It seems that a study conducted during the 2004 election designed to assist mentally ill voters in registration inadvertently revealed that people suffering various forms of psychosis were more inclined to vote for George Bush than his opponent.
edit Updated title.
Source story.
A collective "I told you so" will ripple through the world of Bush-bashers once news of Christopher Lohse’s study gets out.
Lohse, a social work master’s student at Southern Connecticut State University, says he has proven what many progressives have probably suspected for years: a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush.
Lohse says his study is no joke. The thesis draws on a survey of 69 psychiatric outpatients in three Connecticut locations during the 2004 presidential election. Lohse’s study, backed by SCSU Psychology professor Jaak Rakfeldt and statistician Misty Ginacola, found a correlation between the severity of a person’s psychosis and their preferences for president: The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush.
However, this tendency seems to stem from a need for stability, certainty, and reassurance above any other factors.
"Our study shows that psychotic patients prefer an authoritative leader," Lohse says. "If your world is very mixed up, there’s something very comforting about someone telling you, ‘This is how it’s going to be.’"
This makes complete sense to me. I personally have been near the brink of a nervous breakdown at an early age : stability and certainty were necessities in my life if I wanted to function properly. I know people that have attended AA and clung to the idea of an omnipotent big brother watching over them where there was no such desire before. I know people that have adopted rigid religious lifestyles in order to escape the chaos that is their daily grind.
Dem leaders should take note. Charisma certainly has it's place in this day and age, and in my personal experience obstanince almost always trumps logic, reason, and hard...cold...facts.
"Bush supporters had significantly less knowledge about current issues, government and politics than those who supported Kerry," the study says.
Lohse says the trend isn’t unique to Bush: A 1977 study by Frumkin & Ibrahim found psychiatric patients preferred Nixon over McGovern in the 1972 election.