Why is this even news? Since when do you have to be a hunter or a member of the NRA or even like guns to be a Republican candidate? If you don't like guns, grow a set and admit it. Don't wuss out and pretend to for your campaign.
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could this be because american elections are decided more on 'image'/blind faith in one party (voting for the other 'other guys' would be like changing sporting teams!) than policy?
I think it has more to do with the fact that people who believe that dihydrogen monoxide should be banned, vote.
"I think it has more to do with the fact that people who believe that dihydrogen monoxide should be banned, vote"
... So if you pretend to be a gun-toting, 'real man', it'll do..
... um, what?
with, um,
water
Um, sorry, you lost me at the constitutional rights of aquaphobic's...
American political scene is full of irrational, unfounded beliefs, I don't think playing 'dress-ups' with guns will help.
Nice Sunni Kay. Very nice.
Murphy, there was a small tongue-in-cheek motion for the banning of dihydrogen monoxide because it's a dangerous substance. Inhaling it tends to be fatal, it's everywhere, we use it every day, so on and so forth.
Kay's saying that the problem in the case of Chris' article is that people who didn't get the joke, and honestly believe dihydrogen monoxide should be banned, vote.
"motion for the banning of dihydrogen monoxide because it's a dangerous substance"
Yeah, I've also read the FAQ re: 'water as an intoxicant'.
The dihydrogen monoxide joke campaign is something that Kay introduced as an example.
(after a private chuckle) I concluded that anyone snowed by a joke campaign, was no different to voters that bought into 'image'.
Chris hinted at the 'image cultivation' thing with Mitt Romney and guns - "Since when do you have to be a hunter or a member of the NRA or even like guns to be a Republican candidate?"
It seems that voter emotional connection with 'image' is the whole basis for decision of american elections, and lifelong political party preference.
Murph, you seem to be lumping all Americans together when you say It seems that voter emotional connection with 'image' is the whole basis for decision of american elections.
While some do vote by image, many don't. That's why Romney's being lambasted for this. The same with McCain. I mean, were your statement true I wouldn't be voting for Giuliani. His "image" is almost the exact opposite of mine.
"lumping all Americans together"
no, just enough to decide an election
(I'm not claiming to describe a whole population, merely wondering if it is more important than you might find under different political system)
"were your statement true I wouldn't be voting for Giuliani"
Well, YOU obviously SEE something in him, which is the important thing, if it were an image thing (ie. 2 people looking at the same candidate see different things in the same person. However, as blog with political awareness, I expect you and your readers, Chris, to be among those who actually bother to find out what they are voting for!)
My thoughts on the importance 'image' in DECIDING (the key word is deciding, not voting) US elections relates largely to voting being voluntary.
I don't think I can be bothered putting into words an idea that I may not be able to describe clearly enough for people to get, and may be wrong anyhow
I'll take this one Murph, since I know what you're getting at.
Chris, why do you hate the Democrats?
From our discussions here I know it's because you think they'd be bad for the US's defense, and yet according to the CIA, the Pentagon AND the FBI, the US's security status has actually gotten worse from the policies that the current administration has put through.
So your current option seems a little bogus for that particular issue, and yet you still feel they're stronger on it than the Dems. Why is that?
Have you gone through a proper analysis of the policies they've put forward? Have you looked at what each side has proposed, compared the pros and cons of each? Because from what I've read here at least (and Murph can agree or disagree at his leisure), most of what you say on the issue seems to be more rhetoric than reasoned argument.
Let's take the recent defense budget increase/pullout schedule thing as an example. You say that it's bad for the Dems to do this, it endangers the troops and so on and the Dems are playing with their lives.
Well that acknowledges that it's dangerous to keep them there as they are currently. They are underequipped for the task, they need more cash, yes?
So that means that Bush's strategies up until this point have really been to put them into jeopardy and he hasn't given them enough.
Then the whole issue could be turned on its head from the rhetoric you've been using - that, sure, Bush wants the soldiers to have better arms and so forth, but the Dems want him to give them and the soldiers a promise of some end; that the danger he's put them through so far will stop at some point.
See the image difference there? I didn't even go into a particularly deep argument about pros and cons, security and so forth; I just threw in one extra line of reasoning and suddenly we invert the entire picture.
And given that less than a sixth of the US population actually gets any real say in your elections (that's a less than in Venezuala by the way), how much do these perceptions need to be propagated to change the outcome of an election?
See, in Australia, elections tend to be very issue-based. People vote for parties based on problems - so if you ask them where they stand on an election you'll hear something like "I didn't like what the Liberal Party did here, here and here, so I might vote Labor this time". Ask an American and they'll say something like "Oh, I'm a Republican". That's a very scary thing, because there's no actual interaction with issues there. No cognition, just that "this side is good, that side is bad". This was especially highlighted when there was wide-spread testing of voter values compared to chosen party an election or two ago - and a lot of Republican voters wound up actually following the policy stances of the Democrats without realising it; and they were actually opposed to Republican policies. And when they were told, they got offended.
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