Political affiliation is hereditary

[onefixedstar]

(Via Pharyngula.)

There's a discussion of an interesting little exercise on Anomalous Data today. A teacher in Bush Country read out Kerry's and Bush's positions on a variety of issues without telling his eleven-year-old students which candidate held which position. As they went along, the kids kept track of which position they favoured. At the end, they voted for their preferred candidate. Twenty-six of the thirty kids votes for Kerry, and then booed their results once they realized that they had voted for the "wrong" candidate.

I think I need to go find out if this type of experiment has been replicated more formally among adults (as it probably has been). I'm kind of curious now whether adults would also favour the Democrats if they paid attention to the issues instead of who they feel most comfortable listening to, or whether the kids' vote is a product of a social conscience instilled by early teachers and not yet rationalized away. (Please note, I am not suggesting that it is impossible to be a conservative or even a Republican and have a social conscience. I've known principled, compassionate conservatives--but they're not the ones running the show right now.) Now admittedly, issues aren't everything. You also have to consider whether you think the candidate will actually do what he says, and whether he'll be able to effectively implement his positions. But voting for someone you completely disagree with is rarely the way to get what you want...

Comments

[onefixedstar.livejournal.com]

I think the positions may have been quoted directly from the websites (which means they were still carefully spun, but not by the teacher). But if the best each party can do leads to that kind of split, then one wonders if people are actually listening to the words (although I could be wrong about what the teacher did). And of course, you're completely correct about issue highlighting : lots of people seem to be voting for Bush because they don't trust Kerry to fight the war, even though they disagree with Bush on everything domestic.