Empathy, Not Ideology, Drove Voter Preference this Election Cycle

Radical Swings in Votes for the Party Out of Power Indicate that "Empathy" -- Not Ideology -- Is the Driver of Voter Preference.

Since 1994, voters have been radically switching power from the "ins" to the "outs" in Congress -- empowering first Gingrich Republicans and, later, Pelosi Democrats. In 2008, voters took power from a Southern white Republican adminstration and handed it to an African American President who campaigned as a progressive Democrat.

Each time power has shifted, the Parties have become more polarized and the elected officials have been convinced that they have a mandate to carry out the ideological agenda they articulated on the campaign trail. However, a recent Rassmussen poll -- which says that voters already know they won't be satisfied with what a GOP House will deliver -- gives rise to an alternative theory. See poll.

Voters are not suddently adopting the ideological message of the Party out of power; nor are they necessarily rejecting the ideologocial message of the Party in power. Voters are not expressing their "love" for divided government, either. Rather, voters are voting for the Party out of power as a way of protesting against what they perceive as the arrogance of power -- the fact that the elected officials seem more interested in wonkish policy battles and insider minutiae of who's up and who's than they are in the well-being of the voters who elected them.

Voters don't understand -- much less support or reject -- the health care reforms enacted by Congress this year. That is why polls show strong support for the elements of the health care reform package enacted by Congress, but ambivalence about the bill itself. Similarly, voters don't understand the vital benefits they derive on a daily basis from an auto industry bailout or Wall Street reform. While some young people understand that they are greatly benefitted by the largest expansion of Pell Grants (college education grants) in U.S. history and some consumers understand that credit card reform will give them greater access to affordable credit, most voters don't even know these vitally important changes in the law affecting their everyday lives were enacted.

Voters are saying, "You don't care about me and the things that affect my everyday life," and voting the "bums" who (they perceive) don't care for them out. This is an object lesson for President Obama and Majority Leader Reid: show that you care about voters' real life concerns; repeat daily (and to the exclusion of wonkish details) how whatever battle you are waging today impacts voters' lives and makes them better; explain how whatever policy initiative you are pursuing ties into making a family's ends meet or helping an out-of-work voter keep his home. In other words, show empathy. After all, if my elected officials care about me and want to make my life better, I'm much more likely to vote to keep them in their jobs than if they show me that they are true to the ideologial principles that they espoused on the campaign trail.