Bush won West Virgina in 2000, and 2004 a state Democrats carried except for two exceptions, for every presidential election from 1960. For some reason there has been little examination of this. Too many people have just bought into the Republican talking point, that West Virginians have "just" become more conservative, ect.
But John B. Judis, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in How Political Psychology Explains Bush's Ghastly Success makes a fine point.
Some pundits have tried to explain away this mystery by arguing that Bush backers (in West Virginia) voted for their values rather than their interests. But this explanation is unsatisfying, since many of those voters didn't opt for "family values" in 1992 and 1996, when the country elected a well-known philanderer as president
As I said before West Virginia is a state Democrats have carried countless times. Understanding how the Bush/Rove machine worked there is essential since all four of our top candidates (Clinton, Obama, Edwards, and Richardson) should have a fighting chance to carry the state (especially Edwards) but would be subject to the same tactics Bush employed in 2004, in the upcoming 2008 elections.
In June 2004, I went door to door in a white, working- class neighborhood of Martinsburg, West Virginia, a small blue-collar town in decline. There, I found voters disillusioned with both the Iraq war and the flagging economy.
This situation is similar to what we should expect in 2008, but even more so. Now look at what Mr. Judis found later when he returned five months later, the Sunday before the election.
I had difficulty digging up anyone who didn't plan to vote for George W. Bush. As far as I could tell, Martinsburg voters were backing him for two reasons: first, because he opposed gay marriage and abortion ("There are two gays around the corner who are voting for Kerry," one fellow, with a Bush sign in his yard, advised me scornfully from his stoop); and, second, because he was leading the war on terrorism ("I feel more safe with Bush in there," an elderly disabled man explained). There was still grumbling over the war, the economy, and other topics--the same elderly man who praised Bush for making him feel safe also bemoaned America's lack of universal health insurance--but these issues were eclipsed by the threat of gay weddings and terrorist attacks.
Bush carried West Virginia and won the election partly because he ran a better campaign than John Kerry. But that wasn't the only reason. There was something odd about the support for Bush in places like West Virginia. Unlike voters in New York City, voters in Martinsburg had little to fear from terrorist attacks; yet they backed Bush, while New Yorkers voted for Kerry. If gay marriage were legalized, Martinsburg would be unlikely to host massive numbers of same-sex weddings; yet voters I talked to were haunted by the specter of gay marriage.
So let me make a larger point. New York State, Pennsylvania, and Washington DC, the states (or districts) that suffered terrorist attacks on Sept. 11th, and most likely to be future targets, states (or districts) that had large Gay communities that would seek to marry voted for Kerry. While on th eother hand, states like West Virginia that would most likely score low on both list voted for Bush. Pennsylvania in particular is a state the GOP felt competitive in. Notice anything funny there?
In fact, many political scientists can't begin to explain what took place in West Virginia in 2004. In recent years, the field has become dominated by rational choice theorists, who have tried to develop complex mathematical equations to predict voting behavior. These equations rest on a view of voters as calculating consumers choosing a product on the basis of relative cost and utility--a view that generally leaves little room for the possibility of voters acting irrationally.
When political scientist can't explain something, pundits and reporters are at an even greater loss. So the TV talking heads, and editorial windbags fall back on familar frames (WV voters voted their conservative values). Enter Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski three members of the relatively new field of Political Psychology . (By the way a general introduction to this field can be found in Drew Westen's recent book, The Political Brain) The three men are professors at Skidmore College, the University of Arizona, and the University of Colorado, respectively.
In the early 1980s, they developed what they clumsily called "terror management theory." Their idea was not about how to clear the subways in the event of an attack, but about how people cope with the terrifying and potentially paralyzing realization that, as human beings, we are destined to die. Their experiments showed that the mere thought of one's mortality can trigger a range of emotions--from disdain for other races, religions, and nations, to a preference for charismatic over pragmatic leaders, to a heightened attraction to traditional mores. Initially, the three scholars didn't attempt to apply their theory to elections. But, after September 11, they conducted experiments designed to do exactly that. What they found sheds new light on the role that fear of death plays in contemporary politics--and, arguably, goes a long way toward unraveling the mystery of Martinsburg.
Over the next decade, the three performed similar experiments to illustrate how awareness of death could provoke worldview defense. What did Professors Solomon, Greenberg, Pyszczynski experiments find?
They showed that what they now called "mortality salience" affected people's view of other races, religions, and nations. When they had students at a Christian college evaluate essays by what they were told were a Christian and a Jewish author, the group that did the mortality exercises expressed a far more negative view of the essay by the Jew- ish author than the control group did. (German psychologists would find a similar reaction among German subjects toward Turks.) They also conducted numerous experiments to show that mortality exercises evoked patriotic responses. The subjects who did the exercises took a far more negative view of an essay critical of the United States than the control group did and also expressed greater veneration for cultural icons like the flag. The three even devised an experiment to show that, after doing the mortality exercises, conservatives took a much harsher view of liberals, and vice versa.
In conducting these experiments, they took care not to tell the subjects what they were doing. They also devised experiments to answer obvious objections to their theory. For instance, they substituted other exercises designed to increase anxiety--by reminding subjects of an upcoming examination or a painful dental visit--to determine if these thoughts had the same effect as the mortality exercises, but they didn't. It wasn't anxiety per se that triggered worldview defense; it was anxiety specifically about one's own death.
So what kind of expereiment did they run? Any theory can sound great but how does it work in the real world and not the abstract? How does it apply to real world examples and events.
In October 2003, the three scholars, together with five colleagues, assembled 97 undergraduates at Rutgers to participate in what the students thought was a study of the relationship between personality and politics. One group was given the mortality exercises. The other wasn't. They then read an essay expressing a "highly favorable opinion of the measures taken by President Bush with regards to 9/11 and the Iraqi conflict." It read, in part:
Personally I endorse the actions of President Bush and the members of his administration who have taken bold action in Iraq. I appreciate our President's wisdom regarding the need to remove Saddam Hussein from power and his Homeland Security Policy is a source of great comfort to me. ... We need to stand behind our President and not be distracted by citizens who are less than patriotic. Ever since the attack on our country on September 11, 2001, Mr. Bush has been a source of strength and inspiration to us all.
This was not the kind of statement that would appeal to most Rutgers undergraduates, and indeed, on average, members of the control group rated it unfavorably. But those who did the mortality exercises on balance favored the statement.
One final point that I think best illustrates how powerful "World View Defense" is the following.
In their experiments, Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski make a good case that mortality reminders from September 11 enhanced Bush's popularity through November 2004. But, on the basis of their research, it is possible to draw even broader conclusions about U.S. politics after September 11. Mortality reminders not only enhanced the appeal of Bush's political style but also deepened and broadened the appeal of the conservative social positions that Republicans had been running on.
For instance, because worldview defense increases hostility toward other races, religions, nations, and political systems, it helps explain the rage toward France and Germany that erupted prior to the Iraq war, as well as the recent spike in hostility toward illegal immigrants. Also central to worldview defense is the protection of tradition against social experimentation, of community values against individual prerogatives--as was evident in the Tucson experiment with the judges--and of religious dictates against secular norms. For many conservatives, this means opposition to abortion and gay marriage. This may well explain why family values became more salient in 2004--a year in which voters were supposed to be unusually focused on foreign policy--than it had been from 1992 through 2000. Indeed, from 2001 to 2004, polls show an increase in opposition to abortion and gay marriage, along with a growing religiosity. According to Gallup, the percentage of voters who believed abortion should be "illegal in all circumstances" rose from 17 percent in 2000 to 20 percent in 2002 and would still be at 19 percent in 2004. Even church attendance by atheists, according to one poll, increased from 3 to 10 percent from August to November 2001.
Getting back to my opening point about how Bush won West Virginia, it was the use of psycology and fear more then an appeal to "common conservative values" that made many voters there associate themselves more with Bush's authoritarian world view. This article provides a powerful road map to how this was done.
In a very real sense places like West Virginia didn't "just" become more conservative, using psycology they were literally "pushed" that way. If people can be pushed one way, they can be "pulled" back our way.
This is a very long article but I would encourage everyone As I said before West Virginia is a state Democrats have carried countless times. Understanding how the Bush/Rove machine worked there is essential since all four of our top candidates (Clinton, Obama, Edwards, and Richardson) should have a fighting chance to carry the state (especially Edwards) but would be subject to the same tactics Bush employed in 2004, in the upcoming 2008 elections.
In June 2004, I went door to door in a white, working- class neighborhood of Martinsburg, West Virginia, a small blue-collar town in decline. There, I found voters disillusioned with both the Iraq war and the flagging economy.
This situation is similar to what we should expect in 2008, but even more so. Now look at what Mr. Judis found later when he returned five months later, the Sunday before the election.
I had difficulty digging up anyone who didn't plan to vote for George W. Bush. As far as I could tell, Martinsburg voters were backing him for two reasons: first, because he opposed gay marriage and abortion ("There are two gays around the corner who are voting for Kerry," one fellow, with a Bush sign in his yard, advised me scornfully from his stoop); and, second, because he was leading the war on terrorism ("I feel more safe with Bush in there," an elderly disabled man explained). There was still grumbling over the war, the economy, and other topics--the same elderly man who praised Bush for making him feel safe also bemoaned America's lack of universal health insurance--but these issues were eclipsed by the threat of gay weddings and terrorist attacks.
Bush carried West Virginia and won the election partly because he ran a better campaign than John Kerry. But that wasn't the only reason. There was something odd about the support for Bush in places like West Virginia. Unlike voters in New York City, voters in Martinsburg had little to fear from terrorist attacks; yet they backed Bush, while New Yorkers voted for Kerry. If gay marriage were legalized, Martinsburg would be unlikely to host massive numbers of same-sex weddings; yet voters I talked to were haunted by the specter of gay marriage.
So let me make a larger point. New York State, Pennsylvania, and Washington DC, the states (or districts) that suffered terrorist attacks on Sept. 11th, and most likely to be future targets. States (or districts) that had large Gay communities that would seek to marry voted for Kerry, while states like West Virginia that would most likely score low on both list voted for Bush. Pennsylvnia in particular is a state the GOP felt competitive in. Notice anything funny there?
In fact, many political scientists can't begin to explain what took place in West Virginia in 2004. In recent years, the field has become dominated by rational choice theorists, who have tried to develop complex mathematical equations to predict voting behavior. These equations rest on a view of voters as calculating consumers choosing a product on the basis of relative cost and utility--a view that generally leaves little room for the possibility of voters acting irrationally.
When political scientist can't explain something, pundits and reporters are at an even greater loss. So the TV talking heads, and editorial windbags fall back on familar frames (WV voters voted their conservative values). Enter Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski three members of the relatively new field of Political Psychology . (By the way a general introduction to this field can be found in Drew Westen's recent book, The Political Brain) The three men are professors at Skidmore College, the University of Arizona, and the University of Colorado, respectively.
In the early 1980s, they developed what they clumsily called "terror management theory." Their idea was not about how to clear the subways in the event of an attack, but about how people cope with the terrifying and potentially paralyzing realization that, as human beings, we are destined to die. Their experiments showed that the mere thought of one's mortality can trigger a range of emotions--from disdain for other races, religions, and nations, to a preference for charismatic over pragmatic leaders, to a heightened attraction to traditional mores. Initially, the three scholars didn't attempt to apply their theory to elections. But, after September 11, they conducted experiments designed to do exactly that. What they found sheds new light on the role that fear of death plays in contemporary politics--and, arguably, goes a long way toward unraveling the mystery of Martinsburg.
Over the next decade, the three performed similar experiments to illustrate how awareness of death could provoke worldview defense. What did Professors Solomon, Greenberg, Pyszczynski experiments find?
They showed that what they now called "mortality salience" affected people's view of other races, religions, and nations. When they had students at a Christian college evaluate essays by what they were told were a Christian and a Jewish author, the group that did the mortality exercises expressed a far more negative view of the essay by the Jew- ish author than the control group did. (German psychologists would find a similar reaction among German subjects toward Turks.) They also conducted numerous experiments to show that mortality exercises evoked patriotic responses. The subjects who did the exercises took a far more negative view of an essay critical of the United States than the control group did and also expressed greater veneration for cultural icons like the flag. The three even devised an experiment to show that, after doing the mortality exercises, conservatives took a much harsher view of liberals, and vice versa.
In conducting these experiments, they took care not to tell the subjects what they were doing. They also devised experiments to answer obvious objections to their theory. For instance, they substituted other exercises designed to increase anxiety--by reminding subjects of an upcoming examination or a painful dental visit--to determine if these thoughts had the same effect as the mortality exercises, but they didn't. It wasn't anxiety per se that triggered worldview defense; it was anxiety specifically about one's own death.
So what kind of expereiment did they run? Any theory can sound great but how does it work in the real world and not the abstract? How does it apply to real world examples and events.
In October 2003, the three scholars, together with five colleagues, assembled 97 undergraduates at Rutgers to participate in what the students thought was a study of the relationship between personality and politics. One group was given the mortality exercises. The other wasn't. They then read an essay expressing a "highly favorable opinion of the measures taken by President Bush with regards to 9/11 and the Iraqi conflict." It read, in part:
Personally I endorse the actions of President Bush and the members of his administration who have taken bold action in Iraq. I appreciate our President's wisdom regarding the need to remove Saddam Hussein from power and his Homeland Security Policy is a source of great comfort to me. ... We need to stand behind our President and not be distracted by citizens who are less than patriotic. Ever since the attack on our country on September 11, 2001, Mr. Bush has been a source of strength and inspiration to us all.
This was not the kind of statement that would appeal to most Rutgers undergraduates, and indeed, on average, members of the control group rated it unfavorably. But those who did the mortality exercises on balance favored the statement.
One final point that I think best illustrates how powerful "World View Defense" is the following.
In their experiments, Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski make a good case that mortality reminders from September 11 enhanced Bush's popularity through November 2004. But, on the basis of their research, it is possible to draw even broader conclusions about U.S. politics after September 11. Mortality reminders not only enhanced the appeal of Bush's political style but also deepened and broadened the appeal of the conservative social positions that Republicans had been running on.
For instance, because worldview defense increases hostility toward other races, religions, nations, and political systems, it helps explain the rage toward France and Germany that erupted prior to the Iraq war, as well as the recent spike in hostility toward illegal immigrants. Also central to worldview defense is the protection of tradition against social experimentation, of community values against individual prerogatives--as was evident in the Tucson experiment with the judges--and of religious dictates against secular norms. For many conservatives, this means opposition to abortion and gay marriage. This may well explain why family values became more salient in 2004--a year in which voters were supposed to be unusually focused on foreign policy--than it had been from 1992 through 2000. Indeed, from 2001 to 2004, polls show an increase in opposition to abortion and gay marriage, along with a growing religiosity. According to Gallup, the percentage of voters who believed abortion should be "illegal in all circumstances" rose from 17 percent in 2000 to 20 percent in 2002 and would still be at 19 percent in 2004. Even church attendance by atheists, according to one poll, increased from 3 to 10 percent from August to November 2001.
Getting back to my opening point about how Bush won West Virginia, it was the use of psycology and fear more then an appeal to "common conservative values" that made many voters there associate themselves more with Bush's authoritarian world view. This article provides a powerful road map to how this was done.
In a very real sense places like West Virginia didn't "just" become more conservative, using psycology they were literally "pushed" that way. If people can be pushed one way, they can be "pulled" back our way.
This is a very long article but I would encourage everyone to read it. Understanding your opponents tactics is the first step in devising ways to stop it!
Cross posted at West Virginia Blue