Political passion?

By Amy Frykholm

One theme emerging out of the 2008 presidential campaign is emotional versus intellectual politics. Obama supporters are frequently accused of being emotional, and therefore shallow, rather than intellectual, or deep, supporters of their candidate.

As far as I can tell, “emotional” support for a candidate means a) feeling moved by something a candidate says, does or represents and b) repeating slogans. “Intellectual” or “substantive” support means understanding the minute details of a candidate’s positions and plans on health care, foreign policy and the economy, and being able to debate these in self-righteous and condescending tones. If you can do the latter, congratulations. You can rest assured that your support for your candidate is substantive and not emotive. You don’t want to be caught like the recent voter in Texas saying, “It’s sort of like the difference between Coke and Pepsi. You prefer one or the other, but you don’t exactly know why.”

But I’m not a political junkie. I don’t actually want to spend hours learning about or rehearsing the details of various candidates’ positions. Sure I want to be an “informed” voter, but how informed do I have to be?

In local politics, I make decisions about various candidates based on—gasp—relationships. I sense from individual conversations in individual settings who I am going to support and why. I weigh how a candidate speaks to me, how he or she shakes my hand, what I know of her in the community, and whether or not I perceive that a person can truly listen to and care about my concerns. Interestingly, on the local level, I am not extremely concerned about an individual candidate’s positions as much as whether the person is, in my judgment, a reasoned, careful and respectful decision maker. We might disagree on the benefits of the motocross track or the presence in my town of the EPA, but I want confidence in the candidate’s capacity for listening, asking good questions, and then acting in a conscientious way.

The problem on the national level is that I have no way of knowing—personally, relationally, in that way I am most sure that I know something—if my candidate possesses these qualities. So I am thrown back on the push-pull of emotional and intellectual support, on whether I have the time and energy to deeply understand the issues or whether something tugs at my heart.

I worry that the intellectual-emotional dichotomy that our current political discourse is currently fashioning is misleading. We are being told that our feelings about a candidate don’t really matter, while politics rightly belongs to the policy wonks with their data and lap tops. In fact, in our democracy, the process belongs to us—to our emotions, our passions, our intellects and our instincts. None of these is perfect; none is wrong. But they are all we have.

Comments

[Alex Harne]

I could not agree with you more! Well said. I write a quasi humorous political blog you might get a kick out of...

http://www.colloquynow.blogspot.com/

[Tom M. - Minneapolis]

I think you have tapped into some of the problems of creating a emotion-intellect dichotomy. The truth is that both elements are needed in politics and public policy: intellect,data,information and analysis are the basis of good public policy, which our politicians are supposed to help lead us toward; emotion, rhetoric, vision are the tools that help collectively move us in a common direction, and create the legitimacy for the policy decisions that are made. Both are important for good public policy making, and either divorced from the other can be used evil purposes (many examples come to mind.).

It should be noted that the reason the intellectual - emotional dichotomy has been created is to serve political ends, i.e., to secure the nomination of Senator Clinton. However, as Douglas Brinkley notes, many of our most successful presidents have excelled at using the tools of rhetoric to create a vision, and an emotional connection that motivates people (e.g. FDR, Lincoln). Senator Obama appears to be amongst the most effective in recent generations in using these tools. It should be noted that Obama's policy prescriptions are largely similar to Sen. Clinton's and also have depth; and he benefits from having experts such as Andrew Goolsby (Economics) and Anthony Lake (Foreign Policy) aligned with his campaign. Sen. Obama also understands the importance of making the rhetorical - emotional connection with voters. However, political necessity for Senator Clinton requires that she finds a way to differentiate herself from Senator Obama, and highlight her expertise and experience. Consequently, her campaign is attempting to get voters to agree with the paradigm of the intellectual - emotional dichotomy, which in reality is a false choice.