I wrote this then decided not to publish, then read Red State Blues and decided that maybe it's worth 2cents.
We frequently hear people asking variations of "How can anyone be supporting Bush?," and "Why hasn't Kerry attained a greater lead in the polls?" While there are many possible explanations (if one assumes that these are legitimate questions) here's my take as a clinical psychologist.
The anger and divisiveness resulting from the manner in which Bush "won" the 2000 election temporarily evaporated when the country united behind Bush following 911. Our Bush anger was transformed to Bin Laden anger and we sought retribution. Bush gave us a means of fulfilling that need by going after Al Queda in Afghanistan. Had Bush stayed on this task and clearly destroyed Bin Laden et al. the world and the election would be in a much different place today. But Bush did not keep his promise to exact our need for revenge and veered off onto a questionable course. The rest is history.
Bush supporters, the 10-20 percent that would not unquestioningly follow him into hell, have been confronted with a series of events and challenges to his leadership for the past two and one half years that may have begun to take a toll. For some time this group of supporters have been able to deny the reality of Bush's actions as well as the legitimacy of the negative evaluations coming from detractors. But denial and cognitive dissonance use a lot of mental and emotional energy and the more that must be denied the more energy that must be expended. A point is reached where fatigue sets in and we become anxious, depressed and angry. At first we blame those confronting us with dissonant information for how we are feeling, but if these inputs continue and increase, a point may be reached where our defenses break down and we have an "ah ha" emotional crisis. We suddenly realize why we are feeling the way we are and confront
reality. We become angry with the source of our original beliefs and also with ourselves for being so gullible.
This whole process can play out in minutes or take most of a lifetime depending upon all of the elements involved. The ratio and level of credibility of positive versus negative input is quite important and is a changing dynamic given the potential power of the internet as an alternative source of information. People now visit sites such as this one and may acquire a very different perspective than the one that is based upon Fox News or their hometown newspaper. They then share new and different information with others which may alter their views and increase dissonance. Kerry's enlarged and stabilizing lead in recent polls may, at least partially, be the result of the process I've described finally reaching it's conclusion for a growing number of people. If so, (barring surprises and Kerry not damaging himself) we can expect that more people will be experiencing their breaking point, alter their views, and dump their support of Bush. They will either give their support to Kerry or politically withdraw, the latter being the result of not liking Kerry or his message, being discouraged with "politics," or fearing being burnt again. This latter group is important to consider when extrapolating from polls to what will happen in November. My guess is that they are more likely to not participate in polling and consequently the universe of actual voters may be different than what we think it is since pollsters usually do not tell us how many people hang-up or refuse to answer their questions. Does their polling methodology account for the possibility of a fairly sudden shift from historical patterns in who will vote ? If it does, then my assessment doesn't have a bearing on expected outcome, but if not, then there may be some positive surprises for Kerry supporters.