are five separate qualities; so someone like Ryan may not be a SWORG. I.e., it doesn’t mean don’t nominate white guys, just no white guys who are also old, rich, and stodgy.
Interesting that you bring up the Bush-Clinton election considering the advice from the left and right to Republicans. Bush lost because about 17% of their base voted for Perot who was more conservative then Bush. Clinton won by the lowest vote in history (42% of the voters if I remember correctly). So what is the advice from the Rinos and the left to the Republicans? Become less conservative! I’m sure the advice from the left is a sincere effort to make the Republicans more viable in the next election. Bwahahaha!
GoneWithTheWind: I didn’t bring up that election. I posted a comment from a blog that brought up all the elections since Carter/Reagan.
But about that “more conservative” thing—I don’t think it’s a question of more conservative or less. I think it’s a question of personal appeal and the ability to articulate conservative beliefs in a way that doesn’t turn people off.
Also, only two really conservative candidates have been nominated for president in my lifetime. One was Reagan (who was not quite as conservative as some people think; I sometimes think that nowadays, some would call him a RINO if they were looking at his California record), and one was Goldwater. Goldwater got creamed, Reagan won twice. I think the difference had to do mostly with timing, as well as the personal characteristics of each man.
Doesn’t tell us much about whether a really conservative candidate could win today. I think he/she could, depending on personal characteristics and the aforementioned ability to articulate principles without turning people off.
A politician who ran with Reagan’s policies could easily win the general election. Reagan was far to the left of today’s conservative litmus tests.
misu,
Obama is a complete wuss, all bravado. In his youth, McCain would have wiped the floor with Obama, you don’t survive torture without guts and determination.
Obama’s a bully and in a fight, a man who knows he’s in the right and keeps coming will whip a bully every time.
It’s not the size of a dog that counts in a fight, it’s the amount of fight in the dog.
And Mitsu gets the “dumb ass” appearance award!” Hooray. Everybody sing and shout, jump and run about.
Geoffrey: I think you’re taking this a bit too seriously…
Mitsu, 1:41 pm —
That’s one of the newer memes, that Reagan couldn’t get nominated now because he’s too far left of the eeeeevil right-wing Republican extremist base.
Reagan said — and believed! — enough of the right [pun!] things in the right way, so the base knew he was ^authentic^. The base is not ^that^ stoopid; they know that honorable people can disagree on certain specifics, while measuring the whole person. And Reagan would’ve measured up just fine.
Now, Mr. or Ms. Mitsu, how would John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson or Hubert Humphrey fare in today’s Democrat Party?
Goldwater was probably the first campaign where they slandered the GOP candidate to win. And come to think of it, LBJ was another of those “hand out free stuff” candidates.
Reagan won because of his ability to deal with the media. I’m not sure he would have won otherwise. And he was also elected governor in California, something that is getting harder and harder for Repubs to pull off in that state. Don’t forget that Perot’s vote is higher than it would have been in a close election. They called it for Clinton before the polls closed on the West Coast, so a lot of us voted for Perot since our votes didn’t matter.
What concerns me most though, is that we seem to have a group of women voters that really validate all those reasons given for refusing to allow women to vote. They vote based on emotion. They will ignore “pocketbook economics” in favor of voting for the cool candidate. They seem to be far more interested in celebrity than in electing someone competent to deal with the issues. I don’t think we can break through this, without resorting to being just as negative as the Dems. (If it were me, I would start digging up dirt on Gloria Allred right now, for example. If there’s no dirt to be had, then there are failed cases and possibly her tax returns. Be ready for the next time she tries to eliminate Repub candidates.)
We are going to have to break through the media gridlock to make our case. To do that, we need much more media savvy people in the party than we seem to have now. And we need to stop shooting ourselves in the foot by treating Libertarians and Tea Partiers like the enemy. We should have been able to bring the Ron Paul supporters on board.
I say the way to go is Susana Martinez. From what I’ve seen of her, she’d have wide appeal — smart, savvy, tough, attractive, quick on her feet. What’s not to like?
MJR –
Alger Hiss would fit in just fine.
Don’t you love how the left has this mania to claim every single good thing that ever happened to be a product of their own ideology? Lincoln, Reagan, the Civil Rights Act (why has no one ever heard of Everett Dirksen?), etc. It never stops. Leftism becomes the wide tomb of the all.
That’s why the anointed ones are scary. They’re fanatics who talk like pragmatists, so cocksure of their own sanctity and clairvoyance that the entire cosmos, in their telling, turns into a fable of a kind of leftist theodicy.
Reagan good? Leftism. Life emerged on earth? Leftism. My toilet flushed this morning? Leftism.
And then they get sanctimonious about “litmus tests” and “epistemic closure,” sort of like Salafist Imams berating the West for its bigotry and narrowness.
Ted Cruz – Susana Martinez, 2024.
Or, maybe Repubs should run The Manolo. He is fun. http://shoeblogs.com/
Until fairly recently minorities and young people had low voter participation. That was a good thing for conservatives. The Dems figured ways to change that like motor voter, early voting, and get out the vote drives. Those people will vote heavily Democrat, and they what are called low information voters.
The culture has been drifting to an emotional world view from a rational or logical view.
The steep decline in the quality of education (K-12 and college) has made the average voter not very knowledgeable or logical.
I didn’t say “Reagan good”. I opposed him then and I wouldn’t vote for him now. I thought he was a lightweight, exploded the deficit, etc. But, in retrospect, I liked him a lot better than Bush Jr., though I thought Bush Sr. was actually not bad. And certainly I think he’s too left to be nominated today; he raised taxes to deal with the deficit! Crazy!
kolnai: There really are many possible political perspectives. It’s not just “left” vs “right”. I’m very progressive on social issues. I’m a pragmatist on economic issues. I think mildly progressive taxation is good for the economy. I am to the right in terms of market dynamics of most of my leftist friends. I think the market is dynamic, I prefer the American model to the European in terms of investment, risk-taking, etc. However, I see no problem with having safety nets, as long as they’re limited. I think welfare reform was, on balance, a good thing (such views are anathema to most on the left)… properly implemented, welfare reform has helped people move from welfare to work. Poorly implemented and it hasn’t worked well.
It’s not just one or the other rigid “camp”.
They seem to be far more interested in celebrity than in electing someone competent to deal with the issues.
That (witness the celebrity gossip mags at supermarket checkout lines; supermarkets and magazine publishers know their demographic) and susceptibility to social pressure. Bucking the herd seems particularly difficult for women, perhaps (my conjecture) because in the evolutionary context womens’ survival depended critically on social support. Smaller, slower, weaker, and in the state of nature primarily occupied for most of their lives with various aspects of parturition, ostracism was a death sentence. This also accounts for womens’ greater social skills and orientation toward establishing and maintaining social contacts (from Christmas cards through cell phone usage to obsession with popularity).
The problem is that this tendency to run with the herd makes them easy to manipulate. Control the opinion formers, the ones who decide who is in and who is out, whose yearbook gets signed and whose doesn’t, and one can control virtually the whole crew.
Closely related is the predilection toward empathy, which (another outrageous conjecture coming up) is probably a public way of signaling fitness for motherhood. A woman who, in response to the poor or the unfortunate says “eff ’em” (even if that is an entirely appropriate response) raises questions about what kind of mom she’d be.
Last, for women choice of a leader (who, of course, is ultimately responsible for everyone’s safety) often becomes convolved with sex, through the leader ~ mate ~ protector axis. (Most nauseatingly evinced in Judith Warner’s emetic screed of her dreams about Obama. Shudder.)
These bases for decision-making – social conformity, predilection toward empathy, and susceptibility to relative sexual appeal – make for some truly appalling decisions. Interestingly, and consistent with the conjectures above, these problems are apparently most pronounced among single women, married women being evidently somewhat less prone to them.
The only way forward I can see (short of repealing the 19th Amendment, which ain’t gonna happen) is 1) for male candidates, select sexually attractive specimens, 2) to drive a wedge between nebulous free-floating empathy for society’s ne’er-do-wells and womens’ concern for their own children, making the calculation a zero-sum game, and 3) to have our own bell cows out in front and thereby to use the herd instinct to our advantage. How to implement these latter two notions, I have no idea.
The steep decline in the quality of education (K-12 and college) has made the average voter not very knowledgeable or logical.
Television is a big problem here.
I just flew back from Florida, and every seat back had its video screen. Half the passengers paid extra to watch American Idol or other mindless drivel.
Fortunately, aircraft cabins lack sufficient space in which to suspend a tire, or a lot of passengers would have amused themselves with that.
And these people vote.
Mitsu –
To quote one of my favorite neoneocon commenters,
“I think you’re taking this a bit too seriously.”
I was deliberately pushing your buttons, champ. Fish in a barrel, as they say.
Thanks for the spiel though. I’ll file it away in my rhetorical drawer for the next time a leftist accuses me of being in a “camp.”
Occam’s Beard: I sometimes watch American Idol and other mindless drivel. Mindless drivel can be fun, and a nice escape for a while. And I think an airplane is the perfect time to occupy oneself with mindless drivel as an entertaining distraction.
So don’t be too hard on those voters—at least, don’t be too hard on half of them.
“How does Christie stand up in terms of cool with Obama? “
Have you heard the media praising him? What reason has anyone to think that he would fare any better than McCain who was first wooed by the Democrat Party house press and then left comically standing at the altar.
Once he became a serious contender, Christie would be labeled fat, emotional, and insensitive.
Republicans, some of them, think he’s cool because he’s a straight talker. What does straight talk mean to the Obama-naught who cannot even reason?
No Republican can compete in a vote contest with a leftist who is always willing to up the ante on the road to the human termite heap.
Republicans can only submit or prepare mentally to resist over the long haul. And they can do the latter successufully only with the support of sufficient numbers of people who actually do value self governance and liberty, more than free ice cream and contraceptives.
Since they are now merely feeding, rather than indoctrinating, the class of persons who have targeted their productive energies for appropriation, they will have to look elsewhere for sympathy for themselves and support for their project of preserving political and economic liberty and the prospect of a human life actually worth living.
Unfortunately for Republicans, as money can always be voted away from you leaving you without that leverage, resisting or building-up would mean raising up an inconvenient number of kids, while educating them to some of the hard truths about some the people they were growing up with. Perhaps some of those in their very own families.
Most folks would probably prefer the “slow slide” as a less painful, or at least exhausting prospect; contenting themselves with an occasional emotionally satisfying expression of indignation.
The alternative is too much like war, or real life, or something …
I sometimes watch American Idol and other mindless drivel. Mindless drivel can be fun, and a nice escape for a while. And I think an airplane is the perfect time to occupy oneself with mindless drivel as an entertaining distraction.
OK, neo, fair enough!
On the bright side it is important to note that Republicans have done very well in governorships and state legislatures. It is there that budgets must be balanced and taxes must be paid. The voter will have to pay for expenditures. Even the poor can be hit by sales taxes and tuition increases. Regardless of size each state gets a governor and a legislature. That worldview affects senate races and House elections. Control of the House and Senate is very doable if good candidates are chosen (so far not so good).
The president is seen as more distant and as a rock star or homecoming king by idiot voters.
Before our women were subduced with a voice of power from hell, there was this man who loved them and gave all before he fell.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf0vJiyeLIo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=c7LP1CkosjE&NR=1
Was he saying it as an elegy or as an eulogy?
Mitsu, 3:18 pm wrote, “[Reagan] raised taxes to deal with the deficit! Crazy!”
(The “Crazy” is tongue-in-cheek. See original for context.)
Correct me if I’m wrong — I have total faith in neo and our readers re a correction — but . . .
Wasn’t it Reagan who agreed with Tip O’Neill to raise taxes in a ratio of $1 in tax increases for every $2 (or $3) in spending cuts? (Or was it Bush 41 when he agreed to raise taxes?)
The tax increases (both) sailed through . . . and I’m still looking for the spending cuts. (Both installments of ’em.)
IMPORTANT — This is why I and many like me were once “reasonable” and were willing to compromise to dig us out of our hole, but are no longer willing (or that gullible).
THIS IS HOW THE 21ST CENTURY T.E.A. PARTY STARTED, not historically, but emblematically. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
I personally have no solution. I don’t trust those [plural noun] any further than I can spit them. How in blazes can we negotiate a deal with these [plural noun]?? John Boehner tried, and reported back that negotiating with the incumbent and his ilk was like trying to pin jello to a wall. (And that was ^before^ any deal got broken by the spenders.)
End of rant — for now . . .
‘Reagan’s big spending’ was Tip O’Neil’s big spending.
There was no way that Reagan could get anything through the House without pandering to Tip’s spending impulses.
The FIRST attempt in decades to rein in the Federal budget occurred after 1994’s election — which put the House in Republican control for the first time in decades.
That’s the fiscal equation.
Presidents, per se, don’t set spending levels. The HOUSE does. No matter what a president may submit in his budget proposal — it gets rewritten, massively, by the House.
Getting the House to trim the budget on any particular line item is virtually impossible. The concentrated interests of the few overrule the dilute interests of the many.
Kinda long but a very good read (ATTN: neo?) —
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-way-forward/
The Way Forward
John Podhoretz
Commentary
December 2012
A variation (IMO) of the ‘The US is not a serious country anymore’ point people were talking about awhile back. Which I agree with… we’re not. We can just vote for universal healthcare and not pay attention to unfunded entitlements… blaw blaw blaw… whatever.
What was the old Russian line (attributed to many). “You may not be interested in History, but it is interested in YOU”
I think Bob in Virginia’s comment that you referenced is the answer. This election and the last election were not normal. I can’t explain it, but the emotional connection people have with Obama is weirdly deep. It’s that whole empty screen on which people project their whatever thing again. That doesn’t account for everyone who voted for him, but it definitely accounts for a number of my friends who I would classify as decent, non-leftists. They just can’t see any of the negatives that so many of us saw from the very beginning. And they’re not dumb, but something about this guy has the wool very much pulled over their eyes. I can’t explain it, I just see it happening.
Yeah, I’ve really got to wonder about the wisdom of the 19th Amendment. Frankly, it looks pretty doubtful right about now.
I saw an awful lot of “Squeeee!” type comments about Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, too.
Perhaps only married women should be allowed to vote.
M J R Says:
“Correct me if I’m wrong – I have total faith in neo and our readers re a correction – but . .”
You are correct. It been remarked many times in response this [lame] argument that yeah; you fooled Reagan that one time so if he were around today he would be with us in opposing another tax raise / ‘spending cut’ deal.
And they’re not dumb
Sure they are. Intelligence isn’t a scalar, it’s a tensor. It’s perfectly possible – indeed, commonplace – for people to be intelligent in some respects and stupid in others.
MJR, said, “The tax increases (both) sailed through . . . and I’m still looking for the spending cuts.”
That’s been the history since as long as I’ve been paying attention. (1966 or so.) The tax increases are done with a promise to cut spending by a certain amount. The cuts never come. That’s why I am opposed to tax increases of any kind on anyone. History shows that the spendaholics just spend any new tax revenue. It’s like giving a drunk some money for food. It never goes for food, always for the booze.
Cut spending (real cuts, not reductions in the planned increases.) and then reduce regulations (particularly the ridiculous EPA regs) to crank up the economy, which will provide the needed new revenue.
There is no solution except voting in people who are really, and I mean really, fiscal conservatives. With the new “demographics,” how is that going to happen? I see national bankruptcy in our future. The only question seems to be, “When?”
A quick Google found this, an interview with Joseph Cummins:
“I would have to say that 1964 was the ugliest presidential contest I have researched. President Lyndon Johnson, seeking his first elective term after taking over for the assassinated JFK, set out not just to defeat Goldwater, but to destroy him and create a huge mandate for himself.
“Not that destroying Goldwater, who believed that field commanders should be given tactical nuclear weapons, was all that difficult. [Dem. bias “tell” — Bev.] But Johnson’s dirty tricks were at least as bad as those of Nixon’s Watergate bagmen eight years later.
“He created a top secret after-hours group known as the “anti-campaign” and “the five o’clock club.” These sixteen political operatives, in close contact with the White House, set out to influence the perception of Goldwater in America’s popular culture.
“They put out a Goldwater joke book entitled ‘You Can Die Laughing.’ They even created a children’s coloring book, in which your little one could happily color pictures of Goldwater dressed in the robes of the Ku Klux Klan.
“This committee also wrote letters to columnist Ann Landers purporting to be from ordinary citizens terrified of the prospect of a Goldwater presidency.
“And they sent CIA agent E. Howard Hunt to infiltrate Goldwater campaign headquarters, posing as a volunteer, where he gained access to advance copies of Goldwater speeches and fed them to the White House, causing Goldwater to complain that whenever he put forth an initiative, the White House immediately trumped it.
“But perhaps the ugliest thing about the 1964 election was Johnson’s treatment of the press. [Second Dem. “tell” — Bev.] He remarked to an aide that “reporters are puppets,” and had his people feed them misleading information about the Goldwater campaign.
“One White House aide wrote a secret memo saying, “It might be healthy to get some respected columnist to give wider circulation to adverse Goldwater impact on the stock market.” A well-known financial columnist was then influenced into writing two columns on that very topic.”
(The rest of the article makes it clear that Cummins is Dem-sympathetic, BTW.)
I’ve read part of Robert Dallek’s biography of LBJ: he was one of the dirtiest, most ruthless politicians who ever got into the White House.
“[Obama] the basketball player”
Good thing you didn’t say baseball. TLAG (sorry, neo).
“I prefer the “who do you think would win in a fistfight?””
Oooooh, those lefties are tough!
“Clinton-Dole: are you kidding me? Clinton.”
Are you kidding me – a war hero against a fat draft dodger? Even if he was 30 years older.
Occam’s,
I have a slightly different twist on empathy. If you can really walk in another’s shoes and understand how he (or she) ticks, you can perhaps better figure out what kind of approach to take to convince him of your arguments. I don’t think empathy has to mean handing out free passes, although many people think it does. The word understanding has the same double meaning.
BTW, I don’t think Obama has empathy. I think he has taught himself how to appear empathetic to others.
“I’ve read part of Robert Dallek’s biography of LBJ: he was one of the dirtiest, most ruthless politicians who ever got into the White House.”
Yup…good ole Landslide Lyndon…who stole his first Senate election by less than 100 votes after lotsa dead people in South Texas voted for him.
I’m always embarrassed that he was a Texan.
Mitsu
Please document your claim.
Gringo Says:
“”Reagan was far to the left of today’s conservative litmus tests.”
Please document your claim”
Personally; I find the error on the litmus test side. You have to work pretty hard to get thrown out the conservative camp. Its really just more projection IMO. Its easy to get thrown out of lib and lefty groups for thought crime.
A few observations.
1) Xenophon around 400 BC noted states do not act rationally.
2) Above all voting for Obama was fashionable. Recall the Eric Hoffer’s quote”when people are free to do as they want they usually imitate each other”.
3) Occam, you made two great points that will never be seen on TV or in the papers because of their political incorrectness, at least that is why I was afraid to write about them here until you did. The first that single women voters have found a new protector and provider in the government, effectively taking over the role of a husband. The independent women is really an evolution denying myth. It is hardly surprising that married women went for Romney. It wasn’t only that they had an edge on maturity but they already had a provider/protector.
3) Intelligence is lopsided, as is utter stupidity.
So here’s the question and a prediction. At what point will the superficial become less important than the vital? Soon the economy going to go into a tailspin, or supposed to anyway. When will all those who see Obama as cool and a protector start to see to see as the problem, so much as the problem that they reluctantly turn on him? My guess is never. Single women will always vote for a protector so they will support the Obami until a more protective figure comes along. As for the rest, my guess is not until a new generation of voters comes along who will have different emotional, rather than rational, reasons to reject Obamaism.
As for the rational voter, aka Neo Neocon reader, as Marcus Aurelius wrote “the important thing in life is not being part of the majority but to avoid be ranked among the insane”.