Rockstar Emory University Psychology Professor Drew Westen has posited sweet salvation for Democratic candidates in the 2008 presidential race with his recent book, “The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation”. Westen argues up a tree that it makes no sense to debate an issue using facts and figures and to count on voters – particularly swing voters – to make choices based on higher faculty understandings of policy minutia. Democrats need to follow the Republicans lead and learn to appeal to emotions. I say, the Republican strategy should be to continue allowing Democratic think-tankers to have enough rope to hang themselves (this book being the rope), become wholly convinced of Republican lack of intelligencia, and then insult them with emotional appeals. Nothing says emotion like selling welfare policies to and underclass as a false hope that is really a statistical death spiral. It’s not that Republicans don’t get facts and figures; it’s just that they are smart enough to know when someone is teasing out the stats to get the answer they want when the stats can be read either way. Pollster Frank Luntz, a GOP brain-yak, said he was looking forward to the book because “it’s based on science.” That’s a miracle breakthrough! Science has proven the need for emotional appeals.

Westen wants Dems to throw down the emotional gauntlet. John Kerry should have brought the white hot lead on the Swift-boat Truth Bringers, Al Gore should have not bored us to near dementia with lockboxes and Medicare talk and Michael Dukakis should have not denounced the death penalty even in the aftermath of his wife’s rape and murder. This, says Westen, displays Dems at their worst: intellectual dispassion. How do you get passion when you frequently let Gallop polls play hackey sack with your convictions?

Westen points out that “Positive and negative emotions are not the flip side of each other, they are neurologically distinct, and that means you’ve got to control four things: positive feelings toward your candidate, negative feelings toward your candidate, positive feelings toward your opponent and negative feelings toward your opponent.” So, in essence, you must win at Political Four Square or be square. Of course, if you can control the positives toward your candidate and negatives toward your opponent, why would you need to worry about the other two? Don’t they take care of themselves?

After reading rave reviews, I can’t help thinking this is more of the same: experts who are experts at re-affirming their own opinion with the serious inquiry provided by like-minded individuals (something Townhall bloggers will never do…alright, alright, lighten up). Seriously though, this is like James Carville training Gilbert Gottfried on how to not be annoying as hell!

While we all voted in 2004, Westen and his Emory colleagues did brain scans and found that partisans of either side, when presented with contradictory information, did a little intellectual tap dance and eventually resolved the matter in their candidates favor, employing the part of their brain that handles emotion, not the reason side. What this finding neglects is that you can only make resonating emotional appeals to emotions that resonate. The only things that resonate are the things voters are pre-disposed to believe, i.e., the things they were raised on. Middle American workers raised on self-reliance will never buy into Robin Hood "take-from--rich--give-to-poor" social policies.

Westen encourages Dems not to take the high road in the face of frontal assaults like the Swift Boat harpooning John Kerry endured in 2004, saying that “when you refuse to dignify and attack, it gives the other side exclusive rights to the network of associations that constitute public opinion and particular feelings.” Is it really taking the high road to stay mum when you know anything you say is going to come off as contrived and defensive? Wouldn’t that be called judicious? But on the flip side, we’ll see how Republican Presidential Candidate Rudy Giuliani handles the New York Fire Department assaults on his 9-11 conduct.

Is the American electorate really this emotion driven? Are Democrats the real intellectual linemen on the political gridiron? Do Americans really vote feelings over facts as a whole? Is it possible, as David Brooks points out, that “substance has something to do with the political fortunes of parties?” (The Democratic wins in the 20^th century came over Civil Rights and the New Deal. Republican wins in the waning years of the century came due to the right policy platforms for economic growth and the cold war).

If Democrats should take the “have a heart” emotional approach, Westen suggests hitting “wedge issues” like abortion head-on. Even if freak-onomists like the two Steve’s (Dubner and Levitt of “Freakonomics” fame) can show how crime reduction in the early 90’s was related to an escalation in abortion rates in the 70’s and early 80’s, that argument doesn’t wash well with those simpletons holding doggedly to traditional family values. Is it time for more pro-choice Dems to throw in the towel and divorce the economists in order to woo Middle America back to their bosom? Only time will tell and with a campaign trail that was being cut over two years out, we have plenty of that. In the meantime, one Emory University Rockstar Philosopher would like to say, vote with your heart’s emotion and do it for the children. 
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