Colin McEnroe Show: The Politics Of Personality, The Personality Of Politics
Does your personality type always designate your political choices?
There are lots of macro-theories about how elections work. For Republican Frank Luntz , it's all about language. Call it the death tax instead of the estate tax and you change how people feel about it. For liberal theorist George Lakoff, it's about "moral framing." He says conservatives respond to the equivalent of a strict parent and liberals to a more nurturing set of ideas. For others, it's all geography. In his book "The Great Divide," John Sperling argued that Democrats should be able to dominate and unify metro states while Republicans do the same in so-called retro states.
Most elections are actually a pretty complex interplay of personalities, history, luck and timing. A lot of things have to go right for one person to win. But personality -- that of the voter and that of the candidate -- is a big factor. Paul Tieger, our guest today, says its the biggest factor of all.
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EMAIL FROM PAT:
Today's show (Thursday0 was a winner. Your guest was interesting, amusing, smart (I intuited all that), and the show was great. Congrats!
EMAIL FROM KYLIE:
I can remember as a (liberal) child being told by adults that I'd "grow out of that way of thinking once I got a job." It still hasn't happened (growing out my liberalism, not growing up or getting a job), but I do have friends who have become a lot more fiscally conservative as their income has increased. On the other side, however, some of the most conservative people I knew in college and my early twenties are now some of the most liberal middle aged people I know. While I like to spout the statistics that say that liberals tend to be more educated, more this that and the other, I know enough people who have changed their political philosophies (or evolved them) as they've gotten older and their family/financial picture has changed, that I'm hesitant to say it's all based on personality. There's also an innate selfishness - what's best for ME - that is present in people's politics.
EMAIL FROM SARA:
I was wondering if today's guest (who is playing the part of Bill Curry) looked into or posed questions that would indicate how empathetic an individual is and, on a larger scale how empathetic a liberal or conservative is. Remember Bush's Compassionate Conservative which I always felt was a bit of an oxymoron. I am sure, however, that waterboarding and torture can be approached from a compassionate angle.
EMAIL FROM DANA:
I was first Myers Briggs tested years ago at college...INFP. Life long
liberal, financially, politically, socially. Probably a "Social
Democrat"
Yes, "educated" = graduate school...
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