Voting by Gut

David Brooks (one of the NYTimes op-ed columnists) has an interesting piece this morning on "How Voters Think".

I bother to mention it because, since I sent out the update on our new website, several Rice friends that I haven't seen or spoken to in a long time have called me back up, and I've been fairly nostalgic the last week or two.

One memory I was cuddling up with yesterday was Doc C's class on Myth/Power/Value. I can't help but think that trying to codify and understand these concepts (which was getting more and more out of fashion in PoliSci while I was at Rice) is one way (a really good way, I bet) to help deal with the over-rationalization that comes with game theoretic (or even just issue analysis) models of the rational voter. Ultimately I'm not as pessimistic as Mr. Brooks about rationality (though the new research that comes out about how we make "rational" decisions is pretty disturbing to my view on this) but when he writes:

It is no accident that the major candidates in the Republican field are a pastor, a businessman and a war hero. These are the three most evocative Republican leadership models. Nor is it an accident that the Democratic race is a clash between a daughter of the feminist movement, a beneficiary of the civil rights movement and a self-styled proletarian. These are powerful Democratic categories.

I hear echoes of Doc C. The idea that voters just make emotional snap judgments isn't the only explanation of the above; MPV is too.

I shouldn't write blog entries at 7:15 in the morning. They're too serious.