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I Love Politics
So I'm talking to my wonderful son Bruce last night and politics came up. I know he was an Obama supporter, so I thought it would be interesting to see what he thought about Obama's progress so far. I suggested he take the 23 promises Obama made and watch them to see how much was actually accomplished. (As I understand it, the 23 items have been removed from the web site)
He had an interesting response. Something along the lines of "Politicians never do all of that stuff they promise anyway, so it doesn't matter."
This caused my brain gears to freeze up a bit. If you don't vote for a politician based on his promised positions and policies, why would you vote for him?
"Obama is really more of a spirit thing. It's the spirit of the campaign that matters," my son said.
The conversation went downhill from there, but it reminded me of why I love politics so much.
It shows how everybody is stupid.
If you study sales, you end up running across the idea that people buy on emotion and then rationalize their choice using logic. But if you ask those same people, they'll tell you they used logic to make their decision. It's like an optical illusion. I guess you would call it a cognitive illusion.
As it turns out, the human mind is infinitely flexible and capable of rearranging facts to fit whatever it wants to do.
Later that night, I was speaking to my dear mother, a Clinton supporter who ended up voting for Obama.
"I think the reason McCain chose that little Palin girl...." she began
"You mean governor Palin?" I asked.
"Yes. Palin. Was because he wanted a lot of women votes, but it didn't work out that way for him," she finished.
Now this was the same woman who told me several months ago, "Hillary might not have a lot of experience, but I would just like to see a woman who is president or vice president in my lifetime"
One month she was wanting a woman to be president or vice president even if she weren't qualified, the next month she was disparaging a woman who could have filled those offices for lack of qualifications.
Republicans were just as bad. Two weeks before Palin was selected, they were all talking about how much experience is important. After Palin was selected, suddenly they were talking about how little experience mattered!
In sales, as a buyer you rarely are forced to see this craziness in the harsh light of day. The marketer and salesman uses emotions to make the sale, you feel happy, and you go your way. It's not like once you buy a car one day you're sold on a completely different car the next day.
In politics, however, the sales and marketing push is all about the political party, not the theory. So when people change their policies, you're stuck defending the opposite thing from what you were defending last week. And the funny part -- most folks don't realize how crazy that makes them look.
People operate on emotions. Even if they don't believe it.
We all do this. And it's always obvious to see in somebody else and impossible to see in yourself.
If you want to learn how humans really make decisions, watch how they talk about politics.
I love politics.
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