> > On Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:05:40 -0500
> > Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> Why
> should likability matter? We're not drinking beer with them, we're
> giving them state power.
It matters if there's not much else to go on -- if there's no real reason to believe that one party is more likely to do anything meaningful for you than the other. Which seems like a pretty well-founded belief; much evidence was served up in recent memory after the '06 midterms, with a big steaming second course of ordure in the last year, B. Obama consule.
Combine that with a general -- and also well-founded -- "throw the bums out" mentality, which is not such a bad heuristic if you accept the limited range of options your civics teachers taught you, as most people unfortunately still do, and the Mass voters' behavior seems quite understandable.
Incidentally, it isn't just rednecks and Massholes who vote for likability. It's also one of the reasons liberals keep voting for Democrats who never do anything to advance the liberals' pet causes. People of every class vote for candidates who they think are what an aunt of mine called PLU -- People Like Us.
This fact explains a lot of the self-deception that fueled Obamania. In all fairness to Obie, he made it quite plain early on that he wasn't really for many -- any? -- of the things that his rah-rah Mouseketeers wanted.
--
Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com