The Political Brain: How People Vote and How to Change Their Minds: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation

The book is written by a Democrat party strategist and qualified experimental psychologist, who believes that style often wins over substance in political campaigns. The central claim of the book is that voters react more to emotional appeals and rousing speeches than they do to reason, logic and statistics. The author argues that even if a candidate is superior in logic and reason, he will still lose if he faces a charismatic opponent who knows how to work an audience and make powerful emotional appeals.

One useful feature of the book is how the author provides transcripts of US Presidential debates, and pin points the moment at which the debate "turned", usually as the result of a witty put down, or rousing response. He then suggests how this could have been counter attacked by the candidate, providing examples that are truly fiendish in their ability to have trounced the opponent had they been employed by the actual candidate. He also deconstructs famous TV commercials and party political broadcasts and shows the psychological and emotional persuasion that was being employed, often subliminally.

The author also describes how certain emotional appeals will be more effective in some demographic populations than others, and suggests how a candidate can often win in areas his party would not be expected to do well in by adopting a message that plays on the emotions and passions of the target voters, thus by passing their usual psychological defences against a party/candidate they may have a reflexive initial dislike of.

The book does have one or two weaknesses. Perhaps the biggest potential weakness for the UK reader is the fact the book deals solely with US politics, and there may be some issues that are either irrelevant and/or not of interests to British political strategists. This US bias also means that there are a few instances where he quotes events that the UK reader would not know the cultural and media background to, whereas this would be common knowledge to the US reader.

This book is a must read for political campaigners, whatever their political allegiance. It will be interesting to see if the tactics and philosophy in this book are employed during the 2008 Presidential election.

Why did George Bush's message resonate better than Al Gore's and John Kerry's, even when Bush was totally wrong on the facts? The Political Brain will make that clear to you.

Professor Drew Westen is a political psychologist at Emory University and draws on psychology to explain the way voters form decisions about candidates during campaigns. For those who favor the policy wonk approach that is so appealing in debates at the Kennedy School of Government on PBS, this book will be quite an unpleasant surprise. Positions on issues sway voters about 2 percent of the time.

What does work? According to the research cited by Professor Westen, it's pretty simple:

Voters usually ask four questions to pick a candidate to back:

1. How do I feel about the candidate's party and its principles? (The Democrats are in trouble here because their positions are usually portrayed without the context of timeless principles.)

2. How does this candidate make me feel? (How did Al Gore and John Kerry make you feel? Many people would have answered, "Bored.")

3. How do I feel about this candidate's personal characteristics, particularly his or her integrity, leadership, and compassion? (John Kerry's unwillingness to defend himself against Bush's unwarranted attacks made Kerry seem like a person with something to hide who wouldn't be a good leader.)

4. How do I feel about this candidate's stands on issues that matter to me? (Common sense answers built around every day stories work well. References to House and Senate bills don't.)

If you think this point of view is oversimplified, you should read the book. The research is quite impressive in supporting these conclusions.

Will any Democrat follow this advice? Probably not. Professor Westen describes how Democrats favor the same campaign advisors who always lose, rather than ones who give effective advice. Many Democrats are also afraid that they can't compete at this game with the Republicans. Others think you have to be sleazy, like some emotional campaigns are. Professor Westen shows that if we want to have a well-run company, it's unethical not to convey important information in ways that it can be understood and appreciated.

The most interesting parts of the book come where Professor Westen takes on the leading issues of past campaigns (abortion, gun control, race, estate taxes, compassion, character assassination, Iraq war, and gay rights) to show the effective things done (usually by Republicans) and how someone opposed to those positions could have made a better impression than by doing what was done. I'm not convinced that each of his scripts would work, but they are certainly thought provoking.

If you are a Democrat, give a copy of this book to those you know who are running for office. If you are a Republican, study how President Bush has been making mistakes since 2004 and pass along the message to those who are running.

As a side note, I think Professor Westen missed several reasons why past candidates have chosen to avoid using emotional appeals. Having watched many elected officials in Washington up close, I'm struck by how they go from being people who want to overcome wrongs into people who seem to want to belong to a club of well-dressed, wealthy statesmen. It would be embarrassing for such a gentleman or lady to appeal to ordinary people using ordinary methods of communication. I suspect the bottom line of this shift is that these politicians don't really care all that much for people outside of their own family, friends, and allies.

By comparison, I remember being at an event with my over 80 year-old father while Bill Clinton was president. Dad had just recovered from heart bypass surgery, which had been paid for by Medicare. You could tell Dad was recovering from something. Clinton plowed through quite a large crowd to shake Dad's hand, ask Dad if he was feeling all right, and then conversed about his experience with Medicare. Before leaving Dad, Clinton mentioned that one of his top priorities was protecting Medicare benefits for seniors. Now, that sounds like Clinton was campaigning. But he wasn't. He was just expressing his natural feelings towards an older man.

In one small section of the book, Professor Westen talks about the importance of picking the right candidates. I suspect that if both parties picked candidates who naturally wanted to serve others and deeply cared about everyone they met we would have better government and more effective campaigns.

This is one in a series of books I've read in recent years pointing out that Democrats are years behind Republicans in various campaign techniques. I hope that those who are running for office are reading these books. Otherwise, we'll have one-party government in the future. That's not good for anyone.

If you do buy this book, let me caution you that the copy I read had the pages misbound so that the pages from 297 through 320 follow page 272. Try to get a book that is bound in the correct order.