I’ve just finished a fantastic book by Drew Westen, called ‘The Political Brain’. Westen is a qualified psychologist, who draws from his clinical experience to give advice to people (particularly Democrats) engaged in political campaigns. His analysis is based on the way the human brain works and how it processes information – using neurological ‘networks’ to help process information. The brain is more likely to be stimulated by an appeal to human emotion than an appeal to detail. Therefore, argues Westen, political campaigns should focus more on what is emotionally important to voters, rather than simply rolling out shopping lists of issues.
He uses the Kerry, Gore, Dukakis and Mondale Presidential runs as examples of campaigns that failed to connect with voters on an emotional level and failed to fight back when their opponents successfully used emotional arguments against them (he cites the swift boat veterans and the Willie Horton case as examples).
Reagan and Clinton are posited as excellent examples of politicians who understood the importance of appealing to emotion. They successfully drew up a narrative based on emotions (in both cases, hope and expectation) and built an easy to relate to campaign around that. During debates, they drew voters in by starting answers with easy to relate to anecdotes and then moved on to policy detail.
The non emotional campaigners, however, bewildered the electorate with shopping lists of promises, as they were convinced that the ‘issues’ would be what elections are won on. They used statistics as a crutch for a lack of emotion, losing any kind of empathy with voters in the process. Pollsters and focus group ensured they stayed away from certain issues and let the opposition frame the debate. In every election where the candidate focused purely on the ‘issues’, the candidate lost the election.
This gives us a very good idea of why Gordon Brown, with his obsessive lists and lack of any kind of narrative has been such a political disaster for the Labour Party. It also illustrates why a Conservative Party that became too focused on dogma and not nearly focused enough on the real concerns of voters was left in the electoral wilderness for more than a decade.
It also shows us how we must continue to campaign for hearts AND minds. We need to focus on how we understand, empathise and relate to voters’ problems and how we are going to ensure that voters and their families are better off. We need to continue to remind voters that our concerns are their concerns.
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