Brain researcher/author: Hearts over minds: Democrats must connect with EMOTIONS to win

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: Hearts over minds, he tells Democrats
A brain researcher says the party needs to connect with voters' emotions to win.
By Robin Abcarian, Times Staff Writer
July 9, 2007

WASHINGTON — Drew Westen, a genial 48-year-old psychologist and brain researcher, was talking to a rapt liberal audience about the role of emotion in politics, how to talk back aggressively to Republicans, and why going negative is not to be feared.

It was Day 2 of the progressive "Take Back America" confab, and those who had crowded into a meeting room of the Washington Hilton were about to discover why Westen, a psychology professor at Atlanta's Emory University and former associate professor at Harvard Medical School, had quietly become the great rumpled hope of Democrats who believe their candidates should have won the last two presidential elections....In his new book, "The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation," Westen, who is not affiliated with a particular candidate, lays out his argument that Democrats must connect emotionally with the American electorate — and that he can teach them how.

He writes that when Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts let a Swift-boat veterans group drag his reputation through the mud (2004), when Al Gore put a nation to sleep with his talk of lockboxes and Medicare actuaries (2000), and when Michael S. Dukakis said he didn't believe in the death penalty even in the event of his wife's rape and murder (1988), Democrats were exhibiting their single worst tendency: intellectual dispassion....

***

Westen writes that it doesn't make sense to argue an issue using facts and figures and to count on voters — particularly the swing voters who decide national elections — to make choices based on sophisticated understandings of policy differences or procedures....

***

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean blurbed the book. Billionaire George Soros opened his home for a book party last month....

***

...Westen said Democrats had been so flummoxed by so-called wedge issues — abortion, gun control, gay marriage and immigration — that they finesse them to the point of seeming unprincipled...."You can't take things off the table, which is a standard Democratic practice," said Westen. "I mean, if your opponent is running on the relentless war on terror, scaring people, and you want to run on prescription drugs, those drugs better be Valium, because otherwise you are going to lose."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-guru9jul09,0,868439.story?track=mostviewed-storylevel

[More Than A Feeling]

1. He isn't the only one.

Steven Duncombe wrote a book called Dream, arguing that the left needs to use the techniques of pop culture in the service of progressive ideals, in order to connect with people emotionally.

[trashcanistanista]

2. I agree.

I have been trying to persuade people of other political persuasions for years. They do not respond to intelligence and ideas when it comes to politics. I suspect becausse they don't know what's going on and are afraid of appearing stupid. They move to the comfort zone of emotions, the bible and hate speak to rationalize their opinions. Many have no concept of critical thinking.

[Perry Logan]

3. Liberals can be squeamish about emotions

I do video clips and a web page that are pretty strongly emotional in their approach. I've been doing this precisely in an effort to remedy our tendency to be too intellectual. After all, why should the Right get to be the only ones who shout and get silly and have fun?

And yet I believe this very emotionality is disturbing to many liberals. A frequent criticism of my act is that it is emotional. I am told again and again that I shouldn't be emotional, or else I'll make liberals appear to be emotional! What's a guy to do?

[NJCher]

4. willing to share the link?

Cher

[ruggerson]

5. Hey, DMM, I like this guy

he's making similar points to what I was saying here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3363589