The Huckster's Ad

I've been meaning to comment on the ad below for a few days now. It seems like it could be an part of the kitchen-counter political talk between family and friends over the Christmas holiday amongst potential voters in Iowa and NH. What do you think of it? Is it a blatant appeal to religion for political gain? Or is it a complete overreaction to be upset about it? And so forth.

I first heard about the ad myself from friends talking politics. The comments were negative. And my first reaction was negative. But that was before I saw the ad.

In voters' voting decisions, there are two interesting dichotomies; first between reason and emotion, and second between first and second reactions to events.

Emotion obviously plays a large role in voting decisions. It first of all determines who we won't consider voting for. If we are mad at a certain politician, or disgusted, or just don't like them, usually that means we won't vote at all before we'd vote for that person. That's why "negatives" are so important, because they mean lost votes. I've talked about this before.

But secondly, it determines who we do vote for. This is trickier. It's what campaigning is all about, viz. getting the votes of people who vote on emotion rather than reason. If you're voting based on policy positions, then your vote is relatively straightforward. But if you are "assessing the candidate as a whole" or thinking about electability or likability or some other nebulous concept, or just plain not thinking much of anything at all (a much more likely scenario) then the campaigns have an opening to reach you with propaganda.

There are many considerations, though, and voting can be a complicated decision. Almost never do we blindly vote for the candidate who is closest to us on the issues, either because we don't have hardly any opinions on any issues, or because strategy and options matter. Triangulation is the tactic campaigns use to win the votes of rational voters. Symbolism is what campaigns use to win the voters of emotional voters.

The second dichotomy is that of first and second reactions to events. When I first heard about the commercial my reaction was decidedly negative. Then I actually saw the commercial, and my reaction was tempered somewhat. Then I read all the denunciations of it, and thought they went too far.

A similar experience happened to me watching the national conventions three years ago. I liked Kerry's while watching it and couldn't stand Bush's. But the next morning for each my impression changed; Bush's was more memorable and more powerful.

With all this in mind, let's turn to the ad.

I think in the case of the Huckabee ad, it might be the case that it is a negative for the campaign. I don't think it was an advisable stratagem. Huckabee should deemphasize religion, as I've said before, and his campaign realizes this. So perhaps it really was inadvertent. Stranger things have happened. But in the end I don't think it will hurt Huckabee. That's because of the "religion gap" between the parties and the fact that Republican primary voters are just the constituency which would have a backlash against the negative coverage of the ad.

For instance, Peggy Noonan's WSJ column. Noonan writes:

Mr. Huckabee is clever. He puts forth his policies, such as they are, based on a faith-based understanding of public policy, and if you disagree with his policies, or take a hard shot at them, or at him, he suggests the reason is that you look down on evangelicals. This creates a new fissure in a party already riven by fissures. He has been accused by some in the conservative press of tearing the party apart, but it was being torn apart before he got on the scene. His rise is not a cause of collapse but an expression of it.

Prayer is powerful. But Huckabee's critics say he's a manipulator with a mean streak and little knowledge of the world.

Noonan is careful to put her harshest words in the form of paraphrases of unnamed critics. But for the charge she makes her own, she gives not a single example to prove that Huckabee has ever suggested that people who disagree with him look down at evangelicals. Now perhaps he has said something to this effect, then Noonan is right. But if not it seems over the top.

Huckabee is preaching to the choir with all this religion stuff, to be sure. But that choir is powerful in Republican primary politics. And it is an emotional angle that is played. Noonan assumes that a straight line can be drawn between religious belief and public policy positions. But it can't in the case of Huckabee or anyone else. Religion is not a item on the rational side of the campaign ledger. Which means it is difficult to attack--you don't do yourself any good attacking it, at least directly. The indirect attack is always more suited for the areas in which you might make the victim of the attack look sympathetic. A direct attack like Noonan's, on something which at least could be coincidental, only makes Huckabee more appealing to the constituency which he's aiming at anyway.